You may have wondered what happened to those bottles of soda water I obsessed over.  I bought two additional ones of real sparkling water on the way to the shuttle bus.  The first one went on the bus.  The other five I lined up in front of the booth.  By 10:45, I’d fnished the first of those.  12:30, number two; 14:00, number three; 15:10, number four.  Then I decelerated again to finish off the series at 16:30.  They say it’s healthy. 

Today, we left early to travel back to the Tokyo area to do an on-site customer measurement.  It started with lots of secrecy: we had to go through a 43-point security instruction on how to behave on the site and what to do and not to do, narrated at a furious speed by a senior Japanese who completely ignored the presence of a foreigner.  I copied Miss Shimizu’s marks on the sheet we were filling out, agreeing to everything.  And my word was good enough: they didn’t search my bag for a camera afterwards. 

Fortunately, the measurement also went well and delivered the anticipated results.  Rarely have three hours of demonstration passed that quickly for me, and it was a real thrill to see our instrument mounted on a big machine and doing its thing successfully. 

Before I left Tokyo for the airport, our partners helped me fix the suitcase wheel that had broken off that morning.  A glance at the parts also told me why that wheel had never worked very well: one of the dishes for the ball bearing had a dent.  Even so, I prefer an arthritic wheel over the plain stubborn one I had before or the option of no wheel at all.  It didn’t work too badly with only three wheels, but the suitcase would pitch forward with the slightest encouragement and I was afraid with too much encouragement it might get a little too excited and fall over. 

For some reason, while waiting on the platform, they also got into talking about how in Japan there are two types of people, S and M.  First I thought they were going to get into the silly blood type thing, and then I thought they meant S and N, because they kept referring to magnets.  Then I worried about possible unco meanings of S&M.  They said I’d done something because I was an S.  They wouldn’t tell me, and told me to ask my Japanese teacher in Switzerland.  I let it be and read Crime and Punishment on the train instead, and thought of Janet’s audition.  Mine was over and a success, and I hope to hear similarly of hers. 

Getting off at Narita airport means that even if I want to just get a taxi to the hotel I need to go through a passport check.  Whoo-hoo, a couple more employed people, like the two guys who open and shut the airport gate in rhythm with the traffic light.  Even the taxi driver agreed that it was a waste.  He was listening to a radio station playing Japanese classics, the one song, called Blue Chateau, apparently having reached number one about forty years ago.  For all his driving acumen he forgot to switch on the meter, but if he overcharged he didn’t overcharge by much, asking for 900 yen (at a base fare of 660).  Oddly, he didn’t even write the receipt himself, he just told me to fill it out myself.  Hmmm. 

For some reason, when I entered my hotel room, it hit me: S and M must mean the simplest of divisions, single and married.  I just hadn’t thought in English. 

It’s morning; the sun coming in my window woke me before 5:00 and allowed me to finally use the internet with reasonable access speed.  I’ve found out that Janet, too, passed her audition.  My audition feedback isn’t as speedy, nor as life-changing, but it could be an order over a sum that I don’t earn in a year.  Mundane, in that perspective, but still oddly satisfying. 

I still have that song in my head.  Grmpf mich am Foffel! 

And now the alarm went off.  Time to post and get myself ready!