Report From Nagano

a continuing saga

by Eric Wenocur

Subject: Report From Nagano: Travel Troubles and more!
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 09:28:54 -0500
From: Eric H Wenocur (EHW_LTS@compuserve.com)
To: editor@s2n.org

Good Evening Friends and Associates, and all the ships at sea...

Sorry this first message has been so long in coming. The first few dayshere were quite bizarre and did not allow time (or access) for emailing.Then, when I finally had the time, I had trouble connecting with theCompuserve node here in Nagano (despite the fact that it worked fine when Icalled it from home). At this point I still do not have a usable localconnection so I am doing email by calling back to DC long distance! So,don't expect too much chattiness for now...

But on to the real fun. The flight over was great. Northwest BusinessClass is "THE SHIT" (as GC would say). I hope I never have to travel thisfar in coach again! Decent food, real silverware and glasses, free booze,attentive service and, best of all, big seats that recline to almost 30degrees and have a leg rest. What joy! This was the first time I havebeen able to sleep on a plane. Also, the upstairs cabin on a 747 is niceand quiet. No airport problems and the bus ride to Tokyo was slow but fine(the traffic around there is horrible). We stayed overnight at theDai'Ichi Hotel Tokyo which was really nice. So far CBS did it right, totheir credit.

Trouble started the next day. At 9am about 22 of us set out in two "buses"(kind of miniature coaches, made by Toyota) for Nagano. Normal travel timeis around 3 hours. It had snowed hard all night and there was alreadyabout 5 inches on the ground but, hey, even in DC that is passable! Nowrecall the theme song to "Gilligan's Island"... It was slow going out ofthe city, and we ended up waiting about two hours at a rest stop along thehighway while the drivers put chains on the tires in heavy snowfall (anugly job for sure). These rest stops, incidentally, are quite interesting;there are actual people cooking Japanese food to order, along with manyvending machines and convenience items and questionable toilet facilities.

Back on the road, everything seemed to be fine and then all traffic juststopped. The two buses, our luggage truck, and several hundred (orthousand) cars just came to a standstill on one side of a four-lanehighway. And there we sat for 13 hours. The snow was still falling hardand after a couple hours we noticed that all traffic on the opposite sidehad ceased. It was about 3pm when we stopped moving and began to get darkaround 5. Eventually someone noticed that there was another rest stop onthe other side of the road divider and a few people trekked over.Thankfully they were open and fully stocked! We basically spent the next12 hours either sitting or sleeping on the bus, surrounded by diesel fumesfrom all directions (everyone had their motors running because it wasbloody cold) or standing around the rest stop trying to imagine what couldpossibly be going on.

Meanwhile, we saw a total of about 3 snow plows and a few police cars passon the other side and once or twice tried to find out what was going on.Various reports said that there was a car stuck ahead on a hill, that therewere trucks stuck, or that they were simply clearing snow. Keep in mindthat the Americans in our party were in awed disbelief of what was goingon; over the entire 13 hours no authorities ever tried to communicate theconditions, hardly any emergency vehicles passed by, and there was no signof the Press whatsoever. To this day we cannot imagine what could possiblyhave taken that long to clear up, or why the authorities allowed thousandsof motorists to sit in their cars in the freezing weather with no attemptto provide help. Certainly in the US there would have been all kinds ofgovernment activity and reporters and whatnot. The whole thing wassimply...surreal. Honestly, if we had not been lucky enough to land infront of the rest stop it really would have been ghastly. As it is wewondered how people were faring that had been stopped in a tunnel! It isquite possible some of them ended up dead of carbon monoxide poisoning.

I will not go into our personal theories about the Japanese mindset, or ourdisgust with how things were handled. Or the whole question of why CBStried to save a buck by not sending us on the Bullet Train or waitinganother day. Nor will I describe my eventual run-in with the traditionalJapanese toilet (the most dehumanizing experience of my life). Around dawntraffic began moving again and continued very slowly for about another 20miles at which point the authorities announced that the road ahead wasclosed. At this point we had only traveled about 1/4 of the way to Naganoand were trying to come up with alternate plans. By some stroke of luckthe police and snow crews finally figured out that they could put two plowsin front and let everyone else drive behind, which they did after muchprodding and another hour of indecision. Strangely enough, the road aheadseemed fine. We can only assume that the Japanese idea of "impassible" isfar too stringent.

I cannot even remember clearly what the next 200 miles were like, exceptfor stretches of clear pavement interspersed with slush, snow and ice thatfelt like an old west wagon train for miles. We wrecked both sets ofchains and both mudflaps. There were a few good sights of Mount Fuji afterdaybreak, but it took another 6 hours to reach Nagano, where we got in ataround 2 pm. All together we spent roughly 23 hours on the bus, a featwhich has garnered reknown around the CBS facility! I guess you really hadto be there to understand the full effect. (Oh, the horror!) Let's justsay that I will gladly buy my own $65 Bullet Train ticket back when Ileave!

We (the engineers in the group) took the next day essentially off and thenSunday was an official "off" day. Today (Monday here) was our first realwork day. Without going into detail, the CBS portion of the IBC(International Broadcast Center) is quite vast. It is truly amazing howmuch work and equipment has gone into this place, not to mention theincredible logistics. For example, among our bus group were several menand women coming to Nagano to work in the motor pool--there must be 30 ormore drivers, most of whom are from around Australia and who speak goodJapaese to boot. It is hard to believe that all this is just for a twoweek broadcast and will then be ruthlessly taken apart! The facilitycomprises a studio, two master control rooms, about 10 edit rooms,graphics, audio and all kinds of support offices, not to mention thefacilities at the actual venues. The physical building is kind of throwntogether, but the technical installation is first rate. It is a shame totear it down.

The accomodations here are spartan but okay. There are currently three ofus in this apartment (with a fourth bedroom to be filled). Private roomsbut two, slightly peculiar, shared baths. The building is brand new, butis somewhat different than what we are used to in the States. The Japaneseidea of apartment living is a lot more like a dorm. Very tight and veryaustere. We think this will become a two-bedroom family residence when weleave.

I will try to fill in more later, but in the you might want to check out this Web page, maintained by one of the engineers here. He has beenuploading digital photos of the events so far, including the famous bustrip!

Gotta run!

-- Eric

Copyright 1998 Eric Wencour, all rights reserved.