The beginning of adventure: I was going to roam around Tokyo on my own and find my way around the subway. It appeared daunting at first: many stations use nothing but Kanji for signs and ticket vendors; it is easy to get confused between the local and express, Yamamote and Tokyo Toyoko lines, train and subway. But I pride myself on my resourcefulness, and with the help of my sketchbook where I plotted the lines in English and Kanji, and of the impeccable Tokyo signage system, I was feeling at home in no time.

So it was that on that first exploration day I went to visit my cousin Carlos who had been in Japan for about a year, since he had become the CEO of Nissan. I was supposed to meet his wife Rita at Daiken-yama station not far from Shibuya, so I made a little detour to return to Takasihmaya first. The mall's basement is a huge supermarket where I wandered for an hour among the most incredible packages I had ever seen. I felt like Alice in designer wonderland! The streets of Tokyo everywhere are lined with row upon row of vending machines that offer anything from drinks to hot noodles, and I made an abundant use of them -- purely for the packages. I brought home 15 cans that had contained iced tea, flavored water or such. Tasting them was an act of bravery: there's absolutely no way for a foreigner to know what's inside them.

I had dinner with them and when I took the train home it was nearly 11 at night. That in itself was ok -- Tokyo is a safe city and I felt no discomfort at being alone on the streets at night. However, I had made a mistake: I hadn't noted our apartment's address and phone number, so that in case I got lost, I could show them to someone and get guidance. And get lost I did! I came out of the deserted Ôkubô station on the wrong side and found myself in a completely unknown neighborhood. Where to go? There was a very, very long, dark alley on one side, and something told me to follow it. It took me several minutes to reach the end of it, and then I was on a main street -- better, but still unknown to me. Again I followed my intuition and walked left: if I was right I would soon see Wendy's, and know where I was. Several minutes later I did find Wendy's, to my relief, and made it safely home.

As swordsmanship fans, Anne and I had set the morning aside to go to the Japanese Sword Museum (Nippon Bijutsu Tôken Hozon Kyûkai). Getting there was no small feat. After walking in circles for a while we asked our way inside an expensive-looking pottery shop. The elderly gentleman showed enthusiastic courtesy, going so far as to make a color photocopy of a map he had for us. That map was scary-looking to me. Japan doesn't use street names, but rather chops the city into areas, themselves divided into smaller areas, etc. The smallest units are numbered, and the numbers are not necessarily next to each other. We made it nevertheless, and I was surprised to see such an important museum so discreet, almost hidden in the maze of small streets of a residential area. It is small, with just a single exhibition room, but it contains national treasures.

It is when I got home and told Tacchan I had been to Ôji that I realized how far I had been. His reaction was: "Ôji?? What on earth took you all the way to Ôji?"