1 August Thursday Aboard Pan Am Flight One
The unbearable months, weeks, days, became the night before. Ron's emotions showed in his eleventh hour ramblings. Frantically, we talked, played, drank, joked, as if to fill a year's fraternity into a couple of precious hours. All the years of taking-for-granted were consumed and now it was time to say things. We did, without saying them.
The airport was another matter. The trip had begun. New worries now consumed us: tickets, passports, money, boarding passes, luggage checks for bags that would surely end up in Omaha, Bea kept giggling nervously.
Our travel agent, who had all the “ins” finally arrived to see us off. He talked to bigwigs and proved his ineffectuality: no first class seating, as he had boasted, no "club." I wondered if his ineffectiveness would carry over to the later flights he so confidently arranged— one more item on the calendar of worries.
My parents and Bea's, my aunt Fran, Bea's aunt Manya, Ron. Champagne sprayed the area and lightened the air with its froth, but my mind was already in the air. Quick, almost perfunctory kisses—quickly suppressed flashes of ‘never again,’ camera flashes ...
On the plane, a new reality.
We were almost away... Over the familiar smoggy suburbs, mountains, golf courses, farms. We landed in comfortable San Francisco for a one hour layover, still nothing alien. We were on the “international” side of the airport, the only hint of what was to be a real difference in this travel. Now we were finally on our way. Still, new realities are hard to grasp.
2 August Friday Still Aboard Plane to Tokyo
This was the longest day, or the shortest, depending on how you look at it. Getting off the plane, I adjusted my watch to Tokyo time: changed it from 11:15 p.m. August 1 to 3:15 p.m. August 2. By our body's clock, we had been awake 17 hours, and it was almost midnight. In Tokyo, it was mid-afternoon.
The flight, 10 or 11 hours, had seemed a world of its own. They served lunch, dinner, breakfast, lunch, a movie, reading, looking at clouds, the sun. Traveling east into the sun, there was no night.
[Excerpt from a letter begun on the airplane to Tokyo and not sent until October to Ron and Laura]
2 August 1974:
... We have been on this blasted plane now for twelve hours. The surreal thought has occurred to me several times and with increasing frequency that we are on some Serlingesque fantasy flight, doomed to continue ... But wait, at this instant a cry of “land” from a fellow passenger. A glimpse through my port hole which forever has exhibited the blue of sky and sea and the boring white of clouds to the horizon, now reveals gray green land, glints from houses, beige strings of roads ...
My first impression of Tokyo Airport was an eerie view while taxiing, seeing Japanese planes with the Rising Sun insignia, like a Twilight Zone trip to a World War II movie.
Our plan for the trip was to find our own hotels as we went, to stay at moderately priced places, rather than the Americanized grand hotels. We had made just one reservation, in Tokyo, at a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn, about which we had read so much.
The bus to the Keio Plaza Hotel for $3.20 went throughout the town: first shabby, industrial sections, then commercial areas, always gray, overcast skies, past huge apartment complexes. The Keio Plaza was enormous, pure. We were not to stay there, but at a ryokan nearb
y. We found a taxi, helped by the hotel clerk, for $1.13. The ryokan looks calm, a bit run down. We entered the lobby, somewhat shaken because, from all we had read about ryokans, there was not supposed to be one. The clerk was hard to understand... We have reservations... 650¥, no meals. Okay, we go up to our room: two beds, chairs, color T.V. that takes coins.3 August Saturday Tokyo
I woke at four a.m. I have slept soundly since seven p.m. It is still dark. The drab, worn curtains allow strips of light. The air cooler chugs on. It is moist air. When Bea woke up
, we began our day with love. I sent her out for towels and we showered.We were out before seven a.m. after a bout with the clerk. Apparently, when we left the key at the desk, he thought we were checking out, and he wanted to be paid.
Out in the streets: the air is heavy, a man sweeps the entrance to a store. Cars take workers, buses. After a few blocks we reach a large intersection. After a few more, we see alleys with cafés, restaurants, clubs, theaters, all closed now, fishy, humid garbage in fronts. We see two kittens scrounging the trash, and note that they are occidental.
Istean, a departmen
t store we had heard of and planned as an objective, was closed, as was every other store, including those serving breakfast. We sat until eight a.m., then decided to walk to the Shinjuku Imperial Gardens... Also closed.... But a coffee shop the guard directed us to had iced coffee and ham and egg sandwiches.... Then the long walk back to Isetan . . .The huge metal gates were now open, but the store would not open until 10 a.m. We sat and waited. A man began speaking to us. He was middle-aged, said he was from Toronto and had lived in Tokyo for 10 years, he was married to a Japanese woman. He rambled on with little encouragement: he was here during the war, was in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped . . . had gone back to New York, Chicago... spent $2,000 in two weeks . . . had been ill with two heart attacks and appendicitis . . . He taught English at the university . . . was a professor . . . had taught the president English . . . Funny thing, he spoke childish En
glish, with what seemed to me a Japanese accent . . .The store opened. We wandered about. It was huge, equal to Macy's, Gimbel's and Sears combined. 7 floors. There were lots of bowing uniformed girls, seemingly dozens of them at every aisle, register, display. Three girls package an item, while 3 more watch.
