08 Well, See Ya Later

Tokyo is clean; Tokyo is beautifully clean. There aren’t streams of trash flowing beside the roads and there aren’t roads of garbage parked in the streams. You don’t see shoes hanging on power lines or gum standing on sidewalks. The mentality is different—the homeless people stack their manga neatly.

This is surprising though.

It’s surprising because a lot of trash circulates through Tokyo. Every item is wrapped and every package is container-ed and every container is bagged. If you buy a meal from a convenience store, for example, you will end up with a lot of trash. You will end up with more trash than you expected. Once you pull everything out of the bag, open up the containers and unwrap the items you will have created a plastic heap that is crumpled, uncontrolled and rough-around-the-edges. It’ll all fit back into the bag very poorly. Despite all this trash though, Tokyo is clean.

This is surprising.

It’s surprising because finding a trash receptacle in Tokyo is rare. Sometimes it’s more rare than the second actor on Polk-a-Dot Door finding Polkaroo.

We walked around Shinjuku station, on our second last day together, looking for a garbage can. We couldn’t find any. We looked for a gaijin with an open backpack, but they all had little locks on their zippers. We carried our trash with us.

This was the last full day of our Great Meeting. We started it off by going to the Imperial Palace, which is closed to the public 363 days a year—this particular day unsurprisingly fell within that 363 day span. You can book a guided tour if you really want, but guided tours aren’t for people nearing the end of their Great Meeting. We took all the same pictures that everyone who has ever been to the Imperial Palace has taken and we headed to Asakusa to take all the same pictures that everyone who has ever been to Asakusa has taken. Mostly.

Of all the flytraps in Tokyo, Asakusa must be the biggest and stickiest—there is a constant gaijin-buzz, and the streets are littered with their corpses. There’s about a hundred and fifty meters of souvenir shops perpendicular to a giant temple’s mouth. It’s as if the Japan Tourist Association caused the temple to puke in order to have it licked up by flies. Spiritless x Costly, Booo.

We got lucky though. There was a big festival happening and the place was packed with locals and food tents—I often found someone else’s face in my armpit. Some of the people from Tokyo were there. We walked around and Chris bought beer. I know he secretly loved the beer. He would probably mow your lawn with his teeth for ten bucks if you asked.

We ended the day in Roppongi—a place that used to be known for its low standards in seediness, but is now known for its high standards in seediness. Roppongi has become the rich person’s home-for-the-night. It’s filled with high-class nightclubs, bars with tall chairs and restaurants with long lines. We ate at 7-11.

And that was that. That was the second last day.

Then it was the final day—the last day of our Great Meeting.

We spent most of it quietly. We talked about Australians: smuggling budgies at the beach and taking slashes in the toilet. We listened to the newest Pillows album, and we talked about Kaori for a moment.

That day, the last day of our Great Meeting, we picked up my luggage from Daiki. Chris was direct; he asked one question that if answered positively would explain everything.

Does Kaori have a boyfriend?

Yes.

Kaori and I never dated. We were never boyfriend and girlfriend, but we did like each other. That was two years ago. It was my view that we were good friends—her recent actions, of course, didn’t seem reciprocal.

Chris and I talked about this for ten minutes, more or less, and our response was:

Well, see ya later.

More or less.

The last day of a Great Meeting shouldn’t be wasted. We spent the last of our time before our departure to Tokyo Station uploading pictures to Facebook and ripping music to our iPods…

Sometimes, I’ve heard, Great Meetings have tremendous climaxes with great change and great resolution. They end in slow motion with lots of time for reflection and discussion. This is not always true. A Great Meeting can be great based solely on the circumstances of it all—two brothers meeting halfway around the world, for example.

And that was that; it was the end—Chris on his way to Sapporo and me on my way to Narita Airport. I began work the next day. Great Meetings, I’ve heard, usually end with great words, and in this way ours was no different. We quoted Dumb and Dumber:

Big Gulps, eh? Well, see ya later.