On My First Day in Japan -- I Threw Up On the Train

"Ana-san, do you have a bag at all?" I asked.

Actually, it was: "Ana-san, per caso, hai una busta?" Because Ana-san didn't speak English-- she only spoke Italian and Japanese.

My mom looked on helplessly. My eyes traveled between my mother and our friend, as the train we were on swayed rhythmically beneath my feet.

"Perché?" she asked me. "Why?"

A pause.

"You're really pale." She said, after a moment.

I felt like shit.

It was the end of November 1999. 24 hours prior to this moment, I was in a plane traveling from my hometown in Australia, to Tokyo, Japan. It was my first visit to Japan. And it was a long flight because there are no direct flights from where I live to Tokyo. This made the entire flight time something like 13 hours. Being in transit 13 hours isn't really very fun. I've done much worse since-- like over 28 hour transit when I went to America, but it never gets easier. I have a weak constitution at the best of times, and even though we barely changed time-zones, I was incredibly fatigued when we arrived at Narita.

I didn't want to be in Japan. I didn't want to be anywhere, really.

I was 17 at the time; my Dad had died just a year prior. We were really feeling his absence, especially since it was nearing the end of the holiday season. It was then that my Dad's best friend growing up called us from Japan. He proposed we spend Christmas there with his family so me and my mother wouldn't be alone this year, again.

My mother didn't want to go, and I didn't want to go.

Despite being a somewhat obsessive fan of anime, specifically Sailormoon-- I had no real interest in Japan. The only thing I liked about Japan -- at the time-- was anime. And well, I wasn't stupid; I knew that while anime was mainstream in Japan, the notion of anime as I knew it differed to the Japanese. For one thing, anime was just short for animation, all animation. So I already knew I wouldn't be seeing Sailormoon everywhere I went-- I mean, the show was already finished over there. And I already realized what an 'otaku' was-- so that for anything specialized relating to a particular show or hobby, I'd need to go specific places, like in Akihabara.

And I didn't want to be that sad, teenage weeaboo, going to Japan for solely for anime, either. It just seemed so kind of... try hard. So I was perfectly happy to just watch anime in my own little corner of the world; and pretend I was Usagi and that my Mamoru would come sweep me off my feet one day, and other deluded fantasies homely 17 year old girls have.

Because of course, somehow that's a lot less sad, right?

As for my mother,  as a chic European woman, she's always mostly been into chic European countries, not Asian ones. All she knew about Japan she learned from my Dad -- he went there in the 70s because he had business ties to Nikon. He went with his best friend growing up and this was the guy that had invited us. In fact, that was the trip that compelled his friend to to get married and immigrate to Japan. Not because he fell in love with the place,  (I actually doubt he even liked it at times) but because he fell 'in love' -- with a Japanese woman. She was everything he wanted her to be, he said. For a while. And basically we found out later it was the same for her, more or less-- she thought he was something he wasn't; she basically spilled her heart out to me and my mother when her husband wasn't around. I can't say their relationship lasted. Oh, they're still together forty years later... but I still can't say that lasted. It's not so much 'in love' anymore as 'in toleration' -- even when I went 12 years ago, I was surprised they were still together-- all their children had grown up, and they absolutely loathed each other with a passion I've rarely seen before or since. It was tense. I went to Japan again in 2011 and I couldn't even bring myself to visit them again this time around, because the atmosphere in that house was... fucking scary, to not put a too fine a point on things. By this point all their kids had married and moved, so I can't even imagine what it would be like today. Two homicidal 70 year olds, cooped up in a house together with no kids at all? With only each other to focus all their loathing?

Fantastic.

So anyway, at the time my mother didn't really care to know about Japan, really. So she wasn't that enthused, either. We verged on declining.

He'd pay, he said.

...

So there we are, on the plane to Japan...

....We weren't stupid enough to turn down a free trip, obviously.

So we get there, and we're tired, and I'm completely unenthusiastic. Don't worry, I actually got over this really fast. I loved my visit, and I love Japan -- despite my extremely abysmal beginning. So, my Dad's friend picks us up from Narita and as we drive back to his place, hours away, I think;

"Oh shit-- I've just arrived in Japan and I'm going to fucking die in a car accident."

