J. Burleigh's Tokyo Travelogue:

[James Burleigh]

So on a business trip to Tokyo, I elected for the first time ever to opt for an in-room massage offered by the hotel spa. Here's how it played out, as described in an e-mail home the next day to my lovely wife, Fang:

Nothing new to report here. Well, except that I treated myself to an in-room massage last night. First time I've ever done anything like it. I called the concierge to ask what it was all about, and the first thing she says, "The type of massage is a pleasure massage."
 
Oh... Well, that's probably not appropriate. Oh! A "pressure" massage. Okay, fine. I asked her the price: $52 for 50 minutes, or about $1 a minute, same as the States. Okay, let's do it. I scheduled it for 9 pm, in about an hour.
 
Then I asked her what was the appropriate thing to wear. She told me the cotton kimono robe I could find in the drawer. So I took a shower and put that thing on, and it only overlapped about 4 inches, with me clutching it across and tying it tightly with the belt. I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked pretty stupid in this light-weight, too-small, white robe with the blue drawings of savage-looking samurai warriors crawling all over it. I sat down, pulling the fabric in vain across my knees, and waited nervously for the knock on the door.
 
When it finally came I peered through the hole in the door expecting to see a sweet Japanese girl in Kimono. Okay. Sure. Anybody knows you have to have strong arms and wide shoulders to do a really good massage. Especially a pressure massage. So I open the door and in she comes. I quickly realize we don't share a single common word between us. But she gets me organized and off we go.
 
Everything is through the robe, and she even throws a towel over my arms and neck when she gets to them. Well, pretty soon I figured out what you mean, Fang, about not liking massages, because you find them too painful. Right about the time her elbow hit the small of my back I knew this was not going to be a pleasure massage. I gritted my teeth, reassured myself she was a trained professional and wasn't going to burst my spleen, and muttered to myself, "Must...not...show...weakness...." I think that’s when I blacked out for a few seconds, but I didn’t mutter a sound, except maybe for the stiff exhale of air being crushed out of my lungs. She could have snapped me in half like a pretzel.
 
After awhile she hauls me over, and I'm now on my back with my eyes closed and trying to look relaxed but really worrying about those sparse 4 inches of overlap. At one point she moves my leg and I'm thinking, "Oh no! I think she might be able to see something! Well. That's okay. She's probably seen it all before. Besides, she's not interested in men."
 
Well, in the end I guess we got through it all right. And to be honest, except for the awkward feeling at times and the searing pain in the small of my back, it was pretty nice.

Next installment: "JB gets a Starbucks...."

 

[shokdimn]

:lol2:

 

[dcarver]

JB, I like you.. but this story smacks of El Torro Poo Poo!

 

[painman]

Ah, reminds me of the time I was in darkest Africa, when suddenly I realized at 50 paces a wild bull elephant was charging. I grabbed my trusty elephant rife. And slowly I turned, step by step.....well you get my drift. JB, what the heck you be smokin? PM. <>< :lol: Give me some would ya....

 

[James Burleigh]

Are youz guys saying I made this sh*t up?! Not a word of it! Here's the the first e-mail I wrote home from my first trip ever to Tokyo [Pain, note the Marx Brothers reference--sorry, that's the 3 Stooges you allude to, isn't it?]:

Tuesday, 4:30 AM
 
Subject: First Night in Japan
 
Good Morning, Fang:
 
Well, here it is 4:30 am and I'm the only one awake in Tokyo as near as I can tell...except for the lady in high heels in the room above me about an hour ago, which woke me temporarily and kept me from saving a bunch of Americans from escaped Spanish fighting bulls. I hit the sack at 9:00 pm, which was the latest I could stay up (I was starting to see pink elephants), and rolled out of bed at 4 am.
 
When you fly to the East Coast, you can tell yourself, "Man, it's 4 am in California. I should be asleep! I'm tired." But here, you have absolutely no idea what day it is back home let alone what time. So you just ignore what your body's telling you and cling to the hour shown on the local clock till you just fall over in mid-sentence.
 
Anyway, as for the trip yesterday, I flew business class, which was very nice. I had a window seat, and appropriately as we headed west toward the coast saw my client’s building in San Bruno where I'd been working for 10 months, and who's sending me on this trip. After 9 hours of clouds and blue ocean and chasing the sun westward, we broke the shoreline of Japan, with an hour's daylight left. My only observation looking down from several thousand feet as we approached the airport is that I saw many golf courses; curiously, they all had dirt-brown fairways.
 
After landing I went through customs without losing a step, then went to buy a ticket for the bus to my hotel. I had changed $73 for yen at SFO, and out of that paid ¥3,000 for a bus ticket to my hotel. (I figured out that ¥1,000 is about $10; or else it's 10 cents—one of the two.) But my hotel bus didn't leave for an hour. So instead I got on a bus that left in 10 minutes, stopping at a hotel near mine, with the plan to take a taxi from there. Just before the bus pulled away, a cute Japanese girl who had been helping everyone with getting on the right bus, boarded the bus, stood at the front in the aisle, rattled something in Japanese, and gave us all a deep, smiling bow. I gathered that she said something to the effect of, "You're incredibly long trip is not even nearly over since you still have over an hour ride to your hotels. Good-bye."
 