We then walked back to Shinjuku Garden, a large green park where the sound of cicadas
blots out the city rush.In the afternoon, we took a subway to Ginza and back. Going into the subway was tantalizing. I could see immediately how well organized the modern, clean subway was. I could easily figure out what to do, if only I could read the signs that gave directions on how to pay and what route to take. Our frustration must have been evident because a young student bowed and, in painstaking English, asked “May I help you, please?” He showed us where to buy tokens and which platform to get the train. We found our way to the electronics stores and bought a Sony am/fm radio/tape recorder.
We meandered back to the hotel, feet blistered, realizing we had walked for 12 hour
s. At this pace we will be carried home by Tuesday.A hot bath and a few hours rest made us ready to explore---at least as far as the nearest restaurant. We passed up crab ($5.00) for sushi and a combination dinner. It was mediocre. Bea was crippled with foot blisters from her wooden Dr. Scholl's that she had insisted were great for walking. We limped home laughing at our feebleness.
4 August Sunday Tokyo
Up early again to take a taxi to the Keio Plaza, which we entered envious and contemptuous of its luxury. The bus tour of the city was good for a quick orientation of all its sections, a historical and statistical sketch by the docent. After noon, we planned the next step, bought train tickets to Hakone with the trepidation which is now becoming usual. Each new decision requires several others. It has been so since we decided to take this trip. Doing it without tour, reservations, or timetable adds new problems, which create tension-producing anxiety. But it is the tension and excitement of exploration and daring. With each survival, our confidence grows ever so slightly.
4 Aug:Dear Ron and Laura,
We have been here only 2 days yet have seen and felt an enormous number of things ... ate at a restaurant where a waitress asked for our address. She is coming to LA in a year.... Many people have come to our aid when we look lost ....
Woke at 3:15 a.m. to an EARTHQUAKE, longer but less violent than an LA temblor, but you can imagine our fear exceeded only by our fatigue which allowed us to sleep again—we went down and the desk clerk laughed at our alarm, happens all the time—swell!...
...Prices are high and we have to get used to exchange values; glad to have my little calculator 1220 ¥ = $4.00, whew!... Today we took a bus tour ... saw the Tokyo Tower (Bea not impressed: “C’est n’est
pas Le Tour Eiffel”). ... Met an Italian businessman who complained that the Japanese cannot make decisions—they come to a meeting with 15 people and confer endlessly, then say “We’ll let you know.” The impatient Italian throws up his hands. From what I see, it is probably their politeness. ... Fashions here are very “mod,” very Western: lots of the kids wear American football jerseys with NFL team logos, some with meaningless words: “YARD 22".... We are glad we came here first. It is strange and foreign, hot and hassled, but should not be missed or glossed over. Each decision that works, each courageous step, like braving the subway, walking around without becoming hopelessly lost is a small triumph and provides great pleasure. I dig it.
...Tell Fred that Japanese cats look just like him. Mort and Bea.
5 August Monday Tokyo to Hakone / Myanoshita
We awoke at 5:30, paid the bill, got a taxi, arrived at the train station, boarded the Odakyu Limited Express to Odawara, changed to a one car train up the mountain to Myanoshita, walked to the Fujiya Hotel, explored for 4 hours until 2 p.m. check in.
To write those lines fails utterly to convey the experiences they represent. Doubts, fears, each resolved in turn and leading to others; the sights and sounds and faces, old, young, all different, some friendly, others foreign.... It has been only four days, remarkable how each reality has a life in consciousness so real, yet— when done, so dreamlike. It is hard now to recall the day before we left. Ron and Laura seem so distant. Even Tokyo seems a fading memory....
We have only begun, yet it is as if we are, and always have been and will be here forever.
Tonight we went to the Hakone Festival. We had trouble finding a Japanese food restaurant. But the festi
val was magnificent. 
