Lost in Translation

I've had remarkable good fortune getting around Tokyo on my own for the last two years. This good fortune has been a by-product of two factors: the first is the investment I made in taking Japanese classes at the Boston Language Institute (although far from fluent, I can't even begin to count the times that those classes have paid off); the second factor is that Japan is such an exceedingly logical country. There is a simple logic behind every road, every subway stop, every train line.

However, yesterday, I became "lost" to such a degree, that I was 90 minutes late for an appointment. It went like this...

Via subway, I was on my way to Hiro's Wild Music School for the first time this year. I was relying on my memory for the correct subway connections and stations. I got off at the station at which I have always disembarked. However, without thinking, I left through an exit I had never before used. (There are sometimes dozens of exits from subway and train stations in Japan.) I went up the stairs, to the outside, and found that I was on a street I did not recognize. Walking around the block, I could not figure out how I had wound up at this particular spot. (For the record, I was across the street from the Tokyo Dome). And, here's where I made my first mistake: I decided that there must have been a connection to another subway line that I had forgotten in the last year. It was a huge mistake, for I was, in fact, only a few blocks away from Hiro's school. I went back into the station, hopped on another subway and ended up a considerable distance from my destination. Without a cell phone, I walked over to a phone booth and called my friend Kazu (also a friend a Hiro's). He informed me that I was way off course (headed off the side of the world, probably...) . Then, it was onto another subway to return me to the Tokyo Dome. This was followed by an hour of wandering the streets in the relentless Tokyo heat, until I realized that I was, indeed, just down the road a bit from the school. I arrived there a sweaty mess. But, Hiro - bless him - had put up a sign in the front hall that read, "WELCOME HOME Steve Wilkes." Nothing else could have made me laugh the way I did in that moment!

For future travelers to Japan, I have found that always imbedded in the logical ways of this country is the answer to your ordeal or problem. And, that answer is usually right beneath your nose or on the (exit) sign right in front of you. If I had only remembered that from the start yesterday, I would not have been the "lost" gai-jin, wandering the streets of Tokyo.