Sendai: Be The Reds!

Living in Japan, even in Tokyo, you get used to people looking at you slightly oddly. In spite of the last century and a half of internationalisation, the sight of a foreign face can still be a matter for comment. The people on the train were looking at me more strangely than usual. It was hardly surprising. I was a mess. I was drunk and incoherent, and blood was dripping onto the seats from the middle finger of my right hand. I had spent the afternoon and evening at a friend’s barbecue in the park, and a suitable amount of beer had been consumed. The plan was to go home, get my bag and my tent, and get the night bus to Sendai. Unfortunately I wasn’t entirely sure of the way back to the station, and what seemed like the most direct route involved crossing a piece of waste ground, which entailed climbing over a seven foot corrugated iron fence. If I’d been sober, I’d be considering going to hospital to get first aid and a tetanus jab. On the other hand, if I’d been sober, I wouldn’t be holding my hand up to the other passengers on the train, saying “Look, look, there’s blood everywhere!” A middle-aged man plucked up the courage to speak to the crazy gaijin, and told me I ought to get off the train and get first aid. At the station, they patched me up as best they could with bandages and iodine, but their advice was to go to hospital. “Just a scratch!” I kept telling them. “I’ve got to go and catch a night bus!”