Sonny's Suitcase

Tokyo is not about suitcases. It's about food. This case though is about a friend with a really big suitcase, a long trip home, a rainy night, and the genius of small, cozy, local places to take on a bowl of hot comfort food. And, a lucky train, when one is lucky... Picture yourself in Tokyo during a bleak, cold winter's day...

Yesterday evening was big city fun.

Ramen-ya just for you and me.

A new aikido friend I met in Iwama, Sonny, had stayed a couple days at my apt. He is from Melbourne Australia and was on his way to Paris for New Year's and to visit a Chromonica jazz 80 year old idol in Luxembourg. He left his big suitcase with me as it was and is huge and unwieldy. I expected to have it for many months. However, suddenly I am getting many calls and email, the upshot was that I left work early, 3:30 yesterday, and rode back to my apt to pick up the suitcase and ride in across my bike handlebars to the station. This in the coldest night yet and it is raining. A few more degrees and it would be beautiful snow.

Even the dishwasher works like there is no tomorrow.

We meet in a station halfway between the airport and me. We need to find a near place to eat and we just pop into the nearest place. Which turns out to be one of the cozy scenes that makes Tokyo great. Sushi bar down one side, with 8 stools in front. One foot of walking space. 3 tables on raised tatami so you must remove shoes and sit on the pillows. TV showing the last of the sumo match of the day, live. Takenohana wins again. We applaud. baseball and sumo souvenirs adorn the walls....I ask for the menu and the guy drolly waves a hand around--old pieces of paper with the items hand drawn are hanging literally all along the walls ....Japanese of course. Silly me. We ask for miso soup and rice and fish. Turns out to be terrific and the bill was $12 (we fully expected to be zinged for $40). We talk and catch up. He has been on a plane for 11 hours, and is facing another 11 hours. This is his only chance for a real meal.

As we prepare to leave, back into the cold rain, I do my usual attempt of my "informal farewell to the crowd" talk, which elicits congenial response and calls to come back anytime and make myself at home. If I have to meet other people from the airport this is the place for sure. Sonny departs in a totally jammed steamy train, poor guy...thus renewing his viewpoint that he could never live in Tokyo. I depart on a much luckier express train with individual seats and no crowd. It is green-car luxurious. I am home in record time, thus renewing my viewpoint that Tokyo can be, with a little luck, a great place to live.

© 2008. Comments to Patricia Yarrow
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