Ayako
Monday, May 14th, 2007
From the train station the diminutive Ayako met us. She is always giggling and we have to travel by her car. As we settled at the back seats, the engine roared and we moved. But there was no one on the driver’s seat! Japan is a right hand drive country which means the driver occupies the right side of the front seat. And Ayako was totally hidden from my view by the driver’s seat. I can only tell that she’s there when she starts giggling. The rough road winds through the mountains on the edge of cliffs. At some point, the road gets so narrow, the car has to crawl inch by inch to negotiate tricky curves. One wrong turn and the car plummets to the rock base below. At one point, while negotiating a blind curve, the car cracked the fragile edges. I saw one tire hang on the cliff, spinning like there’s no tomorrow! (Really, just a stretch of the imagination.) But this road trip is pretty exciting specially when there’s a car coming head on. It always feels like we are going to have a collision. With years of left hand driving, my brain is used to interpret that cars coming at you on the right side of the road is on the wrong lane, and is bound to bump your nuts out. But we somehow reached our destination unscathed, and we have forgotten everything, especially when Ayako started giggling again. At the conference, I met three other Ayakos and Ayakas and Akikos and Akikas, Noriko, Acha, Ezo, Atchushi and Yuichi. Then we visited a Shinto Shrine Asakusa. Ah, I have to get used to these names….
