Mike left his cozy little ryokan and made his way through Tokyo to Tachikawa Air Force Base via a bullet train.
Once there it turned out that all flights in and out of the base had been cancelled due to an impending typhoon. However, planes were still departing from Tokyo International, so Mike and several other passengers clambered aboard a small Air Force bus attempting to make the journey to the airport.
Streets were already starting to flood. In the gathering darkness, views of lashing rain and men in business suits trying to push their cars to higher ground.
Arriving at the airport: a quick run through customs and a sprint towards the waiting airplane. During the final moments on the tarmac the wind blew Mike’s military cap off and pinned it against a chain-link fence, where it was easily retrieved. Once in the plane Mike looked out the window at the wing: it was flexing up and down as if in flight, but still on the ground.
The flight took off uneventfully, and made its way towards the east, towards the sun. Eventually the brown and wrinkled hills of California appeared in the window and the plane landed in San Francisco.
***
Later it turned out that the Beatles had been turned back from Tokyo because of the typhoon. I hadn’t thought of it before, but that fact helps me to pinpoint the exact month that I was there. (Turns out to be late June.)
What I didn’t reckon on, was finding out that I’ve systematically been putting the wrong year on my photos. Should be 1966, not 1965! So all my Japan entries have had to be changed.
Photo: Ryokan People—Kyoto, 1966
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