I'm turning Japanese-a

Sunday morning, after breakfast, I headed out for Matsue for the Meteoritical Society Conference. Fortunately, there were other folks from the workshop I was at on my same flight, so we headed out together. Good thing because it required some advanced research that I hadn’t done.

In order to get to Haneda airport for the flight to Izumo, we needed to take the train to Hamamato (or something like that) station and then switch to the monorail which takes you to the airport. Fine, in theory. Problem is when you buy a ticket for the train, you don’t pick a destination, instead you pick a price, pay it, and then hope that price is good for letting you in and out of a given station. If you do this on a regular basis, you’re set. Completely clueless foreigner? Well, they probably make a profit somehow. Fortunately, somebody knew the fare, we paid it, and made our way.

Getting to the airport was no issue at all, really. We gave ourselves plenty of time to allow for any short bits (or extended periods) of cluelessness, but we didn’t need it. We checked in, checked our bags, went through security, and then had 2 hours to wait.

Security was…interesting. Let’s just say it’s different here. About 30 minutes before boarding the plane, one of the folks we were traveling with was called up to the gate agent, and then pulled aside by a security guard. They went behind some barrier, chatted, and then he returned. Turns out he had put a lighter in his checked bag, which they saw upon scanning his luggage. So they asked him to remove it from his bag (which they had brought up to the gate) AND THEN ASKED HIM TO HOLD ONTO IT FOR THE FLIGHT! The logic being, “if something happens and it catches fire, you’ll be right there to put it out.” To say that’s different from the US philosophy is an understatement.

We had a big 747 to load for our flight—8 seats across and probably something like 40 rows…so a flight of 300 or so. 15 minutes before scheduled departure, they opened the gate for boarding. For everybody. All at once. No “board from the rear” or “by group number.” Just, “Hey, get on board.” And you know what? It worked. We were set in 15 minutes and in the air maybe 5 minutes after our scheduled departure time.

So there we were, 300 some odd folks on a flight to Izumo, one of maybe 8 or 9 for the day. So I figured this must be a major destination or popular travel spot. Coming in for landing, I saw cars parked about 5 feet from the runway, and when we taxied up to the airport, I realized that it only had one gate. I felt like I just landed at the airport that was down the street from us when we lived in Maryland. Seriously. The only thing missing was us getting buzzed by a Cessna. I half expected to see a Japanese version of Emma sitting inside eating blueberry pancakes. Only they don’t offer nearly as much food as the airport in Maryland does.

We then hopped on a bus, drove for half an hour and arrived in downtown Matsue. I walked to my hotel and checked in. Room 510. Great. I head up and walk in. The bed has no sheets or blanket. It’s hot as hell. The tea cup is sitting in the bathroom sink. I’m not happy. There’s a knock at the door, and it’s the woman from the front desk apologizing profusely because she gave me a room that hadn’t been made up yet. Phew. I go downstairs, wait 10 minutes, the whole time worried about the fact that it was hot as hell in the room. I didn’t see an air conditioner control. I’m scared. It’s very hot. VERY humid. AC is needed. My room is made up, so I go up and it’s very similar to my room from Tokyo…just no internet.

And no AC that I can find. Bad. I start hunting for the controls. There are vents in the wall…that’s good. I start looking under the desk. I start looking in the bathroom. I look on the floor. Nothing. This is not good. I then sit down on the bed to think…and as I lean back, I bump my head on a control panel on the bed where the clock is, which also has the controls the AC. Thank goodness. I start that baby up and begin to recrystallize.

At this point, it was 2 in the afternoon and the conference reception wasn’t until 6. So I decided to walk around the city a bit. I think I got half a mile before my clothes were soaked through. I think it was more hot and humid than Tokyo. I don’t know for certain since I didn’t go out in Tokyo at the same time of day—I limited myself to early morning and evening. I really was just drained by it all here and decided sitting in the hotel with my clock/ac was a better option.
So I came back and did some reading. I then headed to the reception which had a giant buffet of food. It was huge and delicious. Among the attractions was a fully carved tuna and sashimi. As part of the display, they left the head on the cutting board. And the tail. And when the sashimi was gone, some of the more experienced members of the group begin pulling pieces of meat from the head and tail… I’m not that experienced.

Anyway, enough adventures for now. I’d say I’m pretty much adjusted to the time change here as I was up at 5 AM. I call that a victory and will be happy to keep that schedule for the rest of the week. Now it’s time to get to work and do the requisite schmoozing, chatting, etc. Good times.