Good Fortune in Kyoto

April 1, 2004

Outside the morning of April 1, 2004 broke clear, sunny, and bright in Kyoto, Japan. Inside it was a different matter altogether. Sophie was crying, Valerie was crying, and Catherine was none too happy despite it being her birthday. How did this come to be? Call it fortune, call it joss, fate, karma, providence, Murphy's law -whatever. I have a strong faith in the Almighty, but even if I grant you God's omnipotence and omniscience, I have a hard time believing that He has the time or interest in the day-to-day trivialities that tend to have a big impact on our lives. Especially since most of the difficulties we face tend to be of our own making and I was experiencing the joy of stepping into a big pile of self-made difficulties.

Fortune started in our favor as we left Hong Kong on March 31. As I picked up my vest in which I carry all my valuables in order to head to the airport, all the airline tickets fell out. After retrieving and counting them I found that one was missing. A thorough search determined that I had inadvertently thrown away one ticket as I was throwing away some other items the previous night. If the tickets hadn't fallen from my vest I wouldn't have realized the loss of one ticket until I reached the airport and it was too late. Count one cosmic fickle of fate in my favor! Payback was coming big time.

Fast forward to Kyoto the night of March 31. After arriving late at night and finding our way to our lodging in Kyoto, Sophie became bitterly disappointed. Whereas in most cities where we have been able to secure serviced apartments in advance, Kyoto had none to be found. Rather than stay in a hotel, which we found to be a mistake in Bangalore, we had opted to stay in a modest, but more true to Japanese culture, guest house in Kyoto. This was not a ryokan or traditional Japanese Inn which are very nice and very expensive but instead more like a backpacker's hostel. I had grown up and whetted my appetite for travel by reading "Europe on 5 dollars a Day" and other such fictions and have always tried to travel comfortably yet somewhat frugally despite my tendency for champagne tastes on a beer budget. When we couldn't find an apartment in Kyoto and saw the standard astronomical rack rates for Kyoto hotel rooms during our planned visit, the most crowded cherry blossom period, we looked for alternatives. Catherine found and I readily endorsed a hostel or guest house that offered a traditional Japanese tatami room for all of us. When the children saw this "modest" room along with the shared kitchen, the shared bathroom, and, God forbid, the shared shower, revolution was in the making. To give credit to James and Alex, they were troopers and happy to partake of this experience. Valerie, while unhappy with the accommodations, was happy to be out of a hotel. To be fair to Sophie, she had a friend from school visiting us in 10 days and I can imagine she was a bit embarrassed. Whoever wrote "Europe on 5 dollars a Day" did not have Sophie Lambert as a daughter. Sophie is a daughter that would make anyone proud - intelligent, generous, sharing, kind, humorous, and loving. Cheap she is not. When she saw the humble accommodations at the guest house her world started coming to an end. Hence the tears that started flowing the evening of March 31.

As we tried to sleep that night, Catherine and I found that our room faced on a major Kyoto street and the traffic noise prevented us from sleeping. I pondered many alternatives that sleepless night: looking for a hotel room, toughing it out for three weeks in the hostel, or bagging Kyoto altogether and heading for Tokyo instead which had a number of serviced apartments to choose from. As I sleepily reviewed these alternatives with the children the morning, Valerie started crying at the notion of returning to a hotel. Catherine had the joy of waking up to her birthday after a sleepless night, with two daughters crying, and the prospect of three weeks of children in open revolt. Even worse, since Catherine had made the arrangements for the hostel, I had put her in an untenable position. I felt like a total heel. After an interesting public shower with no towel (this was a hostel after all and you are supposed to bring your own!) I started to wake up and form a plan. One benefit of spending the last two years commuting to my job in New York was that I had accumulated a lot of points with a certain hotel group that happened to have a hotel in Kyoto. Even though their web site showed no rooms available, my experience has always been that a face-to-face discussion always proves more productive. I took Sophie with me, since she was the first person to make happy, grabbed a cab and headed to the hotel. The cab ride there convinced me that heading to Tokyo was not the best solution. The blooming of the cherry blossoms in Kyoto made for a magical scene in this beautiful city. I couldn't imagine having the family pass up the opportunity to witness this.

Fortune favored us at the hotel as soon as I gave my "platinum" number and room availability suddenly opened up. I was able to negotiate, what was for Kyoto, a very attractive room rate for the entire time we planned to be in Kyoto. Even better, we were able to secure one "western" style room and one Japanese-style tatami room that proved to be attractive to all the kids except Alex. We convinced Valerie that this would be a very different hotel experience from Bangalore since we could easily walk from the hotel by ourselves and directly experience the culture of Kyoto. A nearby subway stop made exploring the entire city feasible. Valerie was happy, Sophie was happy, Catherine was happy and I breathed a sigh of relief. The only down-side of this approach is that, since we won't have a kitchen to cook our own meals, we will have to forage for wild berries and mushrooms in the hills outside Kyoto to avoid the high restaurant prices. As we settled into our new rooms, I was able to sit by a window with views of cherry blossoms in full bloom, the evergreen hills of Kyoto nearby, and some of the many temples of Kyoto in the distance. The gentle sounds of a babbling brook made for the perfect scene. Catherine and I enjoyed a private dinner later that evening reflecting on our good fortune.

A final thought and warning for those young men of Seattle that in the future dare to date my daughter: should you make it past the stern father with a shot gun sitting on the front porch, you will find that Sophie is not a cheap date!