Shooting Soju & Savouring Sushi

I read that one of the most likely places to get sick is onboard a plane. This is due to two factors. The first is the close proximity of your neigbours when flying in a metal tube at 38,000 feet. The second is the use of recycled air above a certain altitude. The air filters designed to wipe out those microscopic beasts aren’t 100% effective. Fact or fiction, as Nat coughs up another lung, it would seem this is common knowledge among the other passengers. People glare, turn their heads and wonder why the hell anyone would fly when they are sick.

My diagnosis in the dim light is bronchitis. It means the only thing to do is rest, drink and ensure it doesn’t progress into pneumonia. It also means that the chance of me not getting it are pretty non-existent. So, I sit back, take a deep breath and sink into one of the forgettable movies that I feel forced to watch because, no matter what, I can never sleep on these things anyway.

There’s sharpness in my throat when we hit the tarmac. It’s official, bronchitis has found another world beyond the comfortable confines of Nat. We stumble out of the plane feverish, coughing, half-ready for the adventure of finding our friend’s pad in the controlled chaos that is Tokyo.

I strolled these streets with the other 30 million inhabitants when I lived here in 1998, and had forgotten how much I liked the civility, organization and efficiency of Japanese life. I’m reminded of this when we ask the girl at the Narita airport information booth for directions to Nishioi station, where Lorne lives. She greets us with a welcome smile, and precisely tells us, down to the second, how to get to our destination. I think this was the first time that Nat didn’t have to ask any follow-up questions.

The train arrives no earlier and no later than its intended time of 10:44. It ends the journey when the doors swish open at exactly 12:24. We step off and walk 20 feet down the platform and wait for the train scheduled for 12:40. I watch the platform clock as the train rolls in, and true to form, the clock clicks to 12:40 as the doors chime open. We wait 1 minute and continue to Nishioi.

Moving people around a city this size is like a dance perfected over a thousand years and Lorne seems to have picked up a few steps. The email that he sent with directions to his place consisted of about 500 words…Turn left when you get out of Nishioi station. Walk to the first stoplight. Cross the street, and continue under the bridge, but not left under the bridge. You will pass an AM/PM store on your right. Walk another 100 meters. Pass a parking lot with 5 spaces…Without a stumble, we open the door and find a soft landing on his futon.

The last great frontier of married life is teaching your wife how to cough up phlegm. Over the next 5 days, I teach and she practices until near-perfection. Despite health issues, we manage to get up early one morning for the cities famous fish market. Massive million dollar tuna eye us at every corner as we slop around this warehouse more than three football fields in length. Crabs try to escape the claws of other crabs, white fish bob in temporary aquariums, and red octopus lie upside down wondering if this is just a bad dream. Afterwards, we join in for the 8am sushi fest gobbling down the freshest fish in town.

We spend nights enjoying yakatory and Asahi beer while practicing our “Sumasen’s” to grab the waiters attention. Mornings slipping into McD’s to relish in Egg McMuffins. And in-between all this, joining the suits slurping Ramen at subway stations, before putting our stamp on two seats bound for Seoul.

“South Korea feels like Japan’s poorer little cousin,” is a running punch-line among some English teachers there. If you look at the facts, it is poorer. But there’s something addictive about the rougher, more spontaneous and less rigid existence of life in the country that is south of the North.

We came with the goal of participating, if only for a short while, in my brother-in-law’s life. He’s spent his time becoming a well-known and loved English professor, making close friends, learning Korean and increasing his tolerance for the national alcohol, Soju.

I only realized this when, during an innocent lunch one day, I drowned, just like my father-in-law did when he came, in what is called, the “Soju Experience.” I’ve never not remembered what has happened during a night on the town… or more to the point, an afternoon. But Soju, this lovable beverage, promotes strange philosophical discussions before hitting you when you try to stand. I recollect running down the street, falling over a curb and Nat chasing after me, but that’s about all. I trust Nat has more to say about this in her “She said” column… But if there’s anything I know for sure, it’s that Dan and I got to know each other a whole lot better… especially when we stretched out together on the pavement in the middle of a street to have ourselves a little chat… And for that, it was well worth it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 at 11:54 am and is filed under He Said. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Add to del.icio.us.