Pumpkin Spice Bathrobe

 Hey! If this is the Land of the Rising Sun, why the fuck isn’t he up there doing  his goddam job?

But I get ahead of myself. 

As anyone who’s done a long haul journey - and I’m talking at least 24 hours plus - will gladly share with you, it’s quite simply a masochistic marathon that you hope you’ll somehow survive. The agonizing waits in the airport for a flight that’s almost always late, imperiling your connection. That middle seat between two entrants in The World’s Largest Human contest. Those endless hours after you’ve already watched 3 movies, feeling your body twitch uncontrollably and trying to resist the urge to jump from your seat screaming unintelligibly. That feeling as you look around the darkened cabin and realize you’re the only one awake. It’s impossible to explain and nearly as difficult to endure. But I did it, notwithstanding the frantic dash for my second flight and only thanks to the magic of modern medications (“Damn! The pills didn’t work. Oh wait, we’re getting ready to land.”)

So all I needed to do now, besides staying awake, was transfer to another terminal, find & buy a SIM card and a Suica card and pick up my rental car. Unfortunately, this involved yet another bus ride, during which I got to schmooze with a family from Singapore, who were renting 3 cars and heading north. Needless to say, the office was a shitshow, severely complicated in my case by my insistence on a car with Apple Car Play. 

“ But we don’t have any small cars with that,” groaned my young attendant friend.

“Are you sure?” I calmly responded, trying to avoid actually audibly gritting my teeth. “I’d be more than happy to check the cars out.”

“But I can’t do that,” he replied, while clicking and clacking endlessly on his  keyboard.

“Oh, I’m sure you can. Let’s just see.” I crooned.

“But that will take so long!” he whined.

“Indeed. So the sooner we get started…”

An seeming eternity later -VOILA!

TED JR.

This is a Toyota Yaris hybrid, and it’s is a great little car. I’ve driven 3 days now and it hasn’t even used half a tank of gas. The only real problem, aside from the tacky interior, is that I keep forgetting it’s a hybrid, so when I press the Start button it just turns on the electric motor. Naturally, I continue pressing the button while it admonishes me politely in Japanese.

In any case, I have my wheels and now it’s simply a matter of a 6 -7 hour drive to Matsumoto. What could possibly go wrong? Well, nothing for the first 4 hours, aside from plenty of traffic and, as my friend Luc Doucet would say, “shitty little towns”. And here comes the but…

I see a snow-capped mountain ahead. Nice. Then I start noticing snow on the side of the road. Then a bit of snow in the fields. Finally…

That’s fucking right. Welcome to Japan, sucker! AND Ted Jr. has, of course, summer tires, so we’re both shitting our pants. Unfortunately, this is going to be a recurring theme and, as you can imagine, not a particularly welcome one. Yes, I knew it might be a bit  chillier in Japan than New Zealand. But c’mon man! The temperature has been hovering around -1 for the last couple of days and my body is NOT happy, to put it mildly. This is exactly what I was supposed to be escaping. What a cruel and ironic mockery of justice. Ah well, nothing to do but suck it up and hope for warmer weather when I finally descend from the Alps or get further south. It’s been snowing here in Takayama all day today (and wait until you see THAT drive) and the forecast is for either snow or rain tomorrow.

All the comforts of home.

JAPANESE FUN FACTS

Let’s talk 7-Eleven. No, not the nondescript shitholes that were overrun by Quickies in North America. In Japan, they’re a ubiquitous institution and rightly so.

Just in case you’d forgotten

I’d heard about them from people who’d been here but I had NO idea just how amazing they really were. They have everything you could possibly want as a traveller. Snacks? Yep. Drinks? You bet. Sandwiches? Oh yeah.

The egg salad. My favorite. It may not look like much but one bite and you’re a convert. About $1.00

Oh, you’d like a whole meal? Not a problem. 

ANDI’m not even showing you the heated food in those little glass hot dog displays. AND since every hotel I’ve stayed in so far has microwaves, Bob’s your uncle. AND they are literally everywhere. AND they’re open 24 hours a day. It’s a pilgrim’s dream come true.