Tokyo Scrabble (2)

The Odyssey continued on the train. If you don’t believe me, look at the photos. Nothing better to shock the locals than two weird looking foreigners doing strange and suspicious things with a colorful board and some white tiles.




Next stop, an ant-infested park. Like real heroes, we kept on playing, paying in blood our devotion to the god of Scrabble. At least Carmen has nothing to comment here: park, lake, summer night, ME… all the ingredients for a perfect romantic… salad.




My quest for the Holy Scrabble ended (tragically, I must say, because two weeks of parties, walks around temples and Takarazuka plays were awaiting me) at the Shinjuku station. We stopped in a stinky corner, where people gathered to pollute the atmosphere with their cigarettes, and played Blitz Scrabble: 3-minute games. People stopped by and cast curious glances at our boards, but we were so absorbed in the game that I almost missed my bus. I realized I had to go only 15 minutes before the bus was scheduled to depart for Osaka, so I ran to the bus stop. I know, I know, I was running to meet love. I made it there in the nick of time, only to be told by the driver that there was one hour left until departure. No, they were not late and they hadn’t changed the schedule either. I was simply one hour too early. Now, you know about my adventure on the bus, so I’ll end my tale here. Carmen made me promise to give the game report in a separate post, as not to bore all of her friends out of their wits. Enjoy the photos and I’ll be back (for Scrabble players only).

Love in Scrabbleland

As I promised you a few weeks ago, I’m back with news from my clandestine Tokyo trip. The game details are not ready yet (I’m still trying to organize the photos), but I simply had to tell you about my bus adventures. We (read: my wife) decided that we didn’t have enough money and anyway a Scrabble pleasure trip was not that important to allow me the use of shinkansen, so we got tickets to the night bus. The trip to Tokyo was relatively uneventful, if you don’t take into account the fact that it took me about two hours to find the bus station. That says a lot, I think, about my inclination to wander (in Japan or anywhere else).
In a bout of generosity, my wife had bought me for the onward trip the equivalent of a business class ticket, so I could stretch my legs, wrap myself in a blanket and theoretically fall into a comfortable sleep. Theoretically, because apparently the driver used to work on a kindergarten bus, so every hour he would stop and in a booming voice urge us to use the toilet. The first time my sweet dreams were thus interrupted I thought there had been an accident and we were being evacuated; after the second time I started praying that the highway to Tokyo would run out of toilets.
On the way to Osaka I was back to economy and contemplating yet another night of involuntary knee hugging when an elderly gentleman (the future star of the “Prison Break” sequel, “Crypt Break”) suddenly yelled: “That’s my seat!” I checked my ticket, made sure he didn’t have a glass eye, and the driver came to my rescue indicating the seat next to mine. Crypt Break continued the conversation with his imaginary friend: “That’s better! This is the seat I wanted. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.”
Ouch! Now he was talking to me. What do you reply to somebody who addresses you with the polite expression soliciting someone’s favour or good will when you are ready to fall asleep and pray the journey would end sooner? I had no time to reply as he was already enthusiastically shaking my hand. And that marked, like in the movies, the beginning of a beautiful friendship. A night of love and romance, when Crypt Break’s hand “accidentally” found its way on my knee three times. The first two times I politely removed it, but the third I shook it away in a manner that could not be mistaken for gentleness. I was no longer in “Crypt Break”, but in “Attack of the Zombies”! However, I am proud to report that both I and Casablanca revisited (the senior version) left the bus unscathed. Yet a question is now haunting me: does the abundance of hair on my chest make up for the fact that I was holding a pink Snoopy pillow?