Sons of Loki

It’s always slightly weird, waking up in the morning and going someplace. Usually, if I’m going out for the day I only get into Tokyo about midday at the earliest. But today I was up at 7am, quick shower, and onwards to Nippori station to catch the Keisei Limited Express to Narita Airport to meet my sister Katie and her partner Chris, who were landing on a Virgin Atlantic flight at 9:55am. The weather today has, for a change, been actually warm, and they couldn’t have picked a nicer day to arrive (considering five days ago it was snowing).

I’ve never been to meet anyone at the airport… apart from once or twice to meet my sister home from her travels. So it was a little novel to be checking the flight times on my mobile as I sped through the weird countryside of Chiba. At Terminal 1, I had a quick wee before coming back out to the (almost empty) arrivals lounge to see Katie and Chris standing next to a ticket counter looking lost as if they’d just been plucked straight from Sheffield and somehow wandered into my life in Japan.

So much to explain! There were guffaws aplenty at “Pocari Sweat”, yappari. Down at the JR Pass counter they got their magic rail passes (truly envious of that, but as a resident I can’t buy one) from a very polite gentleman who spoke English to them and, realising that I knew Japanese, was entirely forthcoming in speaking Japanese to me. I found that really refreshing, that he didn’t balk at a foreigner speaking Japanese, and that he didn’t patronise me by switching to English.

On the way out we got stopped by the fuzz. I’ve heard about the duo who patrol Narita Airport; they only check foreigners. Well, foreign-looking foreigners. Even if you’re just waiting for somebody they’ll come by and check you out – and they’ll be very polite and friendly about it, of course.

My last encounter with the police fresh in my mind, I resisted flashing my gaijin card as my sister and Chris showed their passports. Ah, it’s only a small thing, but they had no reason to see my ID, and when they asked for it, I simply said “Passport ga motte imasen. Ai ni kimashita.” (“I don’t have my passport with me. I came to meet these guys.”) We had a brief chat and I explained that she was my sister and I was an exchange student and he only wound up asking for my phone number, which I couldn’t be bothered to argue about. (They were nice guys, the cops usually are.) But I didn’t show my ID. A tiny victory for civil rights!

Tickets in hand we boarded the Narita Express – very swish and very comfortable, although I’m not sure it’s worth the extra 2,000 yen over the 1,000 Keisei limited express.

In Shinjuku, I escorted them to the Hotel Rose Garden, which looks like a reasonably swish place (although the rooms are tiny).

I gave them the usual tour of Shinjuku; up the Tokyo Metropolitan Towers to the south observation deck, then over to Kabukicho and lunch in a little ramen joint, before a wander through a games arcade (where I pulverised “Train-Train” on Taiko no tatsujin and got like a billion points) and backstreets and to a Starbucks to plan the next day. I was amazed how tired I was, but I did get up at 7am. Tomorrow, one hopes, I shall awake refreshed for another day of tourguiding. It’s tough work.