He stuck me in a car, and we went off into Tokyo rush hour. That it was rush hour was no clue to the time. It is always rush hour in Tokyo. But it has to be the politest rush hour in the world. Nobody cuts off anybody else.
Nobody shouts or gestures rudely.
Now I know I'm not in America anymore, I said, looking out the window at a truck that actually yielded the right of way to us. We got to the sushi place and sat at a counter, where, lo and behold, the sushi traveled on a little assembly line. You took a tea cup off a stack and a tea bag off another stack. Every few feet down the counter were boiling water dispensers, so you could make your own tea. You grabbed whatever sushi you wanted and stacked up the plates.