Once upon a time, I seriously fucked up a hotel reservation.
This is a story from when I lived in Japan. I’ve got a lot of stories from that period of my life, but this one is kind of my favourite.
I met Rika at a karaoke bar. She was friends with some of my work friends. She was cute, with a nice smile, and dark brown, wavy hair. We exchanged numbers and started hanging out. We talked about music and movies and favourite places to go eat. We became friends.
I bemoaned the fact that I wanted to see more of Japan, but things outside of the Big Cities were hard to get to and navigate (especially since my kanji was shit). She offered to take me for a two-day drive around to her favourite spots on the coast, and I gladly took her up on her offer.
It was a magical trip, and I honestly didn’t expect anything to happen – we hadn’t even held hands at this point – spent driving along the southern coast of Honshu. Rika took care of everything: the maps, the restaurants, the temples and shrines we stopped at to take pictures of. I had one job, she told me: she gave me a name of a smallish city and told me to book a hotel.