It’s not a question I expect to hear very often, but that’s the first thing I was asked by a guy who approached me whilst I was waiting for my bus from Tokyo to Nagoya a few days ago. The bus was late, very uncharacteristic for Japan but I guess with the Tokyo traffic it’s sometimes inevitable. There may have been an accident somewhere, or maybe just some roadworks but either way I was stuck waiting around the Centre Building in Shinjuku for over an hour. I thought maybe I was waiting in the wrong place, but I saw a group of girls sitting around and asked them. Turned out they were waiting for the same bus, so I asked them if it was okay to join them and they said it was fine. Before I met them I was sitting alone in front of the building and getting some amused looks, sitting around with a huge backpack and a conical hat, a souvenir from Vietnam.
Anyway, the guy wanted to know if this was the right place for the bus too, since it wasn’t marked as such. Talked for a while and it turned out he was a fourth year medical student from Holland, and by some coincidence about to go to Nagoya for a two month work placement as his elective, although a different hospital to the one I worked at. Unlike me though, he and his girlfriend didn’t have a reservation for the bus and when it came there wasn’t enough room. Nevertheless, I told him if he manages to get to Nagoya I’d be more than happy to help him out, since after almost six months I know the place pretty well.
Six or so hours later and the bus pulled into Nagoya station. It took a pretty long time but it passed quickly, looking out across the Japanese landscape as we cruised through it, refreshing after the fog of pollution in many large Southeast Asian cities that seems to hide scenery less than a mile away. It wasn’t long before the bus had stopped that I boarded the subway back to Yagoto, which is like my second home now. Despite being knackered from over 24 hours travelling on planes, trains and buses, and before that over four weeks travelling through Asia, I met with Yamashita and a couple of others for some welcome back drinks. After paying less than fifty pence for a beer on average in Cambodia and Vietnam, the prices here seem extortionate; but then I’d probably think the same going back to England.
Anyway, now I’m back in Japan for another month, and armed with a computer and internet connection, I’ll be uploading tons of pictures and posts about the last four weeks. Although I was only on the road a month, it feels like so much more time has passed, and so much has happened, that coming back and seeing all the same things feels a little odd. Time is relative and when you’re in a routine it flies past. Not that things haven’t changed around here. New volunteers from England are almost into their fourth week at the hospital, cherry blossoms are beginning to bloom, and I’ve moved in with Hiromi; becoming a house, well, apartment husband. Things are good.
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