She was right about that. The bus ride into Tokyo was more than an hour. After hearing an electronic voice rattle on in Japanese as the bus pulled away, I was amazed and delighted to hear the English translation that stated, "Please not to use cellular telephone on bus as it annoy neighbor." There's proof the Japanese are more civilized than we are. Then you throw on top of that, while sitting up front right behind the driver, struggling to keep my eyes open, I was able to observe the amazingly consistent and orderly way on the three-lane freeway how every single car signaled before changing lanes, always moving to its appointed location, with faster cars in the far right lane (did you know they drive on the left side of the road here?), next slowest cars in the center lane, and slowest in the far left. It was like watching organisms moving through a liquid ruled only by physics.
 
Finally got to my hotel after an hour and a half bus ride. The nice woman receptionist spoke remarkably poor English, but I managed to check in without getting arrested. I changed more money at reception, with the momentary fear that she just changed $10,000 (you remember the Madrid exchange story), and when I asked how much to tip the person standing behind me holding my bags, was happily told "there is no tipping in Japan."
 
That explained why the doorman at the first hotel who hailed me a cab refused to take the bill I thrust at him, and why the taxi driver who took me to my hotel drove away laughing and shaking his head when I gave him back the pitiful little silver coin he gave me as change for my ¥1,000 bill. But no tipping's good news since the smallest bill is ¥1,000 ($10.00). Hell, I'd have been passing those babies out like candy, since it looks like monopoly money, and I'd have had porters and bell boys hanging around outside my room purring like cats.
 
At reception I was told J’s friend the hotel general manager had ordered champagne for my room. J said he would take care of me, and here was the first evidence. Then I was led up to what I expected to be the Presidential Suite. But that bubble was quickly burst when I entered a room about the size of E’s and a view of some back-alley entrance to the hotel. Later, when I ordered room service, it was like that scene out of the Marx Brothers movie on the ship when they invite everyone into their cabin: the dinner cart with the champagne and the dinner cart with my dinner took up all the floor space available, with the waiter and me straining over furniture to conduct the business of signing the check.
 
On top of that, the room was really hot when I came in, so just as I was thinking the first order of business was to turn the heat down, the woman who showed me up to my room drew my attention to the A/C control panel on the wall and, with Vanna White professionalism, explained its intricate workings, concluding, "But you cannot change anything. So solly..." And she bowed and took her leave. So I turned the damned thing off and let the cold air from outside slowly permeate its way into the room. I slept without blankets, but the room was still hot and stuffy.
 
And speaking of hot, the toilet plugs in. Never seen anything like it. It looks like a computer with a toilet seat. In fact, we should get one for A, then all we'd need is the donut-dispensing accessory. Anyway, the toilet has a little panel next to the seat with lights and buttons. After sitting down on the toilet I thought, "Gee, I've never sat on a heated toilet seat before." When I went to flush I realized there's no handle like on a stupid low-tech American toilet. So I started pushing all the different buttons I could find. But nothing happened.
 
Well, this could be a problem, I thought, imagining the call I'd have to make to reception, and the engineer coming into my room with his tool belt and a grave look on his face, and me thinking, "Yeah? Well maybe we can't flush a toilet, but we kicked your ass in the last war!" Then I spotted what looked like the classic metal coke bottle opener on the side of the vanity near the toilet. So I fooled with that until I finally heard the comforting whoosh of the toilet flushing. Gee, why didn't I think of that? Why don't they just put it on the wall next to the bed? (Still wondering what all those lights and buttons do. Probably something to do with e-mail. I was probably sending e-mails to strangers when trying to flush the toilet: "Hi! I'm sitting on the toilet in Tokyo." Anyway, I unplugged the toilet so it wouldn't contribute to the heat in the room.)
 
Well, well... Time to order breakfast and start the morning get-ready routine. Who knows what new wonders and humiliations I will encounter as I step out into my first full day in Tokyo. I'll let you know tonight!
 
XXOO
Jb

Yep. It's all true. Wait'll you hear my odyssey related to walking down the street just to get a Starbucks....

 

[dcarver]

Good for you JB! My earlier comment was around the 'in room massage'.. . It's always fun and challenging to be out of your element. You tend to learn quickly that way.

 

[evil_henchman]

When I was in Japan the "toilets" were still in the stone age so be glad for your heated appliance. There seems to be a real fixation with extravigant bathroom fixtures among the Japanese these days. My favorite Japanese restraunt in town used to have a sideline selling these kinds of things. You walk into the stall and it looked like a starship captain's control console. There was an illustrated instruction sheet on the wall and brochures in a basket which included the rediculous prices. Rediculous until after you've had the warm water rinse and hot air blow dry. By that time I was thinking "you know, $1,200 for a toilet really isn't that much...." :blink:

Another thread goes into the toilet

:lol: :lol:

 

[painman]

Cool. Thought you were pullin chain. Any chance to do a tour of the Yamaha plant? If you can send us some pics and be safe. PM. <><

 

[Bustanut joker]

Nah It ain't in the ******* yet, Scab hasn't shown up :lol:

J.B. you ever considered writing?

:jester: