Efficient Trains? Ha.

Back to the first night in Tokyo. I got into the city and checked into our hotel and started to head back out to the airport. They wouldn’t let me order tickets for the express train that I was on earlier in the day because of the accident on the line and told me to take the subway out there. They said it should take under an hour and a half. So I got on the first subway line and rode it for about 15 minutes and had to change, then I got on another that should have taken me to the airport but after about an hour long journey it just stopped. Out of nowhere. So I just started asking people and following people and somehow wound up on another train that said it was going to Narita airport. By the time I got on the 3rd super packed subway train, it was around 8:15 and Zane’s plane was landing at 9:15. I felt pretty good, not having any clue how far away I still was. After about 45 minutes this train just stopped again. I was in the city of Narita, not Narita airport. So I still have another 10 minute train journey to go because arriving at the airport. Well I had to change trains, got to the platform and the sign said Narita Airport 9:30. I was so bummed out because we had a plan set, where to meet and when and I knew I wasn’t going to be there when he got there. We had no cell phones and didn’t know the language. I hadn’t gotten any Japenese Yen yet so I couldn’t take a taxi to the airport. So I decided to just suck it up and wait, and I figured Zane would figure out what happened and just wait for me. Well I sat there until 9:30 and no train. Japan is known for their trains. Everyone I spoke to said the one thing to know about the trains is that they are the most efficient in the world. They are fast and always on time. Well, it was 9:35 and no train. There was a lot of chatter overhead on the microphones so I went to ask the policemen what they said. They spoke very little english but enough to say that it would be arriving at 10:00. Still, there was nothing I could do but wait. So I went and sat down to wait but a few minutes later there was more chatter over the intercoms. I went back up to the police to ask what it said and they said it was now delayed until 10:10. I burst into tears right infront of them. They gave me a sympathetic look and I went and sat down. A couple minutes later a young Japanese woman around my age came and kneeled next to me to ask what was wrong. I told her what was going on and that Zane was stuck at the airport with no clue where I was and that I had no way to get in touch with him. She listened to the story and went over to the police and told them why I was so upset. They came over and the girl and the police translated enough that the police got in touch with the airport police and after what seemed like forever they found him and got him on the phone to talk to me. It was pretty funny what I was describing him for the police. All they needed was tall blonde man and their search was over. He was the only blonde guy in the building. Ha. Zane said he was terrified when two police officers came up to him. He thought he was doing something wrong and he was going to some Japanese prison! But I got in touch with him and told him I was on my way. After I got off the phone with him the girls that were helping me said that the train was now delayed until 10:40 but that some taxi’s accept credit cards. So that’s what we did. It cost me 40 bucks to take a taxi the distance of a 10 minute train ride. But at that point I had to do it. I finally got to him at like 10:30 and there was one more train back into the city from the airport that night. So we took it but it took 2 hours for us to get back and then we had to take a taxi for the last short leg of the journey because it was too late to change to a different train. WHAT A MESS!!
So much for the ultra efficient train system. It is nice because with our Japan Rail Pass, all we do is flash it to the security guy and we walk through. We never have to wait in line, or spend money on tickets. It’s so quick and easy that it has totally made it worth the money for our Japan Rail Passes.

But I was so impressed with the people. There was a time when I was at that last train station where there were 6 people huddled around a crying blonde American girl trying to help. Also, before this whole ordeal, when I first arrived into Tokyo, I was that tourist with the huge fold out map trying to find my hotel. This was all I needed to get all the help I could ever need. People would come up from all directions asking me if I needed any help. I was so impressed by how helpful everyone was.
Our hotel room was beautiful. New and modern looking. It had a 40 inch LCD tv, a dvd player and Bose radio, a big pillow top bed, a balcony, a washer and dryer (we’ll get into that more later… grrr) and remote control EVERYTHING. The bathroom was amazing. The toilets in Japan are all either amazing or horrible. The one in our hotel room had bidet functions, where it washes you all clean, and it has different spray strengths and angles. I think the part I’m going to miss the most though is the heated seat! Even toilets in fast food restaurants had heated seats and the spray functions. Some of them even have a button with a music note on it and when you push the button it makes the sound of a toilet flushing but the toilet doesn’t actually flush! In one of the bathrooms, just by sitting on the toilet, it turned on that sound. In my experience in life, women don’t tend to make enough noise in public bathrooms where this is a big deal. But maybe in Japan it is. I also found it easier to pee when the sound was on, so maybe it is a solution to stage fright! It was pretty funny though. An on the opposite side of the spectrum, if you don’t get a high tech toilet, you get a pot that looks like a urinal that lies flat in the floor and you have to squat to use it. I never tried one of those. They were a bit intimidating. But back to my point, our hotel room was beautiful and priced better than most of the trashy small hotels we found.
Our hotel was in Shinjuku, which is the business district. Shinjuku station is the busiest railway station in the world. They suggest in my travel books to visit Shinjuku station during rush hour just for the experience, but don’t do it until you know the train system there. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my first experience with the trains in Tokyo was Shinjuku station at rush hour. Somehow, I made it out alive. I have a lot of pictures from Shinjuku, it was very bright and busy at night.

