Ok. I landed about 3.5 hours ago and I’ve been rolling around the tiny roadways of Shinbashi for about an hour with my luggage – I try to be discreet – in sweltering heat trying to find my hotel they SWEAR was right next to the train station. I should be grateful. At least I found my way out of the train station – which took close to 30 minutes. I’m using the map and I have no idea where I am. When you look at a map of Shinbashi you think, “ok that’s quite a bit of ground to cover for being right next to the station” but I trust them. They wouldn’t lead me to harm, right?
Then it occurred to me, this is my employer I’m considering here. Great. Now the unsettling, stomach wrenching feeling of doom overcomes me. I’m going to get pulled into a van with some weird Somali pirates in the middle of Tokyo all because I cannot find my hotel 8 tiny blocks from the station.
I think there’s a mental trend starting with this trip. Power through, mama!!
So, I ask 2 older, dapper gentlemen for directions, and, of course, they send me 6 blocks in the wrong direction. Language barrier you say? None. They spoke perfect English. Maybe they were too fancy to know this hotel. That must be it! They didn’t do that on purpose, right? They had to have been laughing heartily about something else the moment they walked away. An inside joke perhaps…about how they love screwing with tourists. That has never been a thing.
Anyway! The tension and pressure is mounting to find my hotel. The further I venture from the train station the quieter it’s getting. In what feels like a stroke of good luck, I spot two police officers peddling towards me on their bikes. Being on the same sidewalk as them I figured, “finally! someone who can help me!” I flagged them down – 1.75 feet in front of them – and they split and peddle past.
Shit.
Ok. I’m calling my husband @daveywongmaaan. He is no better. He keeps pushing me to ask people for directions…because that’s going well. Forget it! I don’t need them! I can find this damn place.
Another half hour goes by and, in all of my desperation, I. lunge myself in front of the smallest cab I’ve ever seen insisting he take me to my hotel. Trying to explain where I’m staying took another 20 minutes. Never trust Google translator. I simply put in my hotel name and “could you take me to…” and he looked at me as if I asked him to paint my goat while I tap dance in his soup. I had to say the hotel name in every way possible before he finally figured it out, or before I finally said it right.
No. I don’t speak Japanese.
As The Mall Turns 