| It was 7:00 am in Kyoto, Japan, and the
taxi company had just called a second time to say they couldn't find my house.
Once again I spelt out directions even a blind person could follow. I glanced
impatiently at my watch, and waited. Only two hours remained until my flight
left--and it was an hour-and-a-haft trip to the airport. Outside, heavy rains were pouring down. My house was so far north in the city that buses pass only three times a day. The telephone rang again. "Terribly sorry," began the man at the taxi company. Then I realized that the taxi company, flooded with calls, could only offer in-city runs. I had heard this happens when the weather gets bad. I shouted into the phone that I had a plane to catch and I would meet the taxi outside my house. Standing in the wind-driven rain, I looked up and down the road. No taxi. A car went by, the driver and passenger staring at the crazy foreigner in the downpour. Finally a white car appeared and pulled to a stop. A young man throw open the door, waving for me to get in. Shaking with cold and anger, I climbed in. In the most polite Japanese, the man said he was called Mike, with whom I had spoken three times that morning. He had left his post in the office and raced here in his personal car. He apologized again, but did not explain why a taxi would not pick me up. Delivering me straight to the air- port, he refused the 2,000 yen I pressed into his hand. A few hours later, as the storm-delayed 727 took off, I opened the newspaper. On the second page my eyes caught the headline of a short article: Taxi Strike Begins This Morning in Kyoto. |