I returned to visit the hotel in March 2007 with my husband. I showed him my room and all convenient services. I even showed him the microwave oven I used to heat rice each weekend (I had not cooked at weekends). He was surprised about the convenience of the hotel that he had never seen in his country.
My last stay in the hotel was from June 28, 2007 to July 2, 2007. During my last days in Japan, I returned to the place where I started an adventure and a discovery of Japan. However, I could not stay in the same room, my “home in Tokyo”. I stayed on the 8th floor in a smaller room. There was no writing table. All other things in the room were the same except the red color of the carpet. However, there were some changes. I could watch CNN and many other English channels. But I did not need to watch English channels because I now could understand Japanese TV. The pyjamas had a new design and looked much softer and more beautiful. The LAN connection was automatic and much more rapid than in 2005. The hotel made a renovation in 2007 to increase the service level and make the hotel more comfortable for foreigners. I was happy to profit all such good services.
I did not decorate my room because I stayed only 4 days. I tried to keep all my habits here such as cooking meals in the room, having a bath in a very hot water (45oC), using microwave oven at the first floor. However, my feeling was not the same as I was hurried to go back to my families in Vietnam and in France. The hotel room was not my “home in Tokyo” but was just a hotel room. I went out the whole day and came back to my room to sleep. I was so busy to visit again Tokyo, to meet with friends and to do shopping.
Before leaving the hotel, I wanted to take something as a souvenir of the hotel that I could keep with me. I asked a cleaning woman whether I could keep a pyjamas with me when I left the hotel. Knowing that I had stayed quite long in the hotel, she told me that I could keep it and she suggested me to take a shower towel where the word “Shinjuku Washington hotel” was printed, and a pair of sleepers. She said that those things had not been free to take away but had been included in the room fees. She also said that by keeping these things I would always recall my life in Tokyo. So I took a long, well-designed, one-piece white pyjamas, white shower towel and white sleepers. Today, I still keep them with me and I have never worn them. They are a part of my beautiful life in Tokyo.
I left Washington Shinjuku hotel at 7.00am July 2, 2007. It was a rainy morning too. Sitting on the bus to Narita airport, I watched the hotel disappearing in the cloud. My tears fell down discretely. I suddenly remembered a saying of a Vietnamese writer “When we stay, it is just a place. When we leave, it becomes our soul”. Many souvenirs of my room 615 flashed in my mind. The lyric and music of the song “La neige au Sahara” that I had listened every evening in the room 615 came to my mind. This was the song of my “home in Tokyo”.
Si le désert est le seul remède à tes doutes
Femme de soleil, je serai ta route
Et si la soif nous brûle, je prierai tant qu’il faudra
Pour que tombe la neige au Sahara
Dis-moi si je peux couvrir tes épaules
De voiles d’or et d’argent
Quand la nuit fera tourner ta boussole
Vers les regrets froids des amants
Perdu dans le désert
Si la poussière emporte tes rêves de lumière
Je serai ta lune, ton repère
Et si le soleil nous brûle, je prierai qui tu voudras
Pour que tombe la neige au Sahara
Si le désert est le seul remède à tes doutes
Femme de soleil, je serai ta route
Et si la soif nous brûle, je prierai tant qu’il faudra
Pour que tombe la neige au Sahara…………….
This was the end of an active life in Japan. A new life will begin without this hotel room. I knew. However, it had become my soul that would follow me in my life. Goodbye my “home in Tokyo”. Goodbye Japan. See you next time.
Life goes on. My hotel room always exists. I hope that no earthquake can damage it so my “home in Tokyo” will be forever.
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