It reminded me of the boardwalk at Coney Island: fireworks, beer, strollers, colorful costumes.6 August Tuesday Miyanoshita to Fuji to Miyanoshita
One thing we are learning is that the fabled politeness of the Japanese leads to many frustrations. At our hotel, we asked the deskman for the way to go to Mt. Fuji and the 5 Lakes area. We thought there might be a bus from the hotel. “So sorry, no.” Then we asked for directions by public means. He looked up schedules, consulted with others, and finally came up with the bus to Sengoku, change to Gotemba, then to Fujiyoshida. He gave no idea of the expenditure of time or yen this would demand. It turned out to be 3 hours and $6.00 each way, standing in buses jammed with Japanese vacationers for an hour. At Fujiyoshida we discovered it would take two more changes and another one and a half hours to get to the 5th station to see the mountain. But the day was so cloudy that it would have been a poor day to get the postcard view of the top. Slightly irritable, we lunched on a bowl of rice and seaweed and returned, a 6 hour investment.
We realized that there was no easy way to do what we wanted, and it wasn't worth the effort, so it just is not something that is customarily done. But the clerk was too polite to insult our idea by telling us, as a New York desk clerk would have, that we were nuts to try. He just told us how to do what we asked for. The evening was pleasant: a walk on the lovely grounds of the hotel and a Japanese dinner (at last), yakituri and tempura in a small restaurant, relaxing until sleep time.
On reflection, the day was worth it. In the bus on the way up the mountain, we had met a man and his son and daughter, and met them again on the way down. We struck up a friendly conversation with them. Bea gave the girl a quarter which she accepted with wide eyes as a strange foreign prize. They were nice people and we bridged something.
7 August
Wednesday Miyanoshita to KyotoGetting to the right train to Kyoto was a hassle, dragging the baggage in the oppressive heat. But we made it on to the train. The ride, itself, was a luxurious pleasure. Again it made me realize how nice it would be to have enough money not to be concerned about money. The rolling green, lush, peaceful countryside looked inviting from our air-conditioned, plush, roomy, reclined seats as we sped by at over 100 m.p.h.
At the station, the usual hectic, painful shlep and frustrations at movement, directions and reservations; the indecision, the uncertainty, heightened by the heat and crush of humanity and the fact that it is a time of Buddhist holy day, “Bon”, when people are supposed to return to their home towns.
Finally, Bea persevered, booked a ryokan.We taxied to it expectantly, after the disappointment in Tokyo we had been looking forward to a real ryokan. We entered a clean, if old-fashioned building. A nice old lady apologized continuously for her meager offerings. She pointed out the new fan, gave us some sweet cool water to drink and showed us around. The room was as advertized: mattress on the floor and not much else. Tatami mats, holy corner with a T.V.
Later, we ventured out to the avenue, found a sushi bar/grill and had tasty fish, squid, rice, beer, watching the chef juggle the sushi knife and the grill spatula amidst frantic shouted orders. There was a TV set over the bar, and a baseball game was playing. As we ate, I watched and soon became involved in the game. Baseball has always been one of my loves and I did not expect to have chances to watch any games during our travels.
The Japanese also love the game and they have adopted some American terminology to their references. A strike is pronounced “Steriku”, a ball “barru” and so forth. At one point, the outfielder made a diving stab at a sinking liner. I blurted out loud: “Nice catch!” The sushi chef and another man seated nearby jerked their heads toward me. At first, I worried that by shouting I had committed some unpardonable breach of politeness. But they both smiled quickly and grunted. The barman said “Nice-a catchu,” in a voice which I took to be appreciation at learning another American baseball expression. On the way, we had boarded a street car. The fare was 100 yen for two riders. I had only 85¥ in coins and the conductor could not change a1000¥ note. It was an impasse, and his patience was thinning. But once again, as so many times before, some kind person came to our aid with no expectation of reward. A man, an office worker coming home from work with his shirt collar undone and his suit jacket draped over his arm, for no reason, paid our fare. I gave him the coins I had, thanked him as best I could with pantomime. He sloughed it off.8 August Thursday Kyoto
While standing in a crowded street car at rush hour returning from the day of sightseeing at Kyoto's tranquil temples, gardens and castles, I saw a man who reminded me of my father, a small man with a sallow complexion furrowed deeply by years of anguished labor. My father had always seemed to me the epitome of the working man; a man who craved learning but forsook it for the need — both actual and psychological— to work. The need, a combination of the obvious need and a character flaw, a weakness, we may now snobbishly think.I have seen many such workers here. Men bowed with age and women wrapped head to foot in raglike uniforms, stooped in fields and carrying backbreaking packages, like ants with loads many times their own body weight. Opposed are the new Japanese generation, young people, clerks, students, white collars, with clothes and cars and radios bespeaking prosperity. But they also wear uniforms— neat clean ones. But all look alike. The young people seem not to see the old ones, pass them by as if they are apparitions, or shameful outcasts, or parts of a machine.
