This is one of the most famous hotels in the heart of Tokyo. There is a beautiful and the busiest subway from Shinjuku station to the hotel that witnessed my first trouble days and my last wonderful days in Japan. I love it so much.
Landed at Narita airport at 5 am, July 1st, 2005, I went directly to Washington Shinjuku hotel on a bus organized by the staff of JICE Tokyo. It took about two hours to reach the hotel so I had time to watch Tokyo in the morning. It was a rainy morning. The sky was covered by a thick cloud. A long country side, I saw houses and buildings covered a half by the cloud. So I said to myself “wait a bit, Tokyo is wonderful”. The bus went to the center of Tokyo. I saw five layers of roads under me, buildings after buildings, skyscrapers after skyscrapers. Well, I had never seen such a big city before. However, I was disappointed by the grey color of all buildings I saw. I had imagined that Tokyo is luminous with many bright and lively colors of buildings that evoke the dynamism and energy of the second biggest city in the world. Later, I learned that due to frequent earthquakes, all buildings are built in a way they can resist to quakes up to 10 degree Richter and therefore they have grey colors. (I don’t know whether it’s true).
I arrived at hotel at 10 am. There were six elevators. Each can carry twenty persons. Well, a thing I had never seen before! After receiving my room key, which is a magnetic card, I went to my room in the 6th floor. The room 615. I opened the door and put my three big travel bags in the room. I turned on the light and looked over the room. First shock: the room was so small that I did not have space to arrange my things. This was a 9-square-meter room with a single bed, a tiny writing table, a small window, a small TV and a small chair. I was completely disappointed. I did not have any space to practice Yoga in the morning (I could not do Yoga in the bed as the rule). Now I went to have a look at the bathroom. Second shock: the bathtub was so small (0,8m long and 0,6m wide). ‘How can I have a bath in such a small stuff?’ Next to the bathtub were a small WC and a tiny wash basin. I bumped my head, my hands and my knees against all things in the bathroom. “What’s a hell here”. I used to stay in four-star hotels in Vietnam with luxury rooms. I could not imagine how my life would be in this small room during the next three coming months. “Tokyo is one of the richest cities in the world. Why hotel rooms are so small and uncomfortable like this one?” I called my friends who stay in rooms nearby. Their rooms were the same. Even two friends had the rooms smaller than mine. Well, I stopped to claim a bigger room and ended up with the idea that Tokyo was expensive so hotel rooms were small.
After having a bath, I walked around the hotel to discover it. The reception was on the third floor. There were 5 computers where internet access is available at 100 Yen (13500VND) per 5 minutes. To me, this tariff was extremely expensive because we live on 1USD per day in Vietnam. I paid 200 Yen to send 2 emails of a line each to my family and my boyfriend (I could not use the Japanese keyboard which is one hundred percent different from the US keyboard). I went to the 25th floor. My ears were hurt by air pressure. There were a coffee lounge Bonjour, a bar and a dining room where people can enjoy around a cup of coffee or a meal while admiring Tokyo at night. On the second floor, there were a tatami room (Japanese traditional restaurant), small shops, Familymart shop (one of Japan’s leading 24/24 retail chains called convenient stores), a copy machine, several cash dispensers of Mitsubishi bank, four microwave ovens, several telephone cabins. On the first floor, there were two hotel entrances where two receptionists in uniform bent 45 degrees to greet customers, a tourism office, waiting rooms, luggage rooms, washing machines, many artificial flowers. In the basement, there were five restaurants, a small concert hall, a spa, a hair salon, a massage room. It seemed that life was convenient here as almost all necessary services were provided at the hotel.
It was lunch time. I looked around all restaurants to find the cheapest one but I failed. All restaurants offered the same price of a lunch set: 1000 Yen (140,000VDN or 9USD). I could not take lunch then. I paid maximum 10,000VND per lunch in Hanoi and minimum 5,000VND. I was not ready to pay ten times higher to have a lunch as my thinking was still based on Vietnamese currency. I was shocked. I hesitated for about 30 minutes. Until was I so hungry that I decided to have a lunch at a small restaurant. About twenty people queued up so I waited one hour to be served. I took a lunch set of rice, sauté beef, Japanese soup, vegetables and Japanese pickles. The lunch was delicious. I was surprised when reading the ticket. A part from classic information (of a restaurant ticket), the energy of the lunch set was printed. My lunch set had 700 calories. My body needed 1200 calories a day. Therefore, I could know that I should choose a dinner set of 500 calories that day. Well, this was an exciting thing. I had traveled to developed countries like France, Switzerland, Singapore but no restaurant ticket had had such information. I thought that life was so much more convenient in Japan.
In the afternoon, I started discovering the vicinity of Shinjuku Washington hotel. I walked along the subway until a gigantic shopping mall named Odakyu where crowds of young people and shoppers covered all space. I got lost among them. I did not understand where to go to so I decided to come back to the hotel and ask for a city map. I walked 6km back to the hotel and passed many luminous shops and restaurants. I ended up with going up a stair and recognized that I was just in front of the hotel. The shops and restaurants I just saw were all underground. What a great thing! I perceived that the Tokyo Metropolitan Building was just in front of the hotel and the NS Building which has 45 floors was at the right. I was happy to stay in the Skyscraper District, the business center of Tokyo.
