Hello everyone , I am currently on a Shinkansen (bullet train) on my way home from Tokyo. Shinkansens are pretty cool, it takes me about 50mi to go quite far because they are able to travel so rapidly. A ticket from Takasaki (about a 20 minute train ride from Isesaki is around 4,200 yen (or $40 dollars) so well worth the money. It is nice to know that a familiar face in Zach is only about an hour and a half away.
My time in Tokyo with Zach was absolutely amazing. I left Kiyru (near Isesaki and where I did my OJT for NOVA) at about 9:10pm on Wednesday night, and by 11:15 or so I was in Tokyo. Once I arrived in Tokyo my journey began to get much more interesting. I was in Tokyo, but I was completely lost, once I got off the Shinkansen I was supposed to call Zach and let him know where I was, but when I tried to call him the number I entered didn’t work, so I tried to call Sam, to see if I had the correct number, but she was in class and was not able to answer her phone. Little did we know at the time I only needed to add a zero to the front of the number and I would have been talking to him.
So I’m in a strange, huge city, I don’t speak the language and I can’t read anything. I was determined to find the subway myself, so I wander around Tokyo station (which is one of the biggest stations in Japan) without a clue of where I should be going) for about an hour in search of the subway. After having no luck, I finally ask where the subway is, and they tell me to go outside and down some stairs, so I do. Finally I have found the subway, but now I have no idea where the line I needed to get on is, I only see one line, so I ask and they tell me I needed to ride the red line to get to the orange line, I do. Finally I arrive at Aoyama-itchome (the stop that is closest o Zach’s) I think I am out of the woods and maybe Zach will be waiting for me here, so such luck, I figure I better try and give him a call. I reach for my notebook where I had written Zach’s number down, it’s gone, I must have left it at an information desk when I asked for help.
So now I am really screwed. I don’t know Z’s address or his phone number. A attempt to talk to a person who works at the subway station, which by now has begun to shut down, the cars are no longer running and there are people around. While this guy and I are struggling to communicate my savior shows up, unfortunately its not Zach, but a man who speaks English very well. He says you look like you need help, and I say you don’t even know. I explain my situation to him and he and I start trying to come up with solutions.
First we try and go to the police station to ask them, but since Zach only has a cell phone they have no way of knowing what his number is. I tell him that I have a laptop and this if I can get internet access I can lookup Zach’s number, so he walks me down to a very nice hotel to ask if I can get internet access. The man at the hotel directs us to a FedEx Kinko’s that is about a 10min walk away. So he brings me to Kinko’s and they say it cost 210 ($2) yen for 10min. I say I will happily pay that amount, so I sit at the computer and look up Zach’s phone number, once I’ve got it I’m ready to go, so I go to the counter to pay, and they say the man I met has paid for it, and I’m shocked, this would never happen in America. So I get the number, and show it to the man who is helping me, and he looks very puzzled, he says this is not a Japanese phone number, it’s the wrong format, but we try it anyway, to no avail. We try the number a host of different ways, then the guy recommends that we call an international operator, and she is able to give me the number in the right format. As I said earlier all I had to do was add a zero to the front and could have averted this whole mess.
Finally I am able to get a hold of Zach, it is now about 1:45am, mind you this guy as been helping me out for nearly and hour and a half now. So I call Zach, and he is not completely sure where I am, so he asks me to stay on the phone with him and give him landmarks around me. The whole time I am talking to Zach this guys is giving 100 yen ($1) coins to keep the phone conversation going , each time I try and use my own money he will not let me, this is the nicest guy I have ever met. He was with me nearly two hours while I tried to find Zach, and when I finally found him, I tried to pay him back, he refused and he was on his way, without him I may still have been wandering the streets of Tokyo.
Well it is nearly time for me to get of the Shinkansen at Takasaki, then its about another 30-40min to Isesaki, and then about a 30min walk from the train station to my house. I’ve got a lot more to say about Tokyo, and many awesome pictures to post. We were constantly going for two days straight, as Sam knows because it was impossible to set up a time for us to talk to each other. After I get my first goodnights sleep in two days I will be ready to write more tomorrow and post my pictures.
Sayonara,
Adam
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