Tokyo Part II, Day 3
I got really lost trying to find the hostel on Saturday night. It was in a suburb of Tokyo off of the subway. The directions said take exit 1b but if you're coming on a northbound train you're only options are exits 2 or 3. I was closest to 3, so I took it, figuring I could just walk a block or two and I would probably find exit 1b. I was wrong. I made a left, made another left, made another left and then another left. Thinking I would be back where I started, but not recognizing anything, I decided it was time to try to ask for help. I probably asked about 10 people for help. They either 1) didn't want to help me and pretended they didn't hear me 2) shook their hands frantically indicating they spoke no English 3) listened for a bit but then responded in Japanese and got frusterated when I still looked confused 4) tried to help but saw the only directions I had were in English and not Japanese and gave up.
The last guy I asked ended up having a book of Tokyo maps. But it was all in Japanese and the English I had wasn't helpful. He had no clue on how to help, but a lot of patience. An older guy on a bicylce came over and the two talked for a while. Then Bicycle Guy took off and Patient Guy said he could walk me to the place. We get to Hotel Matishubima or something like that and it turns out it's a hotel with the same name but not the one I made reservations/gave my credit card number to. But that desk guy knew where the other one was. He told me I had to get one a train and get off in two stops. I didn't understand how I could have been so off. I usually like to think of myself as pretty good with maps, directions and such. Turns out, with all of my left turns I had made my way to the next train station. So I got on a southbound train, decided to not listen to the dude at the same named hotel, go with the directions from the hostel and get off at Minowa station (one stop). This time if I couldn't find exit 1b I would ask, not just look around and take left turns. But this time I was on a southbound train. And exit 1b was right there when I got off of the train. And from then on the directions were fine. And about 2 hours after putting on my 40 lb backpack I finally got to take it off.
Turns out their computers hadn't been working all day so they didn't get my reservation, but they had a room I could have. It was supposed to be more expensive than the one I booked but for he gave it to me for the same price. I had booked a single. Something I had never done before because it seemed to defeat the whole purpose of being at a hostel. But I figured after a week with the hippies and all the communal everything, my own bath water was the least I deserved. But they were all out of singles and they gave me a double room.
Which should have been nice, but since I was already feeling crappy, hungry, tired, and not in the mood to be in Japan, walking in the room and seeing two sets of slippers, two sets of towels and two futons next to each other just made me feel even worse and more alone. I saw the extra pair of slippers about 3 hours before it was going to be Beau's birthday.
I decided to indulge. I took a bath with my own water. Before getting to Japan this wouldn't have been nearly as exciting. But here (I may have already written about this) one bath is drawn and then the whole household uses the same water. The bath is only for relaxing, cleaning should take place with the shower head, next to the bathtub, before getting in. Brian didn't have a tub, Lindsay's house is all Westerners so everyone just uses the shower, but the hippies would fill the bathtub everyday, once. And then say, `do you want to take a bath now?` I'd say sure but only use the shower. Well actually once I got in, but only stayed in for maybe 20 seconds before getting creeped out and once I went first so I filled the bathtub and then sat in it for maybe 2 minutes. It was still kind of weird.
And while the bathtub's here are a lot deeper than any bath I've seen in the States, they're really short, and I'm not that tall. So I guess you're supposed to relax while sitting in a ball.
So that was my super awesome Saturday night. I ended it with a McDonalds chicken sandwhich. See, I was really inspired by the hippie food and I came back to Tokyo thinking I would only eat healthy food, no more possibly hot dogs from 7-11. But that attempt plus my lack of Japanese resulted in it being 11pm and me not haven eaten anything all day. So McDonalds it was. Not only did they have a Japanese picture menu but there was an entire English menu on the reverse side!
There are all of these ramen shops all over but I can't go in there yet. All of their menus are in Japanese and I highly doubt they would understand any English. And I just have this vision of me, white girl, going in, pointing to a picture, acidentally ordering some fish something, being presented with something I knew I wouldn't like, having everyone stare cause I'm white (that part I know is actually true) and then not wanting to finish it after eating 2 sips. So I would be insulting the chef, letting all of the staring people down, wasting $8 and still ending up at McDonalds. Thinking about my inability to walk into a ramen shop, I started a list of things to do with/ask Errol. So far, eating a ramen shop, learning Japanese, and buying a good book to teach me Japanese.
