Tokyo

My round the world Pam Am tickets was paid for in “funny monies.”  We paid for Pat’s in dollars.  Since we were going around the world, the LC travel agent was able to get us an upgrade to business class.

I remember very little of this stop in Tokyo.  I was to make a courtesy call on the Librarian at the National Diet Library. We were met at the Tokyo airport by the driver from the Diet Library who took us to the Okura hotel.  I do remember that the car had a governor on it and that it would “ping” when we went over the speed limit.  The only other things that I remember is that we had a box lunch with the Librarian and that we took a tour of the computer room.  The box lunch was served in one of those beautiful lacquered boxes in which, I assume, was a wonderful meal.  I don’t remember.  Too bad that I have forgotten what it contained and how it tasted.  The computer room was an enormous space filled with many state-of-the-art computers complete with many spinning tapes.  Today these computers can probably be contained in something the size of a bread box.  The Japanese were quite amused that when I took off my shoes, which was obligatory, and slipped my 13 AAA feet into the paper slippers, half of my feet couldn’t get in.

While we had initial discussions about a cooperative acquisitions and cataloging program, it was several years before I was able to succeed in establishing one.