Sorrowful Rennet - Week 34 (January 6 - January 12)

Sorrowful Rennet

Week 34

Ah, January. In Canada I’d just be starting to see the serious snow falls that result indirectly in back strain and sore arms for almost every Canadian. In some cases, heart attack.

Tokyo on the other hand, by my standards, still looks like late November. What a difference. it's kind of interesting seeing a year without a harsh Canadian winter. However, anyone that knows me would not be surprised to hear that I miss seeing piles of snow. Winter's the best season of the year!

This was also the last week that Sophie would be in Japan with me. The work week was pretty normal. We spent our time infuriating the neighbours with our loud discussions, working on getting Sophie prepped for departure and generally tried to avoid thinking about Sunday, when Sophie was to depart for whiter pastures. The work week was really no problem for me, getting back into pace after my short vacation. I spent a lot of time talking about people's trips back to their hometowns.

The small size of Japan contributes to this aspect of the culture. Twice a year, usually in August during Obon and at New Years almost everyone travels back to their hometown, and it seems to be quite important that it is your HOMETOWN. Not the place that your parents live now. Your HOMETOWN. Although generally most people's parents still seem to live in their hometown... Very few of the people I've spoken to over here have relatives visit them if they aren't living were they grew up. It seems as though the old homestead definitely has holiday primacy. I suppose that to some extent this is true in the US and Canada as well, but the size of the country just makes it impractical in some ways. Meh, minor cultural note.

About midway through the week I received an order of XBOX 360 games I’d ordered from Play Asia, sort of a Christmas gift to myself. Unfortunately, they mixed up my order with someone’s in France…I’m not entirely sure how that happens, as it’s a pretty huge difference, but meh. It all worked out, but I was still a bit frustrated and had to wait several weeks to get my stuff.

Saturday night Sophie and I failed yet again to set up a proper clubbing expedition, although in this particular case it would have been somewhat difficult considering the departure time of Sophie’s plan the next day. Clubbing would have involved staying up all night, going back to my apartment to get her stuff and then immediately departing for the airport. Ugh. Sounds like torture. I suppose Sophie would have slept well on the plane, but ugh.

Instead Sophie and I met up with Sean and Kayoko after work on Saturday and went out to Tachikawa for a really nice dinner at a little Asian fusion izakaya/restaurant. Food was good, conversation flowed as did a bit of booze (a final flask of Japanese Sake for Sop) and at around 11:30 PM Sophie and I were back on the train headed for home. We had to go through a little detour due to some major construction happening on the Chuo line and ended up getting back to Koganei pretty late.

Then the packing…

We finished up and were in bed at around 4 AM after finishing off the pack job, which was complex due to the amount of breakable objects we went through. We spent one last hour dicking around on the net before shutting of the lights and talking for an hour or two longer. Last conversation like that I figure that I'll have in Japan. A shame, that. Though my neighbours probably dished out high-fives all next week.

We got up (for us) early the next day and headed out to Narita laden with a couple of pretty heavy duffle bags. Sophie suggested we get a taxi just to make things easier but, well, I'm a stubborn fuck about some things and wouldn't let her. So it happened that Sophie, bent double underneath a bag, and me wheeling a massive hockey bag, trundled down the streets of Koganei one late morning in January.

We were conspicuous to say the very least.

The ride itself was the usual airport shot, down the Narita Express all the way out into the countryside. The lush greens and ripening rice patties of my arrival trip from Canada and the Thailand odyesey were replaced with mostly browned fields laying fallow through the winter. It made for a peaceful backdrop to the final long conversation between us.

We stopped at Narita Terminal 1, loaded her things onto a cart and checked the luggage. One last cigarette in the sweet Kanto air, and Sophie was on her way out. It was rough seeing her go, I’ve missed seeing someone every night like that on a regular basis. It just made it more exciting to get home at the end of the day, something to look forward to. Brought me back to a year or so ago a bit maybe. Also, I really enjoyed sharing all of the awesome foods and things that I’d discovered over here in the last year or so. I love being a know-it-all prick and doing my best to educate everyone around me, whether they want to be educated or not.

Ah well, all things in life are passing.

The rest of the weekend involved, simply enough, cleaning and relaxing. The house had gotten thrown apart in our haste to pack everything and get out of there on time. Success, but at what cost? It took most of the weekend for me to get everything back into a proper state of cleanliness.

This week finished off on a really nice and unexpected high note. I was pleased to find at my local grocery store a nice small package of assorted cheeses and crackers for an inflated but worthwhile price (around 700 yen). It’s tough to find a good cheese in Japan, so when I saw this well appointed kit I immediately sprung for it to accompany the wine I had purchased for that night. Damn good idea in the end, was totally worth it.

And thus ends the curious tale of Sophie Wolski. An unpleasant farewell to make for both of us, but I’ll be seeing her (and of course everyone else back home) in person at some point in the future!

Riding the rails from Narita...

Ian "Mello Yello" Cantello

Pictures: 1. Yes, Sophie is THIS hardboiled, 2. The Narita Express, still in Tokyo, 3. Sophie heads down to the departure lounge, last time we saw each other in Japan. Later Roomie!, 4. Cheesu!