I’d been watching Wim Wenders’ Japanese-language film “Perfect Days” at AMC River Park Square for maybe an hour when my mind flashed back to my brief and, so far, only stay in Japan.

It was in the winter of 2007, and my wife and I had just finished a nine-day visit to see our friends Ann and Matt in Beijing. Being an ever-intrepid traveler, Mary Pat decided that we should take advantage of the occasion to make a brief stop on the way home.

So that’s what we did. We took the train from Narita International Airport into the Shinjuku neighborhood of Tokyo where Mary Pat had booked us a hotel. And other than a couple of train rides we took a few years later, one from Madrid to Barcelona and the other from Rabat to Tangier in Morocco, it was the fastest, cleanest and most comfortable train ride ever.

In any event, that began what played out like a dream sequence for the next day and two nights.

For one thing, I recall it raining pretty much nonstop. And it was serious rain, the kind that San Francisco is known for. Or the driving kind that reminded me of the monsoon season I experienced in Vietnam.

In fact, when I conjure up memories of walking the rain-swept streets of Shinjuku, I think of Ridley Scott’s 1982 film “Blade Runner.” I can imagine the neon signage, the sidewalks full of people scurrying along dressed in rain slickers, many holding umbrellas whose fabric huffed and puffed with the shifting wind.

I remember our ducking into an indoor mall, looking for food. And I can still see the smiling face of a guy standing behind the counter of a noodle shop, beckoning us in. My Japanese is limited to “arigato” (thank you), and so it helped that the guy simply pointed to a menu with pictures of various dishes. We gestured to what we wanted and were rewarded a few minutes later with bowls of steaming noodles – and for me tofu, for Mary Pat beef – swimming in broth.

I remember the movie theater that we found, because of course we had to see a movie. And strange for me but I can’t think of what it was, other than I know it was an American action film with Japanese subtitles. I also recall resorting to a similar kind of pointy-talky means of communication with a young woman to both choose reserved seats and buy tickets. And however awkward that encounter was, it worked out well enough as we ended up scoring balcony seats in a theater that seemed more like an opera house than anything remotely resembling a place that would screen a mere movie.

As I’ve made clear, our biggest problem during our visit involved the language barrier. I don’t know what the situation is today in Japan’s bigger cities, but in 2007 it was difficult to get around if you didn’t have some Japanese. We didn’t have that problem in our hotel, which obviously catered to English-speaking foreigners. But elsewhere? We were lost.

This was the case mostly when we tried to buy subway and train tickets for our return trek to Narita International. I recall standing in line for what seemed like hours and finding no help whatsoever. So we finally resorted to doing what all smart travelers do when they stay in a decent hotel: We let the concierge arrange everything.

That's largely why we decided to spend our second (and final) night by eating dinner in the hotel. Our waiter was a young guy, and his English was good enough not only to order food but to actually have an actual conversation. He was a student, he told us, and hoped one day to visit the U.S.

As for our hotel accommodations, our room was one of the smallest that, up to that point, I’d ever experienced. It was barely larger than the hovel we once stayed in while visiting New York (the only time I’ve ever been in Hell’s Kitchen), though bigger than the transit closet we spent several hours in while waiting in 2019 for a connecting flight from Incheon International Airport to Seattle.

The only other thing I recall is the few hours of clear weather on our second afternoon, when we walked around the neighborhood and I shot a video that I ended up posting on YouTube. I titled it “Lonely Girl in Shinjuku.”

Which brings me back to the movie “Perfect Days,” which although made by the German writer-director Wim Wenders ended up being a Japanese-language film that has been nominated for a Best International Feature Oscar. Starring Koji Yakusho, it tells the story of a guy who spends his days cleaning toilets in the Shibuya neighborhood of Tokyo.

Slow and deliberate, “Perfect Days” is a study in how the events of life can conspire to forge a person’s everyday existence. It’s also a lesson in the value of living in the here and now, valuing the present moment over either the past or future that – as the philosophers tell us – don’t exist.

One of those philosophers is the late Charlotte Joko Beck, Zen teacher and author of such books as “Everyday Zen: Love & Work” and “Nothing Special.”

Here’s a typical Joko Beck sentiment: “Anxiety is always a gap between the way things are and the way we think they ought to be. Anxiety is something that stretches between the real and unreal. Our human desire is to avoid what's real and instead to be with our ideas about the world …”

Here’s one I like even better: “My dog doesn’t worry about the meaning of life.”

Bringing this whole blog post full circle, I’ll close with a line from “Perfect Days” that fits right in:

“Next time is next time,” Hirayama says. “Now is now.”