I stayed in Shinjuku Washington hotel from July 1, 2005 to September 15, 2005. As long as I stayed, I got familiar with my small room and considered it as my home in Tokyo. I no longer bumped against the door of the bathroom or bathtub. Instead, I could put a rice cooker in the bathroom. Cooking was prohibited in the hotel room. The smoke detector in the room could detect a small amount of smoke. Therefore, I decided to cook rice in the bathroom in order to avoid the smoke or steam in the main room. I did not want to get troubles with the hotel by violating the rule. I cooked meat, fish and vegetables in the room on a hotplate. Don’t laugh. I had no choice but to cook in my room to save money on food expenses. As I said before, I could not afford to buy food while spending ten times higher than in my country. Moreover, cooking was a great pleasure and a chance to get used to Japanese cuisine.
My days in Tokyo were quite busy. I got up at 7h30 in the morning. Then, I prepared a lunch box which included rice and meat or fish cooked yesterday evening and vegetables cooked this morning. I had a simple breakfast, which was a small bowl of rice with some meat. I put books, notebooks, the lunch box and a bottle of water in a big backpack then quitted my room. I verified three times my room key before leaving to make sure that I had not leave the key in the room. I made a lot of attention to do this because I had paid three times to get new room keys. I walked very fast to Shinjuku station (10 minutes), took metro in Yamanote line, platform 13 to Takadanobaba station (5 minutes). I walked again 30 minutes to arrive at Waseda University where Japanese courses started at 9.00 am. I stayed at university until 4.00pm. On the way to go home, I did shopping at a small supermarket where I found almost all ingredients to cook Japanese food. I normally came to the hotel at 5.00pm. Being too tired of the day, I took a pause. Then, I cooked dinner, watched news in Japanese (there was no CNN or any English channel), did homework and went for a small walk around the hotel. If my boyfriend was online, I chatted with him until midnight. I went to bed and dreamt….
Every Friday and Saturday night, I went to Shinjuku station. Unknown Japanese music bands and foreign singers went to sing at Shinjuku station and sell their albums. There were normally about ten groups each night. I was very impressed by a Peruvian group who played their traditional music instruments and sang songs in Peruvian language. However, I had never bought a CD. I preferred listen to live music and take it as a part of life in Tokyo. A part from music, I walked around the station to watch people ins and outs. It was impressive that a lot of people stayed there until midnight. They were of all ages, all education levels, and all professions. There were several male and female future tellers who sat behind small lamps waiting for clients. I saw many Japanese people, couple or celebrate, ask the tellers to say about their future. Some were happy and the others were not after short discussions with the tellers. I was curious. I had never believed in future tellers as I believe only in myself. I desperately wanted to make a trial. However, I did not speak well Japanese. So I did not make it. What I had not believed before was that many Japanese people believe in future tellers. I had never imagined that people in a well-developed country like Japan seek to comfort their mind in asking future tellers. Now, I understood that people everywhere in the world need to have a peaceful mind whether they go to the church in Western countries, ask future tellers in Asian countries of believe in God.
I went to visit many places in Tokyo at weekends. I tried my best to discover and understand the country. I did not mind to pay for transportation costs. At first, I visited some places like Tokyo Disney Land, Harajuku, Akihabara with my Vietnamese friends. When I got used to Tokyo’s metro system and I spoke better Japanese, I often went alone. The site web http://www.hyperdia.com helped me to find metro stations, metro lines, times and costs. I took notes before going so I did not get lost. However, I often asked Japanese for direction or advise in order to practice Japanese. All people I encountered were very kind and helpful. They gave me complete information about restaurants, metro timetables, foods and many other things. This practice sped up my integration to the Japanese society.
I often made decorations in my room. I bought an artificial rose and many pins. I put the rose at the right corner of the room, near the window. I printed out my mottos, my life objectives and my principles in A4 papers and clipped them on the walls. A French friend often sent me flowers to encourage me work hard and not to miss my family. I often put flowers in front of the window that I had never opened. I laid my family photos on the writing table. I always had fresh flowers in my room. When I came “home”, the smell of flowers gave me a good feeling and energy after a rude day. I loved my room and tried to make it a wonderful place to live.
Sunday afternoon, July 25, 2005. I was doing my Japanese homework. Suddenly I felt the writing table tremble. Then, it shook violently. The rose felt down. The photos felt down. Papers shook on the table. I could not write. My chair shook abruptly. I did not understand why things are shaking. “Jishin (Earthquake)!!!” – I put a cry. I remembered the first thing I had to do during a quake is to open the door and go under the table. I plunged in the room door and opened it with all my force. The electricity was cut. The hotel manager made a short enouncement, saying that all elevators did not operate and requesting all guests stay in their room until the next announcement. I went under the table when the room was still shaking. I feared the worst. Many images and ideas flied in my mind. “I am still young. I want to live longer. I just stay in Japan three weeks. I not yet know any thing about this country. My family is waiting for me to come back. My boyfriend is waiting for me to build a family. My objectives are not achieved. I don’t want to die in a foreign country.” I cried. Tears went down. Then, I felt that the room stopped shaking. I thought the nightmare was over. I waited under the table. The second announcement said that the shake had stopped and there was no danger because the hotel was built against a quake up to 10 degree Richter. There was no damage in the hotel. No one was wounded. I went out of the table and turned the TV on. I saw an image of Tokyo in the shake. All metro lines and trains stopped. People on the street were shaking. The announcement on the TV assured that there will be no quake after the shake. Fortunately, I was still safe and sound. Anyway, it was my first experience of earthquake. My tears stopped falling down. I believed that I was alive.
I left my hotel room – my home in Tokyo – to go to my business school, the International University of Japan in Niigata prefecture, on September 15th, 2005. I knew that I will come to the hotel again but I will never have this room again. So I took several pictures of my room before packing my luggage. I knew that if I had a chance to have this room, the room 615, again I would not have the same decoration and the same feeling at this moment. All I could say about this room which has become a part of my life was that the room has my footprint and is always in my mind. A new life was waiting for me.
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