"I Hate Shimoda"

It is said that when you move to such a different place,  you are bound to have those Love/Hate moments.  So far, I would say I have been enjoying Tokyo.  I miss my friends and family in America but overall, it has been an adventure and I have had a positive attitude....until this weekend...two scenarios reared their ugly heads in Shimoda.

On Friday when I picked up Paddy from the train station in Shimoda at 8pm, I wanted to try a local restaurant in the town.  Being a quaint fishing village, I thought we could bypass the nasty burger and fish and chips at the gaijin joints and have an authentic meal. We had a map of a fish restaurant printed out by Paddy's secretary and when we arrived, it was empty and the man profusely waved his hands in an X sign. We understood none of the Japanese but I got the X.  So we walked back to the first restaurant where we had asked for directions to the "X" restaurant, resigning ourselves to a bowl of noodles. The restaurant seemed full but again, the lady said something terse in Japanese and walked off. No effort to explain why they couldn't seat us.  Not that we would have understood.  Paddy then walked into a bar nearby and attempted to ask if there were any local sushi places; to which he got a few long thoughtful pauses from the men sitting around the counter and then, head shakes.  And they continued to speak Japanese at me as if understood.  I was getting a little annoyed at the whole situation now, namely because I couldn't understand anything despite the Japanese lessons and how could it be that we were at a beachside village and could not get any sushi? 

So we walked back to the car parked near the Aoki Supermarket, at which point I exclaimed, " I HATE SHIMODA." 

Paddy said, "No you don't."

Me, "Oh, yes I do."

Paddy, "Let's try one more place on this corner."

Me, wallowing in self misery now, "No, I don't want to.  What are we doing here?"

Paddy,"Let's look at the window here...and look, it's sushi"

So, it just so happened that we stumbled into a wonderful little sushi place where we had a variety of delicious new sushi, and I was made to swallow my, I HATE SHIMODA comment. Victory out of the jaws of defeat as Paddy would say....

Until Sunday came, when we decided to drive back to Tokyo at 3p. It was a long weekend in Japan so we figured people would be staying until Monday. Our best time has been just under 3 hours on Sunday evening at 8p. Our worse time has been 6 hours leaving midday using the coastal route(0n a map would seem the shortest distance- rookie error). We had promised ourselves we would leave at 8p but for some reason, since the boys looked sleepy, we decidedto have a brain fart and why not put them in the car and they can sleep. So, three hours later, the boys, all three, had indeed slept, and awoke to complete stand still traffic in the mountains, not even half way home yet. There were people getting out of their cars to stretch and change drivers. Pee in the bushes, you name it. I thought to myself, I better see a big nasty accident coming up.  Never did.  Frustrations ran high in the car...here are some choice words from Paddy,

"This is complete Bull*cks. I could stab myself in the wrist. We are so stupid to leave at this time." Ditto, for me, except I wouldn't stab myself in the wrist, eyeball was a better punishment. But then the boys would be orphaned, or maybe not, just left with mutilated parents.

"The Japanese expect this kind of traffic on the weekends, it's all part of their suffering mentality." Hmm, I doubt this is true in the cold light of day post traffic but it sounded reasonable at the time.

"We have moved 5K in two hours, at this rate we will be home tomorrow at 9p." We both contemplated scrapping the drive and turning around, but each time we did, the traffic moved to a 20Km/hr pace.

To end your painful journey reading this, we finally got on the Tomei Highway and hit another one hour delayed traffic. And on the sixth hour of sitting in that car, Conor said, "Need to poop"....Oh no you don't buddy. Please try to hold it in.  He gave me a worried, but understanding face.  A few minutes later, "Need to pee." Conor had a pull up on for long journeys but Paddy wondered if he could pee in a bottle. So there I was in the back seat, squashed between two huge carseats with Conor standing attempting to pee in a bottle, on the worse drive of my life. Could it get any worse? Laughable stuff. Of course, peeing in a bottle proved too nerve wracking for Conman, and so he dribbled a bit and went back to his carseat and fell asleep. When we finally pulled into the driveway 7 hrs after beginning our journey, I just had to think to myself, I HATE SHIMODA. Next time, train onegaishemas (please).