I have a phrasebook which has come in handy maybe once. The problem is I don't want to try to speak Japanese to someone because then they'll automatically respond in Japanese. And the chance of me understanding, even to a point where I could look it up backwards in the phrasebook, is even less than me pronouncing what I want to say correctly in the first place. So my Japanese vocabulary as of today is... mizu (water), arigato gozimas(thank you),ohaiyo (good morning) and su mi ma sen (excuse me). I'll keep you updated.
So Sunday morning I wanted to get a cheap bed ($18) at the same hostel but the guy was acting weird and said they didn't have any available, only a bed in a smaller room that would be around $35. It seemed really really empty and I feel like he thought I would do it because I had just paid $50 something for the single the night before. And the night before there were plenty of cheap beds available. So it all seemed kind of weird and it's not like it was that great of a place anyway so I just left.
Day 2 of walking around Tokyo with a huge backpack, trying my best to play down the enormous size of my backpack while on the train, finding an overpriced locker to shove my backpack in for the day, getting sucked into an internet cafe (this time it was really really hot and filled with smoke, really gross) for way too long, looking for a bed for the night and trying to plan the rest of the week. I made a reservation at a Hostelling International hostel and tried to book two nights at Earth Embassy. I submitted a form online and I got an email saying they've received my request and would get back to me about availability. I meant to make it for Tues and Wed, but messed up and actually put Mon and Tues. But, they haven't emailed me back at all so I don't think they'll mind if I don't show up today.
The hostel last night was two floors in a lodging building of the National Olymics Memorial Youth Center( http://www.nyc.go.jp/e/). It was a huge huge complex with a ton of buildings, all for groups and then in the middle of it, 2 floors of rooms for me and my kind. Each room had a bed (Western!) and a desk and then there was a shared bathroom at the end of the hallway. Now I'm cool with shared bathrooms at hostels, but I've never seen such a literal interpretation of shared bathroom. Take a Japanese bathtub, multiply it by four (to a size that may actually be comfortable for one person) and then put four shower heads above the surrounding tile. That was the shared bathroom. Not my style. I figured I had showered everyday for the past week and I could skip a day. When I first got to the floor it was empty, so I almost thought`well, if it's empty I would go` but then realized it's not like I could lock the door or prevent other people from coming in. I couldn't take that chance.
One thing that was cool about the place being a huge conference complex was it had it's own Western style restaurant! I got a big plate of spaghetti in honor of Beau's birthday. It tasted like spaghetti! After dinner I did my laundry in the women's laundry room. They had seperate male/female laundry rooms. I needed 100 yen coins and there was no change machine so I was forced to buy something from the vending machine to get change for my 1000 yen bill ($10). I went with a (cold) cafe latte in a juice box. It felt very strange. The beverage was for someone older than me and the carton was for someone younger than me. But I got my 100 yen coins and the cafe latte tasted good. Even through the plastic straw.
I had to check out before 9 and the restaurant only served their breakfast sets (`Westran` or Japanese) until 9, so I was out of there by 8;30. I was really excited about breakfast but it turned out to be a scoop of cold yellow mushy stuff, slightly resembling eggs, covered in ketchup, on top of a slice of cold ham, accompanied by an scoop of potato salad, an area with a couple peices of lettuce and carrot slices and two rolls. The rolls were really good. Coffe, orange juice, milk and water were self serve which was nice. The sign said, `During break fast, soft drinks are a self-service.` It's really nice to see any attempt but I always kind of wonder who comes up with the translations and if they think that that's how it really is of if they just kind of settle for what probably makes sense.
So I checked out, thinking I would have an email from Earth Embassy confirming my reservation. I guess I should have learned from when I tried to WWOOF there. They're not really good at responding. I'll call when I leave here. I also decided that these hostel attempts keep missing the point. I'm feeling really lonely, isolated and dumb for not knowing how to read or communicate with people and I keep trying to go to hostels to meet other people in my same situation. The hostel Saturday night didn't have a living room and felt really empty (my fault partly because I opted for the single room) and then the place last night, the only other people I saw at the hostel were Asian, probably Japanese. So I don't know what I'm going to do today. It's still pretty early so I have time to figure it out. I'll call Earth Embassy and see what's up with them and if that doesn't work out maybe just check into one of the many many cheap, sleezy love hotel places that are all over the place. These signs all indicate the `stay` price along with the `rest` price. I've read that there are some pretty interesting themed ones but I bet they're more expensive and I would hope to find a less popular. And so even if I'm not meeting other people at least I won't get terribly lost trying to find it.
