Lost in Japan

In the Fall of 2017, my parents gave me a call explaining that they would love to visit me here in the United States. I thought that for them to make a long trip that consists of two flights, one over the whole country of Russia and another over the Atlantic Ocean, would be too much to ask for my short Thanksgiving break. Instead, I proposed a trip to Japan, a country that I had not travelled to before, but a country that my parents had visited 25 years ago, before I was even born.

Japan it was then, I thought. I sat down to create an extensive itinerary, while also asking some of good friends for recommendations. While the city of Tokyo has an endless list of things to offer, there was one part in particular that drew my attention. It was a branch of the Rapha Cycling Club (RCC) that I am a member of here in Los Angeles. Rapha allows its members to rent its extensive fleet of top of the line road bikes for at an affordable price. I immediately signed up for a two day bike rental to explore the hidden gems of Tokyo.

Not only I got to rent the bike, but the local team of the RCC members decided to show me around. And here's the anecdote. Imagine a team of four cyclists, but it's not an ordinary group of people. One member is a Japanese young man into his early thirties, who lived in London for the majority of his life and thus speaks beautiful British English and distinct Japanese, that the locals don't always understand. The other Japanese man has lived in Japan for all of his life and has not gotten to learn English besides the basic phrases, such as "hello" and "thank you." Additionally, there was a girl in the group, who was an international student from Ukraine, studying in Ukraine. She spoke fluent Japanese, quite fluent English with some Slavic accent and, of course, fluent Russian. And last, but not least, was I, who spoke only English and Russian, and only knew a few key phrases in Japanese, such as "arigato gozaimasu" and "konnichiwa", which stand for "thank you very much" and "hello", respectively. Nonetheless, our group of four riders, who were all coming with different backgrounds and sometimes were not even able to communicate clearly, were able to sneak into the backstreets of some famous Tokyo's shopping districts, top universities and delicious coffee shops. We made our trek to a hidden popular candy shop that only accepted cash and where one can only communicate in Japanese. As the sun started to rise and all I could see were the waves of Japanese workforce swiftly walking to their offices. At last, we made a stop at a warm coffee shop, where we got to refresh ourselves with some delicious, but, most importantly, hot coffee. I forgot to tell you that the temperatures were reaching close to the freezing point (32 F or 0 C).

If you were to ask me how my Thanksgiving break went and what were some of the most memorable memories from it, I would, of course, mention this story of a four cyclists of different backgrounds, who all shared one passion for cycling and adventure. I would also explain to you all the different mouthwatering meals that I had in Japan with my parents, but that would be a story for the time.