In-Flight Ramble

(Big Danger in Little Osaka #6, 2008)

Well, here we are. The last-minute preparations have been preparated, the heartfelt goodbyes have been felt in my heart, and I am now off. Like chatter-rings and Paul Holmes*, Dunedin is now a mere memory. I’m even having trouble remembering which city Dunedin was now – it’s the flat one with all the racism, right? Of course, all great journeys must start with a single step, and the first leg of my journey was the humble flight from Dunedin to Christchurch. It was a surreal feeling to finally be on my way, and this was only intensified when the stewardess announced that our captain for the evening would be David Bowie. At least, I think she did – looking around the plane, no one else seemed to even bat an eyelid at this outrageous claim. Was I so exhausted from preparing to leave that I was having aural hallucinations? Perhaps, but there was something undeniably Bowiesque about the way that plane was flown.

Now I’m hurtling towards Tokyo, which is perhaps one of the most intense places I have ever visited. Walking the streets is an audiovisual overload, with flashing neon signs, huge numbers of people and an insane amount of stores squeezed into every block. Sadly, I don’t think I will get much of a chance to explore Tokyo this time, as I’ll be spending most of my time in a hotel for an orientation to prepare me for living and teaching in Japan. Thankfully, I hear the hotel is rather swanky and fully air-conditioned, which will save me the embarrassment of having my brain melt under the intense heat and trickle out my ears. (Yeah, it happens.) The orientation consists of a series of speeches as well as seminars on how to cope with Japanese society, with topics including (but not limited to): how to operate vending machines effectively, how to choose the right power-ballad at karaoke and how to eat live octopus without the tentacles attaching themselves to your tongue.

In fact, the schedule for the next few days is so jam-packed that I fear I won’t get a chance to write my column from Tokyo itself. Thus you get this instead, a sleep-deprived ramble written between movies on the plane from Auckland to Tokyo. (Incidentally, I would highly recommend watching Be Kind, Rewind.) There are quite a lot of Japanese people on board the plane and the announcements are made in both Japanese and English, so things are already starting to feel a little, y’know, Japanesey. In the last hour Air New Zealand almost scored another strike against themselves by forgetting my vegetarian meal, but I suspect that someone else may have actually been at fault there. So we’re cool, Air NZ, we’re cool. I do fear using the plane’s toilet though, purely because the sound it makes when I flush is so intense that I fear it will suck my soul down with it. Hmm, perhaps I should get some rest. Next week, I promise this column will have actual stories from Japan. Honest.     

* Obviously, since this column was written in 2008, this was referring to the death of his career, not his actual death. That would've been pretty rough.