Tofu Confront

I'd been to Japan once before, when I flew JFK-NRT on January 1st, 2000, for $199 round-trip. Apparently everyone was afraid that the plane would fall out of the sky because of the Y2K bug. But I wasn't. Frances wasn't either. She came too.

One of the things I remember best from that trip was a tofu restaurant we went to the outskirts of Tokyo. The meal was totally Iron Chef, right down to the soy-milk ice cream for dessert. This time around, the place was exactly as I'd remebembered it-- except for the location.

We took the Yamanote line to Nippori, went out of the station, across the street, and off the map. We were tired and hungry, plus it was raining. Hard. Defeated (and soaking wet), we stepped under the cover of a parking garage and pulled out the Lonely Planet. Then a man in an overcoat appeared in the dark.

"Can I help you?" he asked, in perfect English.

"Yes, please," we said, and showed him the restaurant in the guidebook.

"Follow me," he said, and began to walk. Silently. In the rain. For a very long time. After several minutes, he opened his umbrella for me. I thanked him. He remained silent. We walked some more. And some more.

We began to recognize street names, and eventually came upon the restaurant. We thanked the man again. Again he was silent, but he held open the door and waited for the three of us to get all the way inside.

He turned and walked away, and this time we were silent. Who was this wordless man and why had he bothered to help? About twenty paces away he turned back towards us.

"See ya!" he said, and again disappeared.

Posted by lauren at August 27, 2003 11:28 PM | TrackBack