.... it wasn't the last time I thought this. My Dad's friend drives like a fucking maniac. This is an understatement. He not only drives like a maniac, he is completely overcome by road-rage most of the time. Complete with rolling down the window, swearing in Italian while simultaneously leaning on the horn, somehow. "STROOOONZOOOOO!"  Meanwhile bewildered Japanese drivers stared in bemusement at him.

Ah, the universal language of completely 'batshit crazy' needs no translation.

We arrived in one piece-- thankfully, but we did little besides sleep that night. Sleep didn't come easy to me, despite my fatigue. It actually never does; I can be dead tired and still have problems sleeping all the time. Especially when I'm stressed.

"Ohayo gosaimasu" they taught me to say, that morning. Like the place in America, they said. "Just think 'Ohio'"

Ana-san said she'd take us shopping that day. It was about 9am when we got to the train station, which was about 10 minutes from their house. We were living in Kinshicho, which is in Sumida ward -- almost like out in the boonies. It's actually near where the new Tokyo Sky Tree was built. As a point of reference, the Sky Tree is actually taller than Tokyo Tower but you can't even really see the Sky Tree when you're in Tokyo proper. In fact, when I returned to Japan in 2011, we went up Tokyo Tower and I couldn't even really see the Sky Tree from the Tower. It was too foggy. So we weren't even sure if the Sky Tree had even been built yet. It wasn't until we went back to Sumida that we went; "oh yeah, there it is." It's actually gigantic.

Like in a bad documentary, the train workers pushed us into the train that morning. As if we were a can of sardines-- to get the doors closed. They pushed me into some balding dude with a penchant for tweed. Great. I remember  wondering if I was going to get groped-- like in the hentai that I was supposed to be too young to look at or know about-- but regardless knew about and had seen. I looked around, kinda hoping there would be at least a cute young businessman I could entice to grope me but again, it was all middle aged salarymen. Dammit.

I can't remember where we got off, where we went, or what we saw. I just remember walking. Browsing. Walking.

Walking... and more walking. All I remember is fucking walking.

I wasn't a walker. I actually am now, I can walk 12 hours straight and not get all that tired. I'm like a fucking wind up toy. You just set me off and I can keep going and going. As long as I'm moving, my feet don't hurt. But at the time, I was not accustomed to walking for long periods, to say the least.

Suddenly it was 1pm, and we'd been walking all day. We'd bought nothing. I can't even remember where we, what we saw, or where or where Ana-san took us. After a while, Ana asked if we were hungry.

Me and my mother had been beyond starving for hours now but we'd been to polite to tell her so. We had fish for breakfast. Pure protein at 8am didn't really go very far in terms of energy. We were running on empty. She asked us what we felt like, and we said we didn't mind.

That's when Ana-san said; "I don't eat rice."

Well, fuck.

There goes 70%  of the choices offered to us.

We asked her why. She said she was a rice free, wheat free, and gluten free diet. She wasn't eating carbs if she could help it. Or bread. For her skin, she said. She had a theory carbs were flaring up her eczema.

Okay.

Well, you pick, then, Ana-san.

"Oh, hmm...."

... and thus began the two hour odyssey into finding a place to eat.

...

This is a generalization, but Japanese people tend to be slightly, um, indecisive. I'm personally an indecisive person myself, so the combination wasn't too good. For all my indecisiveness, though, I have never faced indecisiveness or pickiness like that in my life, ever-- or since, really. The indecisiveness mixed with a fear of offending us meant we wandered around for what seemed like forever, deciding on a place to eat.

Nothing was good enough to Ana-san. Oh not this place. Oh I can't eat that. Oh they have rice bowls with that, Oh that one has noodles.

Jesus Christ.

And she fucking lived there-- and had to eat that shit every day. Meanwhile the two foreigners are trailing behind her going, 'fucking give me food. I AM DYING'

I was fucking dying. Okay, I wasn't. I was chubby and 17. But I was fucking hungry.

By the time we ate, it was almost 3. We picked a place because the guy outside was young, and handsome.

.... he really was cute. Goddamn you, beautiful people! With your wily charms.

