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August 25, 2008 14:45 JST, what’s left of me is in Terminal 2 of Narita Airport.  I’ve come here to escape Tokyo.  Hiding within this little crevasse, just a lonely vending machine and me, makes me feel more comfortable as I recover from the shellshock.

I had needed something to jolt my life awake, and Japan was that triple shot espresso that did it.  After just finishing my exams, being in a dull school daze, a zombie seeking brains, I needed something to nudge me out of my comfort zone – I was flung.

Mi Ok and my mother, both of them kind enough to wake up early, saw me off to Japan.  Even though I do hate good-byes, I appreciate having them in my life.  I don’t want to miss anything back in Vancouver; however, thoughts of my family and friends warm me up.

The flight was uncomfortable, long, and completely awesome.  Having the window seat, I had difficulty getting my laptop and book containing bag or making an easy escape to the bathroom of which I needed much more often than I wished to advertise due to stomach problems undoubtedly caused by stress and an early morning; however, the view was amazing and not something pictures could ever really communicate.  The movies were horrible except one with a cyborg girlfriend.  Needless to say, I was jealous of the boyfriend.  Where’s my cyborg girlfriend?

When I landed, I was confused and lost while my right ear was nearly deaf.  It felt like half of my head was under water.  I had an ear infection of which was incredibly worsened by sitting beside the wing engine as well as pressurisation and depressurisation.  This made communication, which is inherently difficult in a differently speaking country, rather discombobulating.  Luckily I’d befriended another lost gentleman from Main who was heading into Japan as a teacher.  We teamed up to find our way through the maze.

Once I had gotten my bag and myself through customs, I stored my bag in storage and wandered around lost – completely lost.  I only theoretically knew where I was going to stay.  Having wanted to mix up my life a little bit, I chose a more adventurous plan of action; instead of booking in a hotel or even a hostel, I found a stranger on www.couchsurfers.com and printed out great, yet still vague, instructions to his house.  The instructions actually looked fairly easy; however, it was the small things that caused the most confusion – such as how to get a ticket or even where to get the ticket or the even bigger issue of which train to catch.

Mostly by fluke, and learning a bit more of how easy it is to get lost on Japan’s rail system, I found the right station which is actually way on the other side of the map from Narita.  After I left the station, making it over 24 hours of being awake, I tried to follow the map of which even had pictures with arrows, yet I got lost over and over again.  I was too stubborn to call a taxi.  I wanted the adventure.
Wanting adventure and the fact that the host, Yuji, gave instructions to call him after 11:00 pm when he got off work, I had too long to wait, and I tried to wait; however, while wandering back and forth shaking my head from the station and some new direction I gained my first experience of a Japanese lightning storm – beautiful and wet.

Giving up, and risking a faux pas misdemeanour, I decided to take a taxi to Yuji’s house with the hopes that someone might be there to take pity and let me through the door.

Marie, a Swedish girl, let me inside Yuji’s house once I got there.  She had arrived one day before me and she hadn’t met Yuji either.  Some other couch surfers let her in as she had done me.

Marie was planning for the next day, and I mustered the wakefulness to talk to her a while and help plan.  We decided to team up for our adventure.  She circled many things on her map – all over the map – there were too many things to do and one week was not near enough.  My exhaustion wouldn’t let me stay up for much longer so I took a shower and went to tsami.  I sunk into unconsciousness, yet a thud against the door dragged me up – Yuji was home.

It is a strange, not to mention completely without social script, to wake up in a strange house in a strange land to let in the owner of the house of which I had locked him out accidentally.

“Um, hello, I’m Knigel.  I, um, arrived early because of the rain.  We spoke by email.”

“Who are you?”

“Ummmm, Knigel.  Knigel Holmes.  I got your instructions to come here; however, I came here early and Marie let me in.”

“Yes, I come home often with new couch surfers in my home.”

For Yuji, this was a common situation.  For myself, it was completely bizarre.  I sat down with him and Marie before I went to bed again.  He told me about his experiment.  He was creating a self-sufficient system.  Ideally couch surfers could come and go with very little asked of them.  Surfers would only need to pay 900 Yen for each night, clean up after themselves, and spend 15 minutes each day cleaning up the place.  Compared to Tokyo’s expensive accommodations, one of the most expensive in the world, this was an excellent deal.  Apparently, however, many people don’t put in their fair share.  Sometimes people would steal money from the jar of “donations” or not clean up.  People left it up to others to do everything.  If the money jar looks full, and no one is keeping track, it is easy to get oneself forgotten.  When asked, Yuji said he didn’t care, as it wasn’t about the money.  Something told me that he did care quite a bit.  I made sure I paid 1000 yen and cleaned each day.  Marie and my own name were the only ones on the cleaning sheet out of the many people who stayed there.  I hope that Yuji continues to gain benefit from his experiment.

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