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June 5, 2001 - The Day We Were
Haunted
As I might have pointed out, our hotel room was on the 21st
floor. Although I didn't check, I believe the hotel to have been between 25 and
30 stories tall, so our room was quite some distance from both top and bottom.
There were no buildings even remotely close in height to our building within
site of our window.
Before I continue on, let me describe the hotel and our room
a little. There were no balconies, and the windows were sealed shut, except for
a small three-inch wide slot that could be opened for ventilation. Our room had
only one door, which was locked, deadbolted and had the swing lock thrown. The
room had 2 sets of curtains, thin ones that could be drawn and still allow
light through and thick, plastic-backed ones that could block out all the
light. When I went to bed, both sets of curtains were drawn, blocking out the
constant glow from Tokyo. The room was pitch black at night.
At 3:00AM, something woke me up.
At first, it was just an impression that something was
wrong. The room had (small) twin beds and, as I lay there on my side I could
see Chu-Wan sound asleep on the next bed. She was clearly visible in the
flickering light.
Then it dawned on me: flickering light? The TV was on, with
the sound muted. That was certainly odd, so I got up and turned the TV off. The
only way to work the TV was with the remote control, which was still on top of
the TV, underneath some papers on top of the TV. I had to go looking for the
remote because it was buried and we just hadn't really used the TV at all. We'd
turned it on the first two days in town and left it alone after that.
I found it and shut the TV off, but I had awoken Chu-Wan.
She asked what was up and I told her. She told me to check to make sure the
laptop was still in the room. I checked that, and it was still there. Then,
dawning that the TV couldn't have turned itself on, I began looking around the
room. I checked our money (we'd taken it out of the hotel safe the night before
in preparation for leaving), our passports, tickets, all the locks, the
windows, the bathroom, everything.
I lay back down and tried to go back to sleep until 4:00,
when our wakeup call was due.
I couldn't sleep. I began to ponder the possibilities. No
one could have entered the room and left by way of the door and managed to get
it locked from the inside. The window too small for a human to enter and it was
still latched from the inside. There was no one in the room except us.
Therefore one of us turned on the TV.
That made no sense because you had to have the remote to
turn the TV on AND to mute the volume. The remote was still buried. It seemed
unlikely that, even if one of us was sleepwalking, we'd be inclined to turn on
the TV, change the channel to a Japanese channel (we had only watched CNN),
mute the volume and return the remote underneath our travel brochures.
Perhaps a stray infrared signal activated the TV (changed
the channel and muted the volume) - it was far-fetched but not impossible. The
only thing in the room, apart from the remote, that could emit IR was the
computer. I checked it and it was completely off. I it didn't come from within
the room, it must have come from without. I doubted it could come through solid
walls or doors, so it must have come from the window. With the thick curtains
drawn, that too seemed unlikely. Even had they not been drawn the next place it
could have come from was 50 yards away and at least 10 stories shorter than out
floor.
It was really bothering me and then I started thinking about
a Japanese movie called "The Ring". In short, the Ring is a horror movie about
a videotape on which had been recorded "static" because some people on vacation
didn't realize the local station numbers were different. The place where the
tape was recorded was haunted and recorded in the static were barely
perceptible images that, if you watched the tape marked you for a terrible
death. Several days after watching the tape, your TV (if it wasn't already on)
would come on and a ghoulish spirit would crawl out of the screen and kill you.
Totally irrational, but it kept me awake from the rest of
the night.
Last night I'd bought a "plain" Nissan Cup O' Noodles, just
like you'd find in the States, and I started to prepare it for breakfast.
"Plain" in Japan means seafood. Yuck. Hopefully, they'd have food on the flight
to Taipei.
At 6:00AM we stood in the lobby, checked out and ready to
catch the bus to the airport. This part of the trip went off without a hitch.
The bus was on time, we loaded up and headed out - Once again Singapore Air's
arrangements were accurate and efficient. There were no other stops so it was a
direct run to the airport. At 6:00AM in the morning, driving on the highway all
the way with no stops whatsoever it still took 1.5 hours to get to the terminal
building. It's a long way to Narita New Tokyo International Airport from Tokyo.
Along the way I got to watch the city go by, something I'd
missed in the dark on the way in. In the distance the castle of Tokyo
Disneyland stood out glaringly against the grey skyline of the city. We passed
a movie theatre multiplex under construction and I had to do a triple-take to
make sure I was reading the sign correctly. It was in English, so it shouldn't
have been a problem. It was simply the scale that gave me difficulties, 109
theatres in one multi-plex. One Hundred and Nine!
With all those theatres, they probably still only show three
films at a time: The current blockbuster in 90 theatres, one starting every 40
seconds. Last week's blockbuster showing in 18 theatres every 3 minutes 20
seconds, and the one film I want to see showing in a broom closet, which
they'll jokingly call the 109th screen, showing once a day while some other
flop movie shows during he other 10 timeslots on that screen.
Next we passed a giant, man-made ski slope towering over the
other buildings. Again, the scale of Japanese industriousness impressed me. I
also thought it would make a great scene in a Godzilla movie toppling this
thing over. I regretted that I had already packed away my cameras into the
luggage underneath the bus so I couldn't get a shot of it.
Finally, my last observation was far in the distance, but it
was ever so clear. I thought I was imagining it at first, certain that I must
be mistaken, but as it got closer, I saw that it was true: A six-story Costso
Wholesale Warehouse. What I wouldn't have given to have gone there and seen
what they had available! Not having found any "good deals" in Japan, Costco
might have been the place to find something economically. Oh well, next time I
go to Japan, Costco is on the list - and maybe one or two more of those
historical shrine things too.
Once inside the airport it was simple to find our plane,
pass through immigrations and we were off to Taipei. |