So ever since the accidental deleting of the blog things I think I've been realizing more and more that I really have no clue what's going on. People talk to me in Japanese several times a day and I think I just have a more and more pathetic face every time. I've found myself reading a lot more just to remind myself that there is a language that I (at least used to) have some sort of grip of. I also find myself walking into any store that's playing American music or just speaking in English. Japan apparently loves Fall Out Boy and I'll admit, although I wasn't really a fan before getting here, I now do too. This morning I spent a half hour in a pharmacy because they played Fall Out Boy (haven't been to a place playing American music where I didn't hear them), Eve 6, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Debbie Gibson and Third Eye Blind. Yesterday I even stood in the doorway to some electronics store cause they were playing Nickelback. And I hate Nickelback.
I'm going up to see Errol soon and I'm pretty confident that things will get better/easier/more fun soon. And if not, I'm leaving Japan on the 27th to go to Hong Kong, where ENGLISH IS AN OFFICAL LANGUAGE!!!!! And I'll get to hang out with Danny for a bit! I don't think I would have minded half of the stuff that's been getting me down if there was just one other person to laugh about all of it with.
That's all for now. I'm actually going to go check out what it would cost to rent a cell phone for the remaining time in Japan. I found an English magazine for foreigners living in Tokyo with an ad for Vodophone rental. My only question is if anyone at the Vodophone store will understand any English.
I just realized it may sound like I expected Japan to speak perfect English and now think they're a nation of idiots because they don't. It's not that at all. They speak a lot more English than I speak Japanese, and I'm the one who bought a plane ticket here. I just feel stupid for assuming that not knowing ANY Japanese wasn't going to be that big of a deal. Lindsay studied Japanese for 2 years at UW and she still has a hard time, so really, what chance do I possibly have?
But I'm alive, I'm breathing, I ate some version of breakfast, I'm writing a blog entry in a ridiculously nice leather recliner and I'm wearing my new supercute brimmed beanie, so really life isn't bad. Just kind of confusing.
Lastly, Danny's blog has a pretty funny recap (with lots of pictures) of our Korean experience.
http://writemoreoften.blogspot.com/2005/11/korea-what-went-down-friday-its-6-pm.html is the first part.
http://writemoreoften.blogspot.com/2005/11/korea-second-half-sunday-sometime.html
is the second part.
The last guy I asked ended up having a book of Tokyo maps. But it was all in Japanese and the English I had wasn't helpful. He had no clue on how to help, but a lot of patience. An older guy on a bicylce came over and the two talked for a while. Then Bicycle Guy took off and Patient Guy said he could walk me to the place. We get to Hotel Matishubima or something like that and it turns out it's a hotel with the same name but not the one I made reservations/gave my credit card number to. But that desk guy knew where the other one was. He told me I had to get one a train and get off in two stops. I didn't understand how I could have been so off. I usually like to think of myself as pretty good with maps, directions and such. Turns out, with all of my left turns I had made my way to the next train station. So I got on a southbound train, decided to not listen to the dude at the same named hotel, go with the directions from the hostel and get off at Minowa station (one stop). This time if I couldn't find exit 1b I would ask, not just look around and take left turns. But this time I was on a southbound train. And exit 1b was right there when I got off of the train. And from then on the directions were fine. And about 2 hours after putting on my 40 lb backpack I finally got to take it off.
Turns out their computers hadn't been working all day so they didn't get my reservation, but they had a room I could have. It was supposed to be more expensive than the one I booked but for he gave it to me for the same price. I had booked a single. Something I had never done before because it seemed to defeat the whole purpose of being at a hostel. But I figured after a week with the hippies and all the communal everything, my own bath water was the least I deserved. But they were all out of singles and they gave me a double room.
Which should have been nice, but since I was already feeling crappy, hungry, tired, and not in the mood to be in Japan, walking in the room and seeing two sets of slippers, two sets of towels and two futons next to each other just made me feel even worse and more alone. I saw the extra pair of slippers about 3 hours before it was going to be Beau's birthday.
I decided to indulge. I took a bath with my own water. Before getting to Japan this wouldn't have been nearly as exciting. But here (I may have already written about this) one bath is drawn and then the whole household uses the same water. The bath is only for relaxing, cleaning should take place with the shower head, next to the bathtub, before getting in. Brian didn't have a tub, Lindsay's house is all Westerners so everyone just uses the shower, but the hippies would fill the bathtub everyday, once. And then say, `do you want to take a bath now?` I'd say sure but only use the shower. Well actually once I got in, but only stayed in for maybe 20 seconds before getting creeped out and once I went first so I filled the bathtub and then sat in it for maybe 2 minutes. It was still kind of weird.
