Singing in the Rain - Tokyo Style

I packed a single carryon suitcase for my 12-day trip around the world. The same suitcase I pack for a weekend trip to Dallas. The same suitcase I fill up for my weekend trip to Dallas. With as many places as I’m going I didn’t want to haul around a giant piece of luggage or spend time waiting at baggage claim. I made a packing list – some yoga pants, jean shorts, 1 maxi dress, white/black tank, bathing suit, tennis shoes, sandals. The only thing I brought to cover the entire trip was underwear; I’ll wear the same pants for days, but underwear? Absolutely not. I made the decision early on that this trip was not going to be about vanity; no I was going to have to let that go. For a girl who works in fashion and loves dressing up this was a hard choice. But this isn’t about what I’m wearing or how I look, this is about letting go, getting absorbed into another culture, getting lost in a different way of life in hopes I may learn something new about myself along the way. Besides, at 5’9 with blonde hair, there’s no chance of me blending in anyway.

Dinner

Upon landing in Japan we learned it was their rainy season. I love the rain. As a small child my father wasn’t around and my mother always tried to make mundane things more fun for me. Every time it rained she would raise the garage door and we would have a picnic for dinner. When it was too cold out we moved the picnic to her king sized bed. It was always such an adventure. As my mother and I wove in and out of the streets of Tokyo in the pouring rain, stepping in puddles, laughing at our chia pet style hair I couldn’t help but think about my memories of the rain and the overwhelming sense of peace and happiness it still provides me to this day. 

Cool Street Art

Google maps doesn’t translate Japanese characters so the directions go something like this, “walk 20 meters, cross the street, walk 30 meters, cross the street”, so when we found the place I wanted to go for breakfast I felt a massive sense of accomplishment for having understood the pac man style directions. Breakfast was an acai bowl and a breakfast burrito at a restaurant that was voted best breakfast in Hawaii for 2 years and the same holds true for their Tokyo location. It was delicious and packed with locals. Too bad we never saw a sign that said, “cash only” and they didn’t care much for our US dollars or Thai baht. So I left my mom sitting in the restaurant as I struck out in search of a bank – a word Google maps did not recognize. As I walked my clothes became drenched, my tennis shoes felt like tiny boats, but I carried my umbrella with the rest of the Japanese, smiling at as many of them as I could – they love to smile, it’s infectious. Eventually I came upon a bank – with an incredibly long line and an ATM that didn’t work. So off I went again, eventually finding another ATM – where neither of my cards worked. Increasingly frustrated as the rain poured harder, I took a deep breath and told myself “you will find a place, it will be okay.” As I walked outside and turned right there was a currency exchange. I told the man he was my favorite person I’d seen all day, I have no idea if he understood what I said, but he smiled big. So did I.

We walked around the Harajuku district of Tokyo, a wacky mix of high end and trendy shops – Dior, Louis Vuitton, Opening Ceremony. We found this amazing consignment shop on a side street – many of which reminded me of Parisian streets. I’d read that the croissants in Japan are even better than Paris. Doubtful, but curious I set out in search of one – it was amazing, and "they" might be right – even better than Paris. We ended our mini Tokyo adventure having Ramen. Ramen shops are as plentiful as Starbucks in America, but there was one near our hotel that caught our eye and it proved to be just as delicious as we’d hoped. As the rain continued to pour, we laughed and told stories from our many adventures, half a world away from anyone who knows us, and anyone who could see our hair.

We had to make our way to the train station to catch the hour-long train back to Narita airport. Just as I put the card in to pay for our tickets I got the error message “this card is invalid”. I stared at the words. Fearing the credit card company had put a hold on the card (and us still not having enough yen to just buy the tickets) my mom got in the ticket line. We had 40 minutes, plenty of time. Until I got the recording “due to high call volume it may take awhile before we are able to get to you, but your call is important to us”. At 50 cents a minute this isn’t the message I wanted to hear. The ticket line my mom was in wasn’t even moving. The minutes ticked on…no answer….no movement. 26 minutes into my call someone got on the line and proceeded to give me their script responses “yah yah yah, I’m in Tokyo and have 10 minutes to catch a train, let’s speed this up.” They wanted to put me on hold – 2 minutes - $1.00. They lifted the hold off the card right as my mom got to the counter; I quickly ordered our train tickets. We had 4 minutes; our train was on a track on the opposite side of the station. I broke out in a dead run, I knew if I could get there ahead of my mother I could at least try and block the doors to stall for time. The train was 1 minute late and I got there 30 seconds before it pulled up, just as my mother arrived. The train was in the station only 2 minutes before it pulled out. Thank God for the tennis shoes and light packing.

I don’t believe in coincidence, I don’t believe in accidents. Everything happens for a reason. There is a purpose to the things that occur in life, however, big or small. As the train doors shut, the woman across from me got a huge smile on her face, I smiled back. I looked outside at the rain beating against the window and at my mother’s face and the same sense of peace came over me, just as it had all those years ago when we had our garage picnics. There is so much happiness to be found in the simplest of things and today, half a world away, I was reminded of that.


Thank you Tokyo. Well played.