9 August Friday Kyoto to Nara to Kyoto
We spent the day “sightseeing,” the sights being Buddhist art, temples and gardens in Nara dating back to 600 A.D. Japan was then just coming out of the Bronze Age, much more primitive than the Chinese. Westerners were then forgetting knowledge they had long held.
The great bronze Buddha in Nara's Todaiji is an impressive, looming presence upon entry into the temple. To the people of the 700's to whom deities were a reality unimaginable to us, it must have seemed extraordinarily fearsome and powerful. The Japanese, a small people on a small island have a fear/fascination with large things, in fact, with all superlatives.We spent the evening chatting with the others in the ryokan: New Zealanders, an English couple who are working in the Foreign Office in Hong Kong, a couple of Swiss gentlemen, two French couples. The news that brought us together was that President Nixon resigned. Talk began with politics, went to societal problems we all shared in common, and ended with comparisons of legal systems. I can't get away from the law. Blast!
10 August Saturday Aboard Boat on Inland Sea to Beppu
Beppu, despite its name, is not one of the Marx Brothers, but a resort city on Kyushu, Japan's southernmost island.The day was a long one, beginning at 5 a.m. leaving our ryokan. The nice old lady bidding us farewell, bowing. Luck found us a taxi to the station, a small shlep to the right track and a long wait for the train to Kobe. The commuter train to the dockside, then a long wait in line with other second class passengers. I was irritable by this time, with the suspicion that “second class” was really” “fourth class”, since each category has a “special” sub category. This, I knew, would be like traveling on a cattle car.
The tour books, Frommer and Waldo, have so far been inaccurate on several details, not explaining enough about how to accomplish the task of doing it yourself. As a result, the energy we expend has been great and makes us tire of making decisions.
After a mad and painful shlep we reached our cabin, a rug 30 feet by 20 feet which we shared with 25 others. We left the luggage and found the first class lounge where we stayed all day— 14 hours long. We met a young couple. The guy, Yasuo, spoke English well and we had a long talk, mostly about trivial things. The Japanese are reticent to talk about personal things. They are very class-conscious. We had lunch. first class prices, second class food. Yasou and his girlfriend ate Western food, we had Japanese. For dinner, we ate second class, which was the same as the first class Western lunch, fourth class taste.
We disembarked and searched in the frantic hubbub for the information center. Yasuo intervened, came to the rescue, helped us through the bureaucratic language barrier, got us a room.
11 August Sunday Beppu
This is our last night in Japan, for this trip. On balance, I think there will be others. If that sounds like a cautious and not overly enthusiastic endorsement, it is because our visit has been a flawed enjoyment. Hampered by the many problems we have confronted. The next time we will not come here in the sticky summertime. The humidity, the crush of people in transit make the cities dirty and gray, people irritable who are naturally friendly.
I will try to learn to speak, understand and read some of the language, which will make travel much easier. If I come for a few weeks, I will carry all my goods in an easily transportable bag.Yet, despite the inconveniences of uncertainty, discomfort, and pain, the experience has been fully worthwhile. The countryside, the sights, the culture and the people have been rewarding in a way that promises even greater enjoyment on a return trip when we can put into effect the things we have learned both here and after our year's experience in traveling.
Tomorrow's dash to the airport will hopefully mark our last traveling day until we leave Hong Kong. It seems to me now that our goals should be to spend our money wisely and pace ourselves by cutting down expenditures of energy wasted in simply getting from place to place.12 August Monday Beppu to Fukuoka to Hong Kong
This was another of those backbreaking traveling days, hopefully the last for a while, in which we cover enormous distances using every imaginable means of conveyance. I feel like Phileas Fogg. Bea makes a much prettier though often as resourceful Passepartout.
We began by checking out of our hotel in Beppu, the Seifu - 400¥ plus a bath tax! I smiled, glad I had taken a bath because they would have charged anyway. A taxi to Beppu station, a long wait on the platform, then a 3 hour train ride across farm country in valleys between lush, wooded green hills and small towns to Fukuoka, a big small town, mostly industrial. Another taxi to the airport, a short hike to check in. We changed money and ate a Japanese airport lunch.
The JAL flight was short— four hours— by comparison to LAX to Tokyo. Our approach to Hong Kong, Kai Tak Airport was magnificent, an air tour of Hong Kong and Kowloon as the plane circled and dipped. At the airport, there was a hotel reservation service desk. We chose the cheapest on the list of hotels, the Royal, which Frommer described as high on his list of moderate priced ones. It turned out to be run down, the paint peeling, drapes worn and a noisy air conditioner in the window facing Nathan Road, with a decibel level equal to a 747 in flight.
We took a double decker bus and walked back after eating an ordinary meal and ogling at the frenetic sights and sweating from the humid heat.
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