Japan tour 2018, day 6

Travel from Nagoya to Tokyo, Typhoon before Noon.

I was awakened by the sound of the storm raging outside my hotel. Today, Satoshi and I were supposed to embark on the second part of our tour, traveling from Nagoya to Tokyo. Satoshi had some morning errands to run, so we planned to leave at noon. Gaku and Shunichi, however, had already left Nagoya earlier that morning.

By 10:00 AM, I made my way down to the hotel lobby for my last coffee ritual. A Starbucks was conveniently located just a short distance from the hotel. The weather was rapidly changing, and the rain was now coming down heavily. Satoshi texted me, informing me that our plan had to be changed. It was no longer safe to leave at noon, with the typhoon approaching Nagoya.

Determined not to waste my only free day in Nagoya, I sought information about the Shinkansen train at the hotel desk. However, I soon discovered that all train traffic had been postponed until further notice. There was no escape at this moment. I had to be strong and go with the flow, not letting my thoughts consume me.

I had the pleasure of meeting up with pianist Shota and his wife Shiho for breakfast. They kindly picked me up at 11:00 and it was great to see them again. Two years prior, they visited me during their trip to Europe.

Our conversation was lively and covered a range of topics. This breakfast with Shota and Shiho was the perfect conclusion to the first part of my tour in Japan. Afterwards, they dropped me off at the hotel.

As I needed to check out before noon, I packed my belongings and asked the front desk to store my suitcase and sax in a secure place. The request was met with no issue and I proceeded to explore the storm, capturing it on film.

The weather outside the hotel was becoming more intense with strong winds and heavy rainfall. It eventually became too dangerous to continue roaming, as debris began flying through the air, so I returned to the hotel. I received an update from Satoshi that our departure from Nagoya would be at 6 PM, when the typhoon would have passed.

I spent the rest of the day in the hotel lobby, making video calls to friends back in Holland. At 6:30 PM, Satoshi arrived to pick me up and we set off on our journey to Tokyo. I would be staying in the Takadanobaba neighborhood of Shinjuku, Tokyo for the remainder of the tour.

Takadanobaba is said to be the location of the 9th busiest train station globally. Despite this, it is considered a minor stop along the renowned Yamonote circle line. The area is popular among students, and is referred to as “Baba.” It is not as historic as the nearby areas of Waseda and Mejiro, but instead is known for its student-friendly environment with numerous inexpensive bars and izakaya catering to students from nearby universities such as Waseda and Gakushuin.

The trip to Tokyo was really something else, the typhoon had really hit hard and everywhere you could see the damage it had done. On the news the big story was about a boat that had crashed into the bridge connecting the Kanzai International Airport to Osaka, of course this was a big problem for anybody that was traveling at that moment.

Still the winds were very strong and it was a big challenge for Satoshi to keep the car on the road and I must say, Satoshi is a very skilled driver. We did some stops along the way and around midnight we were getting close to Tokyo and did a final stop. This stop was also good for tour expenses, if you use the highway after midnight it is cheaper and Satoshi was keeping an eye on the financial part of things.

Before Satoshi would drop me off at the hotel I was going to stay we decided that we were in the mood for some late night ramen and naturally Satoshi had something in mind. This ramen shop was open until very late and also did not open that early, kind of a night shop ramen. This shop was very different, all around me there were fish tanks with all kinds of exotic fish, not for eating, just for fun, because the owner likes it. The ramen was one of the best I had so far on this trip and I already agreed with Satoshi to go again. After this late night ramen we drove on to my hotel, the next day we would have a gig in Cloud 9 Narita.