In Japan I’ve been almost everywhere, and I’ve loved almost everywhere I’ve been. So maybe I’m just easy to please. But I haven’t always been this way. Like most expatriates who came here in the 80s all I wanted to do when vacation rolled around was get the hell out. Sure, I did the grand tour when I first got here. I went to Kyoto. Hiroshima. Hokkaido. And Tokyo. Lots of times. Directly to Roppongi on a Friday night, usually. I’ve never seen anything like Roppongi in the 80s. There’s never been anything like Roppongi in the 80s. Not in my lifetime. But traveling in Japan was expensive. A cheap hotel room was 120 dollars when a modest motor inn in America was still $16.99. It was also depressing. Traveling in Japan, I mean. I got stared at more than the sights I was there to stare at. Roppongi was okay for a weekend, though, because 1) I didn’t sleep, and 2) I was usually invisible before I even arrived there.
But given even as little as a week and a half to get away, that’s what I did. In the early years I was going back to America about twice a year. Boston, Washington DC, NYC, New Orleans, someplace new every time I went back.
Then I discovered Asia. For a while there it seemed like every expatriate in Japan was spending his spring vacation in Thailand. One night I even met a girl of the night in Patpong with whom it turned out I had more than one mutual friend from Nagoya. Needless to say, we didn’t do business together. My standards are low, but I do have some. Anyway I preferred Malaysia. Hong Kong. Bali. Singapore. And later on, China and Vietnam.
Then, in the mid 90s when I had a little more money, I discovered the capitals of Europe. London. Rome. Paris. Amsterdam.
I loved being out of Japan. Leaving and coming back were depressing, though. Komaki Airport was a smoke infested environment, first of all. Salary men smoked in line at Customs, even. And the first 15 or 20 times I flew into Komaki Airport I got searched—every single time for 10 years I got searched. They even made a big show of it. It was like a rite of entry for me. And every time I returned to Japan I got the blues. Riding on the bus from Komaki to Nagoya Station made me sick to my stomach. Finally it got to the point that returning was so hard on me I just stopped leaving.
Then one day in a doctor’s office I was looking at a magazine. I saw a photo of a beautiful black castle. I thought it was pretty cool. And in those days, when a guy went to see the doctor, waiting for an hour or two was de rigueur, so I spent the time reading the article. Actually going to see the castle seemed out of the question—I was still of the mindset, not uncommon then, that traveling to Iceland was cheaper than traveling anywhere in Japan for a night or two—but my curiosity was aroused. I learned that the castle was in Matsumoto. I learned that Matsumoto was only two hours from Nagoya Station. I decided to go.
And Matsumoto Castle turned out to be the most stunning building I’d ever seen. And it still is. I go there often. Once or twice a year. I get a room. About 40 dollars. I walk around the castle a couple of time. I have dinner someplace. I have a few beers. I sleep. Then in the morning I get up and I do it all again. And it’s because I did it the first time that I learned to love traveling in Japan. It’s because I went to Matsumoto Castle that day that I’ve since been almost everywhere else in this beautiful country, too.
