Tokyo - London
(Getting Fired, Death in the Family, an Inflatable Kayak and a Potential Kidnapping)
I had managed to extend my visa for another 3 months in Japan. My new expiry date was November 7th. Searching for flights to London around this time, I managed to find quite a cheap one on 6th November and spoke with my family to check whether this was good with them. It was and so before the price went up, I booked it straight away. It cost £380.
…Skip forward a few weeks and things had changed.
The main difference was that I had been let go from my farm work job, working with Hana’s friends family just down the road. This was because they were advised by their government worker friend not to employ a foreigner like me without a work visa 🙁
Fair enough. This was a shock to me though because I had planned to be earning money for most of the remainder of my time in Japan, and I didn’t have many other options for alternative ways of earning money.
Previously I had worked with Hana on a cherry and apple farm belonging to a very kindhearted Japanese man (Emotosan, Short Story Coming Soon). However, his farm was almost an hour’s drive away from Hana’s parents house, impossible to get to without a vehicle, so I couldn’t get there by myself and would have needed Hana to drive me.
Hana though was still working at this families farm down the road so she wasn’t free to go to the other farm. So it seemed I was to stay at Hana’s parents house for another 6-7 weeks until my flight, just finding things to do for myself and eating their food…
I didn’t feel so good about this. I was sorry for her parents to look after me such a long time, and I’m not doing much to contribute except the occasional dinner making and vacuuming their accommodation rooms.
The other thing that happened was… Hana’s grandfather died quite suddenly.
He was her mother Yuki’s father and Yuki was understandably finding it difficult to cope with the sudden loss. I wanted to give Yuki some space in this time because when I’m there I know she feels she has to look after me like she does for her paying guests, which involves quite a lot of care and attention. Thinking a lot of what I’m doing, how she can prepare food for me etc.
Hana was also experiencing the loss but what was affecting her more than that was her family she spent time with at the funeral. The atmosphere of shared pain and the stresses of organising a funeral were hard enough to cope with, but on top of that she was many times being asked what she was doing with her life, and for someone who really wasn’t sure what they were doing, it was very unsettling for her. Especially in Japan where it’s still generally considered by most people very important to stay at work for one company and follow a structured routine of life (though this is gradually changing).
Hana’s mother and father weren’t so strict in this way compared to the norm (thankfully for me :P). Yuichi (Hana’s father) was especially laid back and put no pressure on Hana at all, with an attitude I would describe as: ‘in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter so much what you do, as long as you enjoy it’.
When I say laid back, I mean laid back by Japanese standards because Yuichi still worked two jobs and also liked to do hands-on projects such as build himself a kayak… which is pretty damn impressive.
One of his paid jobs was working as a Groundsman/Maintenance man for a local school, the other was cooking for the guests on early mornings and evenings in his accommodation business, a type of lodging which serves dinner, bed and breakfast, called a Pension.
He would also get up at around 4 am… :O otherwise he liked to relax in his massage chair: or he would take me or all of us to an onsen (hot spring bath house) which has to be one of the best things about Japan, if not the best. (If you go to Japan this is a must do experience.)
As for Yuki, she was (and is) just incredible.
I was blown away by both her amazing sense of “reading the air”, (Kūki o yomimasu, a fundamental aspect of life in Japan) which is understanding body language and the context around a situation. Then, from that understanding, she would give the utmost level of hospitality.
She would plan with such care and attention what I might like to eat or drink, factoring in so many variables that I couldn’t begin to imagine, but some of them might be: what I’d recently eaten, how hungry I must be with regards to working or exercising, what I would be doing afterwards: if I needed food earlier or later, the weather and season, the produce on offer, the list goes on and on.
She had learned to be very proactive, preparing and organising very efficiently and finding the best way of doing something: whether it be cleaning, cooking, making beds or gardening, she had found her way to do it. However, there would sometimes be conflict when Hana didn’t do it her way and she would complain Hana wasn’t doing it correctly or wasn’t doing it fast enough.
Hana tried to follow Yuki’s way but often she couldn’t and she felt pressured to work harder and do better. This pressure was not only from Yuki but in fact is a key theme of Japanese life: everyone is expected to work hard and contribute as much as they can to society.
Yuki learned this particularly from her father who worked very hard as a farmer and was a greatly respected member of the community. Whenever Hana said she was tired Yuki didn’t like it because it showed weakness, as though you weren’t able to work hard, so there was sometimes this friction between them. When Yuki’s Dad died, she lost someone who she greatly admired, her life based upon this work ethic. So there was more tension between mother and daughter in this period.
In the busy summer when Japan has 2 weeks holiday, the places of accommodation like Yuki and Yuichi’s Pension become fully booked and it was around this time that Yuki’s father died. She was busy working and didn’t have space to come to terms with her fathers death until a few weeks later when the holiday was over and she had less guests to attend to.
Also at this time Hana had applied for a new job as a massage therapist at a local high end hotel. In the process of applying she didn’t know if she could get the job and if they did hire her, when she would start.
I felt uncomfortable to stay there so much longer considering all that was happening so I decided to look into changing my flight. I rang China Airlines to see how much it would be to take the same flight but a few weeks earlier at the start of October.
The woman from the airline told me that yes I could do that but they would charge £250 to change the booking. I tried asking on a few different date options but she said it was all around that price.
By the end of the conversation she said maybe its cheaper to apply for a refund, then pay for a new flight. So I looked into booking a new flight to London searching on Skyscanner and Bingo! A flight for only £245!
The flight details showed there would be one stopover in Guangzhou China for 14hours, but thankfully it was overnight so I thought I could book a hotel to get some sleep and break up the long journey. In fact, it turned out to be a better journey than the original flight I had booked, plus the refund was going to cost £150 which worked out to be pretty much the same total money spent on the first flight. Perfect!
With my new flight booked and the refund on the way, new plans could be made to enjoy the remainder of my time in Japan. I paid for a membership on the wwoofing in Japan website which lists all the jobs where you work for food and accommodation rather than a salary.
With Hana’s help we found some suitable places to apply for in the neighbouring area and I sent them a message requesting to come and work with them for a couple of weeks.
One of them got back to me and said I could come. However, while discussing this more with Hana over several days, another possibility came to mind. Hana had heard back from the hotel and she’d got the job! She was due to start in a week and a half.
This was fantastic news, not only because this was a dream job for Hana, doing something that she loved to do, but also, it gave us time to spend together before I left for England. Hana could get time off work from her other 2 jobs (standard Japanese hard worker) so we decided to go on a camping trip instead 🙂
The camping trip was brilliant. We stayed 2 nights at Kamikochi :
…and 5 nights at a campsite near Mount Fuji!! The campsite is called Saiko and as you will see from the pictures below, a delightful little camping spot.
I felt so lucky to be able to spend the last week of my stay having these incredible, memorable experiences with Hana and friends. Thanks to Hana’s parents as well, we camped in style. They kitted us out with everything from a very useful tarp as a rain cover, to a big cold container for food, from a grate and even chopped wood for a camp fire to… an inflatable kayak! Those guys sure knew how to camp!
I wanted to give back and do something for Hana and her parents to show my appreciation for everything they’d done for me. And I had an idea…
Once before, in the first few months of the budding relationship between myself and Hana, I wanted to do something special for her. We were parting ways as my NZ visa was up and her’s still had much longer. So I thought about what I could do.
I remembered that Hana liked drawing and painting and she would often give her friends little drawings or paintings as gifts. I also knew she really liked to receive something hand made such as this.
Therefore, I decided to draw a picture for her. A picture of us.
I looked through potential photos that I could use to copy from and after a while I found a winner.
I’d never drawn something for anyone before. I couldn’t remember the last time I drew a proper picture, probably high school, but I wanted to give it my best shot. Over the next few days I dedicated myself, head down in concentration with pencil and eraser looking closely at this photo of us and copying it as best I could.
Here’s how it went:
I was pleased with how it came out, felt rather impressed with myself and Hana was thrilled to receive it. This experience opened up a whole new range of possibilities for me.