During our days in Tokyo we saw quite a bit. We saw the Emperors Palace and the gardens. You can only go into the palace property on the Emperor’s Birthday and I think, New Years. So we just had to look from afar, but it was beautiful. Tokyo is amazing because it is the most peaceful city I’ve ever been in. Even more so than Laramie, Wyoming in the summer. You walk down the streets in downtown Tokyo and there is no noise. No cars honking, no people yelling, no loud trucks. It’s just peaceful. We loved that about Tokyo. We tried going out the first night to Roppongi, which is the part of the city for nightlife, but all we found were strip clubs and dirty men everywhere. We had our dinner at Wolfgang Puck (yum yum) and then went back to the hotel. It just wasn’t fun going out in Tokyo. We were pretty surprised by how the city just dies in the evening. The shops close early and people seem to just go to bed or someplace that we didn’t ever find. We have been waiting until Japan to buy Zane a memory card so that he can take a copy of all of my pictures home with him. We figured Tokyo would be the best place for that, since Japan is known for its electronics. Well we didn’t find much for deals. I looked at new cameras since I can’t get rid of the splotches on the lens but I didn’t really find what I was looking for. So we did quite a bit of wandering through electronics store. It was really easy because there is an area of Tokyo called Electric Town and it is just blocks and blocks and blocks of 8 story electronic stores. It was amazing how much they had. We also spent a little bit of time in the Sony Building looking through their showroom. Zane is a huge Sony fan, so I think he really liked this part of Tokyo.

So today is our 7th day in Japan and we have yet to eat Japanese food. I know, it’s horrible but nothing looks good. Zane is a down home Wyoming boy and he needs his meat! A lot of the Japanese restaurants seem to advertise mostly vegetarian food and to be honest, the pictures of the food just look horrible. We’ve eaten a lot of fast food and other international cuisine – Italian, Mexican, American, but no Japanese yet. I’ve been wanting to get sushi still, and I will, but it’s been tough because when I want it, I can never find it, but all the other time we see it everywhere! Our first meal in Japan was KFC. I think we are both really missing the food back home now that we are in our 3rd week of travel.

We’ve seen a lot of temples and shrines in Tokyo and Kamakura and gotten some pretty great pictures. There were some neat shops near the shrines, where I considered buying a silk komono, just to have. I ended up not buying it but I still think it is something that would be cool to have from here.

So finally to our Tuesday night fiasco. We spent all of Tuesday in Kamakura and came back to Tokyo that night to our hotel. It was our last night with a washing machine, so we thought we should wash our few last dirty clothes before leaving the hotel. Well I threw everything into the wash and jumped into the shower. After the laundry was done I went to turn on the dryer and felt Zane’s wallet in his shorts. I took it out and I was bummed that his stuff was all wet. Well as soon as he realized him wallet was in the wash, he realized that his passport and both of our Japan Rail Passes were in those shorts. He took off his shorts and they ended up on the pile of clothes that I threw into the wash. I picked up the pile and threw the whole thing in the wash, without even checking. ACTUALLY I checked another pair of his shorts, but stupid me, I didn’t check the ones he was wearing all day. So our JR passes are both destroyed. They were confetti after the wash. His passport is a bit heartbreaking because, it is still in okay condition, but he will need a new one when he gets back and he was really excited about the stamps he got and excited to add more later. So anyways, we got up early this morning, took the few salvaged pieces of the pass along with our receipt to the JR offices, and begged them to give us a new pass. They said it was impossible. Which drove me crazy because it’s obviously not impossible; you just have some stupid rule against it. There is a special code on the pass that they need in order to reissue a new one and it was in too many pieces to find the code. So after going to 3 different people, we finally gave up. So we had to buy our tickets to Kyoto, which is where we are going right now, for a whopping 130 dollars each. Our JR pass was 400 dollars each and would have covered this trip and all of our future train tickets. We did get one week out of our passes, but now we will probably spend another 400 each on train tickets. It’s just sickening to think of the money we wasted just out of stupidity. I guess I learned a lesson. Our morning has been a mess though. We were really looking forward to sleeping in before our train to Kyoto!
We had to also go to the American Embassy to make sure his passport would get him home. The man there said he couldn’t tell us one way or another if the Immigration people will let Zane leave with a passport that looks as badly as his does. So the man was no help. But it was cool because there were crowds of police officers on every corner in the district where the embassy was. I think it was because the G8 conference is going on here right now and leaders from all around the world were in the neighborhood where we were! It was pretty cool, but also a bit unnerving.
So we are off to Kyoto today and then Osaka in 3 nights then Mount Fuji for a night. Should be awesome, I’ll be writing more on my flight back to London I’m sure.