One of the things there is to do in Shimonoseki is go up the Very High Tower. It is very high. It costs \700 to go up, and this gets you a complimentary cup of coffee. This is where the trouble started, because not only is Andy a fan of foolhardy things, like going up Very High Towers, but he also noticed a sign for Illy coffee for the cafe on the 29th floor.
Fortunately some people have a bit of sense and the tower was closed when Andy first wanted to go up in the typhoon. However, it was open today, and in the interests of trying to get over my fear of heights before we get to Nepal, I agreed to go up. Nor was I daunted when I saw that 2 sides of the lift were glass. I merely thought to myself that it didn't matter as I would have my eyes shut anyway. Duely, as soon as the doors shut on the nice lady at the bottom, I screwed my eyes up, put my head against a poster of something or other and held on to a frame of some kind for the 70 second journey. (Note to future glass lift makers - please make sure there is a rail of some kind securely fixed to an opaque wall next to the door).
On stumbling out of the lift at the top, my brain was giving me very convincing signals that the floor was moving in some way. Nobody else seemed to percieved the immanent danger, so I send some minutes near the lift comparing the position of various tower girders with buildings on the ground. I also remembered that the tower was not one of those gobstopper on a toothpick designs, but something a bit more substantial. Eventually I was more convinced that the whole tower was not slowly tilting backwards, as my brain was trying to tell me it was, and made a tentative tour of the interior bits of the circumference.
Eventually we went to the cafe and turned in our vouchers for a drink - this turned out to be limited to an Americano coffee - no use to man nor beast. Andy ordered his longed for expresso, for which he was charged an extra \400 purely for leaving out some hot water. As I had recently had a drink, and they didn't have 'hot co-co-a', I didn't really fancy anything, and after some attempts at persuading me to drink something I really didn't want in the interests of using up my 50p voucher, I declined and refreshment, causing much consternation and background discussion. By now, being a gaijin and doing bizarre and confusing things to the Japanese psyche is pretty much second nature to us, as it happens all the time, so we didn't take much notice at the time.
We sat down, and after a few minutes a lady speaking pretty good English came and asked us very politely if I did not want a drink. Andy explained (me still being largely overcome with kneeknocking terror from the height) that I did not drink tea or coffee, and I was OK without. She was backed up by what seemed to be the entire cafe staff, and took some persuading that I really did not want tea, coffee, orange juice, water, anything else, or perhaps, tea. Perhaps it was my expression, but there were lots tender enquiries as to my wellbeing, and we said (with reasonable vehemence on my part) that we would be descending in a short while.
As soon as we made our way from the table we were ushered through a private door and into a lift. The nice English speaking lady was a little discomfited by my assumption of the head against the wall/eyes closed survival posture, but I am firmly convinved that my reaction to travelling any other way would have been more uncomfortable for both of us. We reached terra firma, and with lots of thanks and some knee-tremors on my part, left for open air. Andy stopped to take a photo and the lady rushed after him with a 100\ coin for us. I had not had my drink, so they were technically in posession of illegal money, I am sure. Rules are definately rules in Japan.