The starbus did pick me up on time, and once again I enjoyed a ride through a silent city at sunrise.  Melbourne has more of a skyline than Auckland and particularly a more easily visible skyline because of the much flatter surroundings. 

Once I checked in both my suitcase and the roll-up poster I was carrying I gained a modicum of control over my luggage (you asked, so I’ll answer), although with a backpack, a briefcase, and two little bags I still felt awkward whenever I attempted anything beyond carrying these items.  Fortunately, one little bag was a duty-free item I could stash in my backpack as soon as I’d passed customs and the other was a 1.25-litre bottle (why Australia makes smaller bottles than Switzerland mystifies me) of fizzy water I’d bought in a fit of fizzy water withdrawal.  So once I boarded the plane, the only ones with out-of-control luggage were all the Japanese returning home with their duty-free bags. 

I sat next to a cute Japanese girl, but set a new record for the least amount of words spoken with an airplane seat neighbor.  She appeared to me to hate flying, for at takeoff she clutched her faux-fur lined cream white bomber jacket in front of her in a cramped way that wouldn’t have been necessary for her later purpose of using it as a headrest.  She slept all the way, and I watched movies all the way.  Flushed Away is cute and entertaining, The Last King of Scotland unsettling and compelling, Borat I should not have finished, and Babel I couldn’t finish, because I finished Borat. 

So now I’m back to where the sun goes right.  It makes me feel less confused. 

I made it to the hotel at about 10:30 p.m.  It reminded me of how Western hotels could learn from Japanese ones in terms of services offered: internet and breakfast included, toothbrush, brush, shaving items etc. all available.  It’s because of hotels like this one I can carry almost no body care items and get away with it.  Of course, the room is tiny compared to mine in Australia: here, if I open the suitcase, I can’t open the bathroom door. 

Sunday I made a trip to Chiba to the Oyumino church at Honda.  The church building always makes me feel at home – of course it’s first and foremost the people, but the building itself has a warm, honest quality I really appreciate.  It’s neither showy nor cutesy and designed for flexible multiple use.  Its wooden beams give it warmth and its simple interior give it integrity, at least that’s how it feels to me. 

After church a number of us went to Judith’s for lunch.  We had quesadilla and mystery soup, both excellent, and a long afternoon of good conversation and lots of tea. 

On the way back I read Babbitt again.  Chapter 17 was painful in its dissection of churches run on Good Business Principles, but to a good extent accurate.  I noticed again how writing styles have changed.  Sinclair Lewis often uses adverbs and verbs of being, two things I have been taught to avoid and still try to avoid when I’m not being lazy in my writing.  Notice how I used four verbs of being in this paragraph…

I had to smile when we stopped at Maihama, where all the young couples board after a romantic day at Tokyo Disneyland.  One girl wore Minnie Mouse ears, and a couple had Monsters, Inc. ear warmers.  Sights like these make riding Japanese trains so enjoyable.  Riding out in the morning, for instance, I marveled for the nth time at how Japanese girls can apply makeup in a moving train where I have a hard time writing legibly – and they hold their pointy instrument close to their eyes! 

Today involved business discussions and a customer visit with a professor that spend a year at my university in Lausanne, at my department, with professors and lecturers I know.  It was fun to get back into talking about perovskites. 

For dinner I met my co-workers at a traditional Japanese restaurant called “Ichimon,” which I think roughly translates to “One Exchange.”  Frommer’s has a slightly dated review: they no longer serve fried alligator because it didn’t prove popular enough.  They also explain the name. 

We had a number of fun food items.  Bee larvae taste like rice crispies soaked in honey until they went soggy; whale seemed to have a lot more blubber than meat, and only I liked it.  We scraped raw tuna off the ribs for some delicious sashimi where at first we weren’t sure if we were being served a delicacy or the scraps, we delighted in the fried beef and the grilled tuna, and our faces fell when the duck turned out to be two diminutive patties with a half-boiled egg. 

On the way back jetlag seemed to kick in with my colleagues and despite dozing in the car this afternoon I too felt tired.  We took the yurikamome line (click on English for a route map – our hotel is between 11 and 12) back and Björn pointed out how all the glass fronts on the stations had different bands of printed design that you could tell were Japanese without really being able to say why.  I tried to analyze why, but can’t pin it down to a single factor either.  The predominance of pastel colors?  The “happiness” and “softness” of the design?  Its restraint?  It will give me something to ponder when I next take that driverless train.