Just When You Think You've Seen Everything, You See Something Else

Koi at Ofuna Botanical Garden

I have never had to remove my shoes when passing through security at Tokyo's Narita Airport and, until today, had never seen anyone else remove their shoes either.

The Ancient Mariner and I were loitering near the security gate doing our best to embarrass College Boy when we saw a young female guard approach two comely young Asian girls in his line. Both were fashionably dressed in short skirts and tall boots. The guard solemnly presented a pair of slippers to each of these girls. They changed footwear and padded compliantly through the metal detector.

Ah, the civility!

United Airlines gets a thumbs up as well for not charging Matt $200 for his overweight suitcase. The counter clerk waived the fee and wished him a happy new year, thereby changing one teenager's opinion of the airline that extracted $400 from him at the Norfolk Airport when he was returning to Japan from college last summer.

When I was his age, I hadn't flown enough to have opinions about airlines. I also didn't have $400 in my pocket. More like $4 on a flush day.

We've Changed His Name to Pip Bin Laden

If you tuned into the Royal Wedding last week, you no doubt noticed that the Middleton family bears a striking resemblance to mine. Not only have both Mrs. Middleton and I spawned three attractive and seemingly intelligent children, but we share a penchant for traditional names.  We both have a Kate, we both have a James, and surely the boy name she picked out for Pippa was Matthew. Surely. So last week we changed College Boy's nickname to Pip to subtly celebrate our royal connection.

While the Ancient Mariner and I were respectively guzzling and sipping beer at Yokohama Stadium last night, Pip left a message on our answering machine.  It was 4:00 am in Norfolk, Virginia, and he was enroute to the airport.  His first year of college had officially ended.  He was happy to be heading home for the summer.

He was still reasonably happy an hour later after forking over $400 to United Airlines.  His two suitcases were over the weight limit.  This strikes me as a modern day form of highway robbery.  It's something of a miracle that he actually had $400 in his bank account to fork over.  When I was his age, I never had more than $10 in my bank account.  (Remind me some day to tell you about that monthly stipend Pip receives as a benefit of attending college on his father's GI Bill benefit.)
By the time Pip arrived in Chicago to meet his connecting flight to Tokyo, the Ancient Mariner and I were sleeping off the Kirin, Asahi, Yebisu, and Sapporo beer.  Fortunately the telephone is on the nightstand nearest the parent who can actually hear it ring.  The airline did not want to let Pip on the plane.  He showed them his military dependent ID card and his valid tourist passport (the military passport expired a few weeks ago) but the airline wanted additional proof that the U.S. Navy would welcome Pip back to Japan with open arms.  The Ancient Mariner managed to locate a semi-official document, track down an English translation of the operating manual that came with our Japanese printer, and scan the document for the airline.  Then, because he is a good dad, he stayed up for two more hours until he was certain Pip was on the airplane and that the airplane had left Chicago.

The Ancient Mariner thinks Pip's one-way ticket was the sticking point.  "There is heightened security because of Osama Bin Laden's assassination a few days ago."

As for Pip, he never wants to travel through O'Hare Airport again.  And it looks like he won't have to in the foreseeable future because he's transferring from Old Dominion University to a college in Bellingham, Washington, where he'll be reunited with several of his high school track teammates.  This should be interesting.

Here are some signs we saw at Narita Airport while waiting for Pip's plane to touch down.

If It's Tuesday, It Must be London: Katie Reprises Her Yoko Ono Imitation

We received a call from the New Sanno Hotel Tuesday morning. The U.S. military hotel in Tokyo wondered if we wanted to take advantage of a last-minute cancellation. In the spirit of the season, I didn't put up much of a fight when the hotel representative insisted the four of us could not possibly squeeze into a room featuring a queen-size bed and fold-out couch. Sure, we'll take the room with twin beds also. I was also darn sure the cancelling guest had already paid for those rooms but I didn't bother trying to negotiate a discount. Why waste my breath? Spending Tuesday night in Tokyo would put us an hour closer to Narita Airport for Katie's Wednesday afternoon departure.

(Note to future visitors: Haneda Airport will open a fourth runway any day now and there is talk of re-opening that airport to international flights. You might want to consider Haneda Airport when booking your travel as that airport is half as far from Yokosuka as is Narita Airport.)

A couple of hours after confirming our reservations we were on a Tokyo-bound train and an hour after that we dumped most of Kate's earthly possessions in a hotel room and were off to Tokyo Tower, erected in 1958 when the Japanese television stations needed a new tower and opted to boost national self-esteem in the bargain.

It looks like the Eiffel Tower on purpose. For those who might be oblivious to the resemblance, there's a French crepe stand near the entrance to tweak the subconscious. That crepe stand was a lot more appealing to one of us than the prospect of ascending to the observation platform in a glass elevator. Apparently he was standing in line for his blueberry confection when I took this picture.

By the time I tracked down the tower mascot, no one was in a cooperative mood. Since I have yet to master PhotoShop, you're going to have to pretend that Japanese family is us. We have no idea what the mascot is intended to represent or why he/she/it is sporting a bandaid. (Okay, we have a few ideas but certainly none that bear repeating here.)

The three of us who were still speaking to each other at this point voted to start looking for a place to eat. The Akasaka neighborhood seemed like a good bet. Akasaka is within walking distance of Tokyo Tower but the Three Lazy Bums were having none of that and Marcella Marceau graciously bowed to their demand to travel by subway. 'Graciously bowed' in this instance means 'nodded coldly.'

"Wow, Mom, you wouldn't believe how much you look like Grandma right now!" Actually, I would.

Akasaka did indeed offer a plethora of dining options. We eventually narrowed our choices to Indian, Korean BBQ, and English pub fare. The teenager particularly liked the looks of the pizza pictured on the sign outside the English pub.

This is how we came to spend Kate's last night in Japan eating fish and chips, a meat pie, and a pepperoni pizza surrounded by a half dozen boisterous British expatriates and/or embassy employees all of whom sounded a lot like Hugh Grant and Ian McEwan. Alas, the resemblance was limited to the vocal chords.

It turns out there are three Hobgoblin pubs scattered around Tokyo. We'll happily investigate the others when you come to see us.

On Why You Should Stick Around the Airport Until Your Kid's Plane Lifts Off

We had a bit of a scare. We were headed to the runway to takeoff but then they turned us around and went back to the gate because a passenger was making threatening statements. They kicked this person off the plane and then searched the premises for a device for an hour before we took off. Everything was fine, but it was a bit scary. All of the other passengers were so gracious and patient--that was nice to see.

Love,
Kate