MON 05 JUL 99

Reunion With the Big Udon

I wake up. The pale gray sky is blanketing the city. Just a few hours ago millions of multicolored skyrockets had torn holes throughout it and left blankets of smoke and smiling faces all across this country. Now it was 5:25 AM, and my alarm was set for 5:30. When the alarm does go off, I decide to snooze five minutes to the next buzzing, just ‘cuz I woke up five minutes early.

It buzzes again and I obey. An hour and a half later, I am packed, packaged and pacing inwardly awaiting my brother. He has been visiting from New York and has offered to shuttle me to the airport. I kiss my wife adieu, and load my luggage and myself in with my brother.

En route, he plugs his Sony DAT tape recorder into the automobile’s tape deck and starts playing a recording. It consists of fifteen minutes of samplings of sounds made by every imaginable body orifice in every unimaginable way. It ends with an interpretive “piece” that portrays the sounds of maggots munching on…well, whatever it is that maggots munch on.

This is my brother. This is his idea of breakfast for the brain, a treat before a trip. Yep. Birds of a feather…sick (sic) together.

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I check in at United International at 8:00 AM and hike on over to gate 84 to catch the Shuttle to San Francisco. I have been led to believe that this wing of the terminal has been recently renovated. They can’t fool me though, because I know that this is the Southwest terminal. It’s the carpet that gives it away—it looks like half-slices of melted cheddar cheese have been scattered across a wall-to-wall bowl of blue corn tortilla chips with an occasional strip of sun-dried tomato thrown in.

I sit down at the end of a row of four seats facing the floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over the tarmac to the facing gates of the next terminal wing. The area between is full of planes taxiing up, being towed out, and parked at gates. For every plane, there must be at least five other vehicles scooting about, around and under the big silver birds.

Suddenly a red paramedic truck whizzes by, coming from the direction of the runway and racing towards the service bays of the terminal. Its siren wails in silence, made mute by the layers of acoustical glazing. A few minutes later, a page is repeated: “If there is a priest or minister in the house, please report to gate 80.”

Poor soul. I do hope that whoever it was had just landed. Then they would have the unique distinction of departing while arriving.

I realize I should be writing this down. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring notepaper with me. I go to the terminal gift shop. Amazingly, they do have paper pads. Let’s see, there’s one pad of 100 8½ x11 sheets for $4.95 and another of 100 5x8 sheets for $11.95. I guess the smaller pads are more valuable because the thoughts set down on them will be more concentrated.

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I board the shuttle and sit down at 4H, my assigned window seat. Rows 1 and 2 are first class; the rest is 3 by 3 coach seating. I’m trying to figure out my seatbelt. Whether buckled or not, I can pull the strap completely out of the buckle. In other words, if the plane started to bounce around, instead of being restrained, I would be flying through the cabin. I’m tellin’ you; it’s a conspiracy.

A thirty-/forty-ish couple with a one-year-old slide in beside me. They barely sit down when he starts to complain about his book getting wet from the condensation on her water bottles in his carry-on. The two of them spend the remaining time until take-off fishing around in their bags and bundles of baby stuff. The kid starts squirming. The mother pulls out a picture book and baby talks through the pages. The father, a truly enlightened yup, unclips the air-phone in front of him and hands it to the kid to play with. I almost suggest that I join in—I could push the window blind up and down whenever Daddy presses the phone buttons. The kid would think he was channel surfing.

A stewardess suggests I move to another row that has only two seats, since it is adjacent to one of the wing exits. Much as I love the view, I also love my neighbors. I move once the seat belt light is turned off and let him use my malfunctioning seat belt. By that time we are starting our descent into San Francisco. Bounce, baby, bounce!

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A short distance from the shuttle gate is an escalator that wafts me up to the mezzanine where the Red Carpet Club has its nose thrust into the stratosphere. Mind you, somebody gave me assurances at LA ticketing, that I could tread on the hallowed Red Carpet in both LA and SF. The gatekeeper at SF looks down her nose as it wrinkles in a way that implies I have not bathed since birth. I am embarrassed, humiliated. With trembling hand and stuttering voice I extend my ticket up to the dais. She peers down. Eventually she realizes that I am bound for overseas and therefore a citizen (albeit temporary) of the elite. I am once again adjudged socially irredeemable and subject to the saturational privileges of the well heeled at the well as well as the swell heels. Hey, I’m with the big boys now!

