Leaving Tokyo


This evening was my last night in Tokyo, so I went for dinner at Roti, a confusing restaurant over the street from the office. It has either a cornucopia or a hodgepodge of different cuisines; mezze platters, truffle fries, tuna sashimi, burgers, all brought to the table by a nervy lady from Birmingham.

I drank plenty of red wine and then got in a new Toyota Camry taxi, which drove me at warp speed to Haneda airport. From Roppongi to Haneda at that time of night the travel time is less than half an hour, which is less time than it took that dratted taxi driver to get me from Tokyo Station to my hotel on Sunday.

Inside, Haneda doesn’t have the most inspiring architecture; it feels like you’re in an enormous rectangular box with no fripperies to it. I coasted through check in and security, bought my wife some presents at Duty Free (nothing says "I love you" quite like tax-free alcohol bought in haste), and boarded the Singapore Airlines flight lickety-split.

The vegetarian meal is pretty damn revolting on the Tokyo-Singapore leg; foul pasta and grim vegetables. I got ice cream though.

I’ve been watching an awfully mawkish Singaporean film, 881, about a pair of Getai singers, the Papaya Sisters, which is a musical comedy with added leukaemia. It’s a bit messed up, especially as the translator appears to have been taking the piss, or has a tin ear. Typical subtitles while a woman in a shiny frock is merrily dancing and singing are

"The injections made me lose my hair,
The drugs made me vomit"

I think Getai singers are the ones they bring out to make some of the racket at seasonal festivals in Singapore. Something about the dead spirits loving a bit of squeaky gloomy Chinese pop music. If you can imagine Hannah Montana crossed with Mr Vampire, that might come close to this film.

But now the wine is wearing off, and I need to sleep.


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