Dearest Rachel –
I’ve talked before about how, from coast to coast, American cities pride themselves on never sleeping. It’s been celebrated in song from “New York, New York” to the San Francisco that was supposedly “built… on rock and roll.” Whether they actually stay awake, going full crank for 24/7/365 is a matter of debate – I suspect no city is going to look as busy in the pre-dawn hours as it does during the work day or at midnight – but it seems to be something that many rather aspire to, for whatever reason.
Not so much Tokyo – or maybe it’s just this particular neighborhood of it, as it’s fairly quiet at this moment, being a little after three in the morning as I’m writing this. It’s a common trope in local fiction – whether manga, anime or light novel – of a protagonist being caught short in the city, having worked (or partied) so late as to miss the last train home; the fact that there is such a thing as a ‘last’ train suggests that the city has an attitude of “come on, go home, you’ve had/done enough for the day/night” towards its inhabitants
The trouble for us is that, while we’d like to – and let’s face it, we need to, to a certain extent – take advantage of that attitude and get all the shut-eye we can – we’re not quite able to sync ourselves up with the local rhythm yet. Neither of us got a whole lot on the plane, despite the (relatively) spacious and comfortable seats, so we’re still not quite adjusted to where we are. Which makes sense, since three in the morning here is high noon back at home. We did try to get ourselves a meal once we were settled in at the hotel…
…and go to bed shortly after returning, despite the fact that the raw egg on my beef bowl is supposedly meant as a “stamina” meal (although it could be argued that I needed that much stamina just to get back to the hotel). Daniel in particular collapsed into his bed while I was in the middle of editing this and other footage, but that was at around nine for him and ten-thirty for me. And while you might applaud me for being able to force myself to hew to an approximation of my regular routine at home, the fact that I’m writing this to you only some five or six hours later suggests that I’m not as well-adjusted to the time as well as you would think.
***
At least the stillness and dark of the city outdoors (with an assist from the blackout curtains in the hotel room) allowed us to go back to sleep… eventually. Both of us were up for a couple of hours, though, alternately using the washroom and going through our respective news feeds – there’s a lot going on in that respect, as it happens, but as I always say, politics are of no interest to you anymore, and it’s better to not wade into that anyway, especially in the midst of the fog of war. But at some point, we put everything aside (including this letter for the moment), and get ourselves the rest we needed.
One of the things that were also keeping us (well, me, at any rate, because I can’t speak for Daniel) awake at the time was that I was starting to get hungry. Like I said, three in the morning here is noon back home. And while that wouldn’t ordinarily mean much even for me, since I don’t eat lunch as a rule, it was already seven hours since having eaten that “stamina” meal. My body was already asking for more, and its demands also contributed to my being awake.
But while the hotel is offering us a breakfast buffet – complete with voucher tickets to let us in for the next three mornings – those tickets make it clear that it doesn’t open until six-thirty. A reasonable time for it to do so, but useless for Daniel and me as we were sitting awake in the dark at the moment. There wasn’t anything for us to do but roll over and go back to sleep if we could.
And so we did. By the time I stirred again, there was actually light glinting from between the curtains (and when I opened them, sunlight absolutely poured into the room; giving us just the view one might expect from the Land of the Rising Sun), it was just about time for the place to open up. So that’s what we did; we weren’t the first ones down there, but we were close enough.
I still don’t know whether we’re in sync yet with how this city works – although since this is Sunday, it’s not as if it has the same rhythm as it would on a weekday – but at least we can take it easy today and ease our way into it for a few more hours before meeting up with the rest of the tour group and really throwing things into high gear.
And with that having been said, honey, I’ll have to ask you to keep your eye on me, and wish the both of us luck, as we’re going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 