I establish my credentials by opening up my laptop. “It’s a Small World” plays when Windows fires up. So I’m sittin’ here, poundin’ out the prose, and does anybody look? Does anybody turn electric green with techno-envy? Apparently not. The lounge empties out during the lunch hour—mini bags of pretzels do not make a good meal.

Anyway, it’s time to go. And go. And go. And go…

If the lounge is in San Francisco, then the International Terminal has got to be in Sausalito. But I make it on time, and settle in next to Kevin in the upper deck. Lunch/dinner is served shortly and we talk a bit. We wonder who the fellow is on the other side of the aisle by the window. He has talked about himself and his opinions for over two hours running—and we still don’t know what he does. Amazing.

It’s only 3:30 PM LA time, dinner is over and everyone is preparing for nappy-time and lowering their window blinds. I check out the scene downstairs. There are still some daylight holdouts in the rear section. I go back up, grab my stuff and resettle downstairs next to the galley. The stewardesses try to discourage me, claiming this is the noisiest part of the plane. Maybe, but “I’m not here to sleep, so please keep the noise up.”

Most importantly, I get to keep my window blind up. I’ll be sleep-deprived when I get to Osaka, but at least I won’t be awake and tossing in the middle of the night, or jet-lagged in the morning.

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I check into the Hilton. There is a message from Shim to call. I do, but he’s left the office for the day. I figure I’ll call him a few minutes later when he gets to the hotel. I go out to the Hanshin Department Store and its Le Bihan bakery to stock up for tomorrow’s breakfast. When I get back, another message from Shim states that he won’t get back until late. So I head out to dinner alone.

I’m feeling the lack of sleep, so I decide to try someplace close at hand that I haven’t tried before. I try the Ninikuya Goemon (06-6343-7104). It is located in the Herbis Plaza basement restaurant court next to the Ritz-Carlton. Niniku means garlic, and I want to be mean to vampires tonight.

An English-language menu is available. There is a full range of dishes, from appetizers, salads, pastas, pizzas, as well as meat, poultry and seafood entrees. In other words, a typical Californian café menu—except for the fact that almost everything features garlic. I place my order and sip on some Albana Di Romagna ’96 Tremonte. It is pleasingly crisp, cool and dry—everything that the weather outside isn’t.

While waiting, the décor starts to penetrate my dozing brain. Right in front of me are several oblate green shapes peek-a-booing through some rectangular cutouts in a stucco wall thing. Abstracted cactus pads? The bottles of Chili Beer and Corona longnecks above the bar, and the peeler-log beam ends protruding from the opposite wall clue me in that this is Southwestern. Hopi zigzag motifs, painted steer skulls, and desert colors complete the metaphor. Icing on the cake is a poster for Fruits Margarita—750ml for ¥2000. Only fate could take me from a Southwestern carpet in a LA airport waiting room to an Osaka restaurant at the other end.

The appetizer of vegetable spring rolls arrives. My vegetarian sensibilities require a slight bit of editing. Namely, I have to unravel the fresh won-ton skins to remove the shrimp that translucently glow through the wrapper. Then I remove the julienne slices of ham from the cut ends. Left in the wrappers are shredded iceberg, cucumber and rice noodles. And now I have with what I ordered. I am also left with a mess on my plate and a lot of stares from adjacent tables. A garlic infused dipping sauce accompanies the four rolls.

Next up is the Deep Fried Garlic. This turns out to be a regular garlic head sized bulb of elephant garlic, consisting of 8 large cloves and no small ones. The cloves are soft and sweet as in a baked head. An unsweetened plum sauce, chutney-like in thickness, makes an excellent condiment for the dish. The similar softness of the two nevertheless contrasts as warm and cool, slightly salty and slightly sweet, pungent and perfumed. A subtle dish that needs to be slowly savored. A tea ceremony, if you will, for those that prefer to wield a club.

Lastly there is a simple dish of spaghetti with sliced garlic sautéed golden-brown in olive oil with hot chilies and a touch of parsley. The pasta is perfectly al dente and I am perfectly satisfied. Except, that is, that I am too tired to order the garlic ice cream.

Something to look forward to next time.