09/13/09–09/17/09
It’s my last full day in Japan. Yesterday was also my last full day in Japan, and so was the day before. I’ve had to postpone my departure twice on account of a crippling hangover.
I spent all yesterday reassembling myself, like Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen when he first gets disintegrated. A great many particles of gray matter are still unaccounted for.
And I feel . . . chastened.
I can’t afford another night like that. Not that we paid for our drinks. A patron who laughed when I asked what he did kept refilling our glasses with something clear and potent. Everyone kept clapping for us to down them in one.
But in terms of time spent in recovery and momentum halted, such nights are just too costly.
I step out of the hostel. It’s midday. Sunny. Across the street is a sign in English. In big block letters, white on red, it reads, AFRESH.
I start to walk. A few blocks along, I pass a park with a winding clay footpath and consider going for a jog later. I haven’t deliberately exercised since arriving in Japan, though I’ve walked a ton and lugged my backpack from place to place.
A few more blocks, and I reach my destination: a ramen place called Ippudo.
I’ve been here once before, when it was almost empty. Today, I’ve hit the lunch rush, and it’s packed.
One? the waiter asks with his index finger. One, I answer with mine.
He seats me at a table made from a single slab of wood and brings me a small glass of iced tea. There are pitchers of it spaced out along the table if I want more.
I want the same thing I had the other day and point to it on the picture menu. Not too spicy, I pantomime, breathing fire and waving my hands no. Steam rises from vats in the kitchen area behind the bar. Hot jazz erupts from the speakers. Over the usual restaurant clatter and chatter, the staff all call out, not quite in unison, whenever someone pays up and leaves.
After a few minutes, the waiter returns with the following: a boiled egg with a semisolid, bright orange yolk; a good-sized piece of pork; a ball of what I know as Mexican rice; and a sheet of dried seaweed. I already know to roll the rice up in the seaweed and eat that separately. The egg and the pork go in the ramen.
Which arrives a minute later, piping hot. There are really two broths: a light-colored murky one and a reddish-brown, spicy, oily one suspended in the first. Every time I dunk my spoon—I have forgotten to pause and say itadakimasu—the two broths spill into it and swirl around together. There are also noodles that remind me of angel hair, green things that might be chopped scallions, and spicy bits that are sort of part of the spicy broth. Not to mention the boiled egg and the pork, which I have added.
I switch back and forth between spoon and chopsticks. The soup is hot in both senses—“not too spicy” is still pretty spicy—and before long I’m sweating, my nose is running, and my head is starting to tingle. My hangover recedes just a little.
A few hours later, I’m back at the hostel, lacing up by the shoe cubbies. A guest asks where I’m off to, and I tell her I’m going for a jog as a way of doing penance. She’s not familiar with the concept, so I tell her I’m trying to shake off a hangover.
I walk the few blocks to the park, and when I set foot on the footpath, I start to trot. I’ve elected to listen to one of the long-awaited, recently released Beatles remasters: the mono Help!
I follow the path partway round a baseball diamond and branch off. There are a few bikers, a few other joggers, and a majority of walkers, including parents with small children.
After two weeks in Japan, I’m still not sure how to pass people. The Japanese drive on the left, so you would think you’d pass oncoming foot traffic on the left as well, with a “fast lane” to the right of people heading your way. But it doesn’t always work like that. I improvise.
I make several circuits, the late-afternoon sun slanting through the trees. At one point, a guy who’s possibly homeless gives me the peace sign followed by a thumbs-up, and I respond in kind. There’s a hardness in my chest. I am jogging in slow motion, still not out of first gear.
Still hung over, some thirty-six hours after the fact. There may be a lesson there.
But hangover or no hangover, by now it’s certain: Today will be my last full day in Japan.
For a while.