I remember what I ate, too. Me and my mother both had steak and a baked potato. Ana had some crazy freaking thing wrapped in cabbage. Ah, looking it up, it looks like it was definitely "rouru kyabetsu" -- so the restaurant was some kind of westernized place. Ironically we had to sit Japanese style, though.

I can't do the 'tuck your legs beneath you' demurely thing, so I always sat like a dude with my legs crossed. It was probably really uncouth, in hindsight. Well, that's part of my charm, as I always say.

Suddenly, I was really full even though I hadn't eaten. My mom had to finish half my steak; and it was tasty, so I was annoyed. Actually I had a bad temper back then, so I was pretty fucking pissed off at this point. I didn't understand why we'd walked and seen nothing and bought nothing. We'd been out walking seven hours. It was brutal. I was so tired I couldn't even eat. Everything hurt. Fatigue radiated from every pore in my body. I wanted to sleep.

We decided it was late, and it was only our first day--so we should go home. We headed for the station, and boarded the train.

Bad idea.
 
I think it was only about 10 or 20 minutes into the ride when nausea hit me.

Sometimes, I get nausea. I've had it for a lot of my life. Usually it's fleeting and goes away quickly. Sometimes when I get cold my digestion shuts down, or certain smells can trigger it. For example, the smell of certain airplane food gives me nausea.

I swallow a couple of times. Maybe it's temporary. Maybe it'll go away.

I can feel the blood slowly drain from my face.

My saliva is pooling in my mouth, readying my system for projectile expulsion.

This is not a drill.

Remember when I said we bought nothing that day? Yeah, that was foreshadowing;  thanks for paying attention. We had nothing. I had no bags with me, plastic or paper or otherwise. All three of us were empty handed, and I could feel waves of nausea overcoming me.

"Mamma," I say, swallowing another mouthful of saliva. "I feel sick."

She glances at me, and instantly blanches. I must have looked fucking horrible."Are you going to throw up?"

I think about it for a second.

Yes, I decide. I am very definitely going to throw up today.

She looks at me, horrified. She's rummaging through her bag. "I don't have anything for you to go in," she says, in a panicky voice.

We turn to Ana-san. "Do you have a bag?" She stares at us. "She feels sick," my mother adds, gesturing to me. Almost as if it's contagious-- Ana-san also gets the same horrified panicky look on her face my mom has. "You look pale," she says. She also goes through her bag, looking for a soon-to-be-vomit receptacle.

Me, I'm beyond panicking. I feel so fucking sick at this point that I'm almost stoic. I don't care anymore; I just want to feel not-sick. The motion of the train is not helping me one bit-- I can feel it almost building up in my throat, threatening me and everyone else in that God-forsaken train.

Miracle of miracles, it was a really empty train that day. We were standing, even though there was an abundance of free seats.  In our end of the train there was only about seven people, including us three.

I watch the landscape shoot by out the window, willing myself to not be sick. It really isn't working. My mother and Ana are going through every inch of their bag.

"There'll be a station soon," Ana says hopefully.

I looked at her skeptically.

If you've ever been to Tokyo you know that the trains are super efficient and super fast. There is a station every five minutes, usually less-- pretty much any which way you go. The time to wait is never long between stations.

... but I didn't have five minutes.

I willed the train to go faster.

.... shit. I didn't even have two minutes.

I felt clammy. Saliva was building up in my mouth again. I didn't want to swallow it this time because I was afraid it would make me gag.

I glanced around, dread building up inside me, in addition to the nausea. I really didn't want to vomit on the floor of a Japanese train. There were three perfectly nice people sitting there near us. Fuck. I felt horrible at the realization that I'd need to do it. I had no other choices or options left to me. I couldn't hold it in any longer. There. The corner. There wasn't anyone in that corner.

Was this going to be it? Was I going to vomit on the floor in a perfectly immaculate Japanese train?

Jesus.

Just as I was envisioning the revulsion of my fellow passengers at this strange young chubby gaijin girl expelling all the contents of her stomach on the floor, my mother cried out.

"Ah!" she exclaimed. "I have a bag-- I forgot, we bought film for the camera today." It was a small plastic bag. She whipped the film out, handing the bag to me.

