The typhoon that I escaped from is now approaching Tokyo. I awake to find that  is hosing it down. As I leave the hotel an old lady comes up to me with an umbrella. She  gifts it to me knowing that I will die without it.

I slosh my way to the subway, my jeans already wet to the knee. I vaingloriously pride myself on my ability to get around Tokyo on the complex but marvelous subway system. This time I blow it and slowly realize that I am not headed to Shinjuku but Braintree in Essex. I jump off on one leg and head back to the city. Unfortunately the car that stops in front of where I am waiting on the platform is a green car. These I now know are more luxurious and justifiably more expensive. A very polite lady eventually arrives and informs me that I am where I should not be. I am then taken off to the ordinary and packed normal carriage. It is like running the gauntlet. Everyone keeps their eyes down as I am guided dripping in disgrace to where I belong.

It is not cold but very wet

I arrive in Shijuku at 12:00. I have a hotel thanks to Naoko but what time can I check in?

Finding a hotel in Tokyo is only possible by taxi. I leave the subway station and stumble around in the pouring rain trying to locate my hotel before I finally get a cab. Even the cab driver has no idea where, in the maze of tiny streets that is East Shinjuku, my hotel se trouve.

We finally get there at about 12:00 and I ask, dripping and sodden when I can take possession of my room.

“Hai!! 3:00”

I skulk in shop fronts

It is lonesome on the streets of Shinjuku in the early afternoon on Sunday with no place to go and the rain pounding down.

The Japanese are masters of umbrella protocol

Why are they not wearing skirts?

So I am afraid that today was washed out.