Which brings me back to what I could do for Hana’s parents.
So I searched for an appropriate photo of them to copy. There was only really one candidate which was a decent photo that included both parents and their son at the dinner table. Compared to the last photo of myself and Hana, this was significantly more difficult to draw but I went for it anyway.
Leaving the house to cycle down the road to the curling centre (first time I’d watched that sport in person and it looked really fun) I set up my work station in the large, deserted, indoor seating area so that I could draw the picture privately away from Hana’s family so they would have no idea about it. I told them I was writing my Short Stories instead ;P
A week of trips to the centre and back, 11 hours in total, and I’d finished.
Would you like to see??
Oh go on then!! Below is the photo I chose to draw:
And the following are the photos showing my progression through the drawing:
I did the finishing touches on the last morning before I had to leave Hana’s parents house and say my goodbye’s and thank yous to them for everything they had done for me over the past 5 and a half months.
I wrote them a message on the back:
Hana had the great idea of taking a video of when I gave Yuki and Yuichi my drawing.
It’s so funny their reaction!!
Yuichi said he looked like a scary Korean dictator with the other 2 as Korean prisoners!! Hahaha
But they both really appreciated the effort I put into it. Yuki even put it on her shrine where she prays for her family 🙂
So with a huge sense of gratefulness towards them, they dropped me off in Tokyo and I said Sayonara as I left from Haneda airport flying off to Guangzhou, China on my way back home to England.
(This is the last chapter of this ‘not so Short’ Short Story ;))
I had booked a hotel next to the airport, as I had mentioned earlier, because of a 14 hour layover. Apparently, this hotel was just a 5minute free shuttle ride away, so I was very happy with the plan.
On arriving in Guangzhou I followed the signs to a transit visa area and sat down and waited patiently for my turn to get stamped. While I was looking around I noticed, a notice…
While I was busy envisaging a scene similar to Men in Black happening in the Guangzhou airport, a guy who I recognized from my flight walked past and took a seat next to me.
“Hey dude” I said and we started a conversation. He was an Aussie bloke called J, I guess around the same age, and had been travelling south east Asia for 3 months by himself. It turned out he was also taking the flight to London the next morning and funnily enough had booked the exact same hotel as me for that night while in transit. So we said see you later as I left ahead of him getting my temporary visa granted.
Now successfully through immigration I had to find the way to the hotel. I knew from the email I could get a free shuttle but I didn’t know where to take it from and where it would drop me. Unsure, I looked to the enquiry desk for assistance. I showed them the booking email and the address of the hotel expecting them to know straight away what information to give me.
However, they looked a bit uncertain and talked between themselves in Chinese. After a few moments discussion they pointed me to go up some stairs and take the shuttle outside to Terminal 1. They also gave me a small card which had some instructions on saying where to get the shuttle and a picture of Gate 50:
I thanked them and went on my way. I searched outside for Gate 50 but couldn’t find it easily. I asked a guard but he didn’t really know so I carried on. I found it eventually though just a bit further down and got on the bus marked for terminal 1. Before the bus was about to leave my new Aussie friend turned up just in time and I waved at him to join me.
I said I was impressed he found his way here so quickly and we talked a bit about our previous travels. Disembarking at Terminal 1 we looked for the next clue to lead us to the hotel. From my card it said there was a free metro which would go to a certain station, so we went down to the metro line. I guessed we should take the metro but J wasn’t so sure and went to an enquiry desk to ask.
They told him to go back up to where we were and across to hall 7. “Oh” I thought, still not convinced it was the right way but I followed J back up the escalators. We found Hall 7 and were outside by the taxis looking around for inspiration and rechecking our booking information.
J asked one security guard lady and showed her the booking on his phone. Thankfully she spoke good English and she said to call the hotel. We explained we didn’t have Wifi or a sim and couldn’t call. She therefore got out her own phone and dialed the hotel number. She got through to the hotel receptionist and informed her of our situation. Ending the call she announced a shuttle was coming to pick us up with the last 3 digits T15 and to stay where we were.
“Thank you so much!!”, we said in unison as she turned to leave. So we stood around there eagerly waiting for our ride to appear, carefully looking at the number plates for a 15T.
After about 15minutes of waiting, a Chinese man comes up to us and asks if we’re waiting for a shuttle to a hotel. We say yes and I ask about the 15T plate.
With stilted English we make out from his answer that yes 15T is one of their cars, just not the one they’re driving, and it is them we should go with. So we get in the van. After a minute or so into the journey we both feel it’s not totally clear that we’re in the right van and we check with the guy what the hotel name is. He says something we don’t understand and we ask again what it is.
He writes it on his phone and it said: Airport Voyage.
“Oh shit..” I thought, as it was a totally different name to our booking confirmation…
Feeling slightly nervous now we explained that’s not the name of our hotel, our hotel was called Baiyun Apartment Airport.
“Ah ok! Two diff-rent name!” he replies.
“Riiiiiight…” I thought, not totally convinced.
He did seem sure of that though, the way he said it was with an air of understanding, so we supposed we were on the right track. Looking like we were coming close to our destination, they drove down a very bumpy road next to an area of unkempt grass land and then pulled into a carpark next to a building.
The air was thick, either misty or more likely smoggy as we peered through the car’s windows, and through the smog we could make out the ghostly blue and pink neon lighting which highlighted the building’s surrounding scaffolding and rubble, looking nothing like a high rated place of airport accommodation and more like a brothel in mid-construction. Needless to say, I was feeling on edge…
We didn’t stop at the front of this building but continued around the side, then suddenly, a sign came into view:
‘Airport Voyage Baiyun Apartment’ and behind it, the reception area of our hotel!!
Thank God… We’d managed to find the hotel at least and we hadn’t been kidnapped from right outside the airport by two Chinese men hoping to put us to work in a brothel… which was a bonus.
Now up at the reception desk, the Chinese lady receptionist gave us a curt welcome and asked for our booking information. We gave our names and booking reference and were relieved to hear that she had us on the system and our rooms were available.
“You pay now” came the woman’s decisive request.
This made me pause and frown.
“I thought I’d already paid” I said unconvincingly.
Noooo, you not pay, you pay now… was her unforgiving reply.
At which point I took a step away from the desk and checked my phone, looking again at the emails and then my bank statement, which unfortunately didn’t show me the out going payment I was looking for.
J was thinking that he had to pay anyway so he got his card out.
“No card!” Cash on-ree!”
“But I don’t have cash”, says J.
“There cash poin’ out siy, he take you cash poin’.” And pointing at the man who had just picked us up, we were now apparently to go with him again to take out 147 Yuan Renminbi each to pay for our rooms.
Back in the car we go and within the few minutes journey it takes us to reach the cash point, we discussed our shared bafflement at how they didn’t have a card machine at an airport hotel and how this night was going on far longer than either of us expected.
Amazingly, we managed to withdraw cash without hiccup and returned to the reception eager to pay and go to our rooms, putting to rest our long day’s travelling shenanigans.
We were handed our room keys and asked when our flight was.
“9:30am” we said.
“We wake you up 5.45, phone call, we take you 6.”
That was much earlier than we needed to be there but we didn’t have any ambition to negotiate a different time with this lady, so we thanked her and walked through the door ahead.
The door led us through to more construction inside with the nicely tiled reception area floor being cut short exposing the dirty ground beneath, and with planks of wood laying around, holes in plasterboard walls and bits and pieces hanging from the ceiling, we weren’t too thrilled at the prospect of taking the lift to our room, but it looked to be the only possible option.
Laughing at the mess of the place and our current situation, the lift opened after pushing the call button which had wires poking out from the wall, and we lurched upwards in the unfinished service elevator. We were both on floor 3 and as we successfully got out of the lift alive, we saw our rooms were across from one another.
“Goodnight J” I said.
“Goodnight mate. See ya bright an early.”, he replied.
The room was much nicer than I expected. Firstly because it wasn’t half built, but also because there was a comfy double bed with cleanish sheets, plenty of space between the bed on one side and a TV and table on the other side; a phone was next to the bed for the morning wake up call.