And while the bathtub's here are a lot deeper than any bath I've seen in the States, they're really short, and I'm not that tall. So I guess you're supposed to relax while sitting in a ball.
So that was my super awesome Saturday night. I ended it with a McDonalds chicken sandwhich. See, I was really inspired by the hippie food and I came back to Tokyo thinking I would only eat healthy food, no more possibly hot dogs from 7-11. But that attempt plus my lack of Japanese resulted in it being 11pm and me not haven eaten anything all day. So McDonalds it was. Not only did they have a Japanese picture menu but there was an entire English menu on the reverse side!
There are all of these ramen shops all over but I can't go in there yet. All of their menus are in Japanese and I highly doubt they would understand any English. And I just have this vision of me, white girl, going in, pointing to a picture, acidentally ordering some fish something, being presented with something I knew I wouldn't like, having everyone stare cause I'm white (that part I know is actually true) and then not wanting to finish it after eating 2 sips. So I would be insulting the chef, letting all of the staring people down, wasting $8 and still ending up at McDonalds. Thinking about my inability to walk into a ramen shop, I started a list of things to do with/ask Errol. So far, eating a ramen shop, learning Japanese, and buying a good book to teach me Japanese.
I have a phrasebook which has come in handy maybe once. The problem is I don't want to try to speak Japanese to someone because then they'll automatically respond in Japanese. And the chance of me understanding, even to a point where I could look it up backwards in the phrasebook, is even less than me pronouncing what I want to say correctly in the first place. So my Japanese vocabulary as of today is... mizu (water), arigato gozimas(thank you),ohaiyo (good morning) and su mi ma sen (excuse me). I'll keep you updated.
So Sunday morning I wanted to get a cheap bed ($18) at the same hostel but the guy was acting weird and said they didn't have any available, only a bed in a smaller room that would be around $35. It seemed really really empty and I feel like he thought I would do it because I had just paid $50 something for the single the night before. And the night before there were plenty of cheap beds available. So it all seemed kind of weird and it's not like it was that great of a place anyway so I just left.
Day 2 of walking around Tokyo with a huge backpack, trying my best to play down the enormous size of my backpack while on the train, finding an overpriced locker to shove my backpack in for the day, getting sucked into an internet cafe (this time it was really really hot and filled with smoke, really gross) for way too long, looking for a bed for the night and trying to plan the rest of the week. I made a reservation at a Hostelling International hostel and tried to book two nights at Earth Embassy. I submitted a form online and I got an email saying they've received my request and would get back to me about availability. I meant to make it for Tues and Wed, but messed up and actually put Mon and Tues. But, they haven't emailed me back at all so I don't think they'll mind if I don't show up today.
The hostel last night was two floors in a lodging building of the National Olymics Memorial Youth Center( http://www.nyc.go.jp/e/). It was a huge huge complex with a ton of buildings, all for groups and then in the middle of it, 2 floors of rooms for me and my kind. Each room had a bed (Western!) and a desk and then there was a shared bathroom at the end of the hallway. Now I'm cool with shared bathrooms at hostels, but I've never seen such a literal interpretation of shared bathroom. Take a Japanese bathtub, multiply it by four (to a size that may actually be comfortable for one person) and then put four shower heads above the surrounding tile. That was the shared bathroom. Not my style. I figured I had showered everyday for the past week and I could skip a day. When I first got to the floor it was empty, so I almost thought`well, if it's empty I would go` but then realized it's not like I could lock the door or prevent other people from coming in. I couldn't take that chance.
One thing that was cool about the place being a huge conference complex was it had it's own Western style restaurant! I got a big plate of spaghetti in honor of Beau's birthday. It tasted like spaghetti! After dinner I did my laundry in the women's laundry room. They had seperate male/female laundry rooms. I needed 100 yen coins and there was no change machine so I was forced to buy something from the vending machine to get change for my 1000 yen bill ($10). I went with a (cold) cafe latte in a juice box. It felt very strange. The beverage was for someone older than me and the carton was for someone younger than me. But I got my 100 yen coins and the cafe latte tasted good. Even through the plastic straw.