In that instant-- as she opened the bag-- it was like I heard angels singing from within.

So of course, I vomited all over them.

I was too far gone to hold it; I had used every single ounce of willpower up to that moment to not throw up on the floor. The bag was my salvation. I clutched to it for dear life as I convulsed over it.

To say I took the train by surprise was an understatement. All eyes shot to me. I didn't really care. All I cared about was evacuating the contents of my stomach as quickly as possible. There was a bag. It was being used for my puke and it was holding. That's all I cared about in that instant.

As I finished, my throat burning and my eyes watery, I wiped my eyes and looked around. I must have looked pathetic. An old Japanese lady looked at me in concern. She got up slowly, and offered Ana-san another small bag.

I appreciated the gesture, but I wasn't sure what she was trying to say with it. "Here, she looks like she has a lot more in her. Have this bag."

A guy asked if I was okay. He gave Ana one of those small packs of tissues you get free on the street corner. I can only imagine what he said and what everyone was thinking.

Probably things along the lines of; "not another drunk foreigner," and "is she contagious? She should have worn a face mask."

I will say they were all really kind towards me; and the myth of the uncaring Japanese person who keeps to himself is just that, a myth. I was really touched by the kindness they offered me that day.

Or maybe they were all relieved I hadn't vomited on the floor of the train. That I could take my vomit filled bag out with me. 

Which we did, at the next station.

Which probably only was five minutes away, but felt like it was half an hour away. I can't even remember the station, but it didn't matter. We thew away my puke (which had been double bagged) and they asked if I felt better.

I did, but I didn't feel well enough to get back on another train. You know when you just know it's not over? Even though the entire contents of my stomach were in the bin at some random Tokyo station and I had nothing left in me-- somehow I knew.

I refused to leave 'solid ground' until I had another 'safety' bag, ready, just in case. The feeling of panic at : "okay I might need to puke on the floor of a train," wasn't a feeling I wanted to duplicate ever again. Thankfully, I didn't puke again-- on the train that is. But I was right to be cautious-- when we got back to their place, I actually didn't stop vomiting that entire night.

Lucky me.

Steams of bile, bitter and yellow-green, came out of me pretty much every hour without fail. Until I fell asleep from sheer exhaustion at about 2am and slept through the rest of the night.

They had thought it was food poisoning; but it didn't make sense for a myriad of reasons. One, Japanese are kind of particular about cleanliness so it didn't seem likely that the food was contaminated. Two, the stuff barely had time to be digested. Three, my mother had shared my meal and she was fine. Also, I felt fine the next day. I was fine. I was able to eat everything with no problems-- and I felt great. My trip was fine after that. It was amazing, actually. Also, I've had gastroenteritis since then, and it wasn't the same kind of feeling, either. Having an actual tummy bug is worse; your body feels weak all the time, fatigued and flu-like-- in addition to both ends going (which mine didn't). It's horrible. What I had wasn't the same feeling at all. And believe me, I have thrown up a lot in my life.

What can I say? I'm kind of a master when it comes nausea and puking. A girl's gotta be good at something, right?

Only later did I realize it was probably Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome, probably brought on by stress and fatigue. A few years later, the same thing happened to me, with the same exact symptoms. And there's a connection between migraines and CVS and I already know that my migraine trigger is lack of sleep. It gives me auras, cluster headaches and photo-sensitivity.

Thing is, when I get stressed, or something really bothers me, I tend to lose a lot of sleep over it. I try not to be a worrier, and I'm mostly laid back--I'd say most things don't bother me-- but when something important happens, I become a churner. I was going to say, "I'm a tosser," but that doesn't sound right, hmm.

I'm an introspective person to say the least, so it can be really difficult to turn my thoughts off and not worry about things that hurt me. This is why I hate miscommunication. Because if things are unclear and I'm left to my own devices, I tend to over-think and not get over things easily. Things are worse when you don't know the reason why they're happening-- nor how to fix them.

But I can literally worry myself sick. That's kinda awesome, if a bit messed up.

But it's not all bad. At least I can always say; "On my first day in Japan -- I threw up on the train."