Yakuza Tour Guide (18+)

2. Sake Bomb

*Additional info and translations in the comments!

As Tatsu is leaving with his new Playstation, I'm disembarking from a twenty-something hour flight with pretty severe jet lag. Only, I feel wide awake because it's the middle of the afternoon, the terminal is packed and the newness of everything is completely blowing my mind. Nobody ever talks about waiting at the airport terminal when they tell vacation stories, but just standing there waiting for my taxi it hits me that I really am on the other side of the world.

There's a hard-to-place offness that goes beyond signs in different languages and people speaking Japanese all around me. I start to people-watch and play spot-the-difference while I wait. The clothes they wear are different. The way they act and talk is different. The advertisements on the walls are different - even the asphalt at the terminal just seems different somehow.

My cab is on time and very clean. I didn't know the inside of a taxi could actually be relaxing. In Tampa, every cab or Uber or Lyft I had ever been in was gross. The driver greets me and insists on speaking in broken English, even when I try to tell him that I speak fluent Japanese.

He just shakes his head and smiles. "Nonsense, is good practice. Welcome to Japan!"

The taxi driver makes a big, sweeping gesture with his arms at the terminal and runways in the distance. It's not much to look at, but it makes me feel so... welcomed. I stuff all of my bags into the trunk of the cab and he drives me through Tokyo. It's the middle of the work day. I watch people walking on the street, rushing from place to place like there isn't anything special about Tokyo. To them it's just home.

Now that I have cell service, I check my phone briefly, and see that I have seven calls and thirty nine missed texts. All of them from mom. I sigh and stuff my phone back into my pocket. I'm sad for just a moment, because it reminds me I'm going to have to leave this place in a little less than seven days.

Imagine. Being able to call Tokyo "home." What an incredible thing. What I wouldn't give... I think as I stare out the window of the cab.

I'm dropped off at my hotel and I didn't skimp out on the hotel when I planned my trip, either. It may not be the biggest, or the fanciest, but at least it's not a capsule hotel. I thought about a cramped, little capsule hotel, but decided I couldn't imagine myself sleeping in an oversized coffin for an entire week. I unpack, sit on my bed, and decide that instead of going right to sleep I'll go out and sightsee.

I don't really have a plan. The plan in my itinerary for Japan was to get back to the room and rest, then begin the trip in the morning with a fresh start. But now, it's barely even four pm and I'm not tired at all. I leave the hotel and walk around - aimlessly, really.

I drift through crowds, cross busy intersections, and pause to marvel at things everybody else walks by as if they're nothing. To me, they're everything. Without meaning to, I start to draw attention. I suppose wavy, copper hair, bright hazel eyes, and freckles aren't very common in Japan. Some of the men don't even try to hide how much they're staring, but I laugh it off. It's just because I look so different, it doesn't actually mean anything.

The sun starts to set and I decide I could go to a bar. What bar should I go to, though? I don't even know. All of my walking around and I've ended up on a neon lit street in a part of Tokyo I can't possibly know. I'm definitely lost, but instead of being afraid, I'm giddy.

I know enough Japanese to read the signs, though. I spent almost all my life picking up little pieces of Japanese from movies and shows and the last few years really training myself in it: Duolingo, anime in Japanese, without the subtitles and reading. I could definitely make out the words for "bar" and "all night." I ended up going into one that had a neon sign of The Great Wave out front.