The bathroom was decent; equipped with sink, shower and toilet. The shower was much like I’d used in Vietnam and The Philippines where the showering wasn’t contained but open, with only the showerhead on the wall to be used so that the water was free to spray all over the room.
What I’d learned from this was… take out the toilet roll before showering!
I gratefully thrust off my pants, shorts and t-shirt, which were damp and sweaty from the humidity, and stepped up to the shower. There was water! Although it was a choice of either boiling hot water or cold water it was satisfying enough to clean myself, refresh and wipe away the stresses of the day. Feeling a lot better, I sprawled out naked on the bed and appreciated having that time to relax and sleep comfortably by myself, before the flight to England the next day.
I’d slept in airports previously on my travels and I have a Short Story describing what a nightmare I had on one particular occasion. (Read “What NOT to do when Sleeping in an Airport” on Page 2 of my 30 Second Stories) So this time when stopping over in China, I wanted to treat myself to an actual bed to sleep on, and the timing of the stopover was perfect so I could sleep through the night.
I woke up a few minutes before my alarm at 5:30am, reveled in the feeling of having a comfortable bed instead of an airport floor, plus the fact I had had a great sleep, and then I got up and put the kettle on. From this point onwards the day went much more smoothly than the day before: Cuppa tea to wake and warm me up, the phone call happened as planned, as did the return shuttle to the airport at 6am.
The shuttle driver asked me and J if we were famous band members haha! And I supposed we did have that look about us, mainly because I had my guitar with me but also me having long hair and J with his nose piercing, tattooes and trendy clothes, we could have been on tour ;P
We entered the airport and made our way through security without any hassle whatsoever, found our Gate and took a seat. We took it in turns to leave our bags with the person staying by the Gate while the other person went on a wonder for breakfast, then a couple of hours later we were on the plane and said we’d see each other in London as we parted ways in search of our pre-selected seats.
It was quite a long flight back to England, 10-11hours, and the best thing was the drinks were free so I had a few beers while watching the in-flight movies. I dunno what it is about flying but when I’m watching a movie on a plane I’m more emotional than usual and embarrassingly enough, can’t help crying. (Is that just me?)
The food was not great but thankfully I’d brought some nuts and chocolate with me and I survived until we finally touched down in cloudy England.
Home Sweet Home!!
It had been another 2 years since I’d been back, but this time I’d spent the last year in Asia which was a totally different experience than Australia and New Zealand and the main thing was the language. How comfortable I felt as I was walking through the airport and listening to English conversation all around me. The difference was remarkable.
And also the way English people behave was so distinctive to me. Spending so much time in Japan and Vietnam I had got used to different ways of behaviour, so seeing how the English people act was very soothing for me because this was where I had come from and was something I understood, behaviour that had been drummed into me throughout my whole life growing up. (Read my 30 Second Story ‘Culture Shock – Coming Back To England’ for more on that ;))
Waiting at the Baggage Claim I bumped into J and asked how was the flight. He also enjoyed the free beers (well of course he did, he’s an Aussie ;P) and we expressed that we had successfully made it to England after our crazy stopover adventure in China!!
Thinking back on it once I was home, I was very glad to have met J and had the company of someone to help guide us to the right place. If J hadn’t been with me when we were in the ‘supposed’ shuttle to the airport hotel that would have been even more worrying. So it seemed to work out well for both of us.
Once back on Wifi I did happen to notice an email sent to me by the airport hotel in China. They had sent this after I had already left on the plane to China and so I didn’t receive it until afterwards. Here’s what it said:
If only they’d sent that to me earlier!! Hahaha.
But from reading that we could have easily been exploited as it’s very common there made me appreciate even more how we had eventually found our airport hotel and survived without having, as they put: “unnecessary economic losses and get into troubles”. In other words, be taken away to live the rest of my life locked up in a brothel…
So my thanks goes out to J and to the security guard lady who used her own phone to call our hotel for us; and if you’re reading this J and you’re still in England, let’s go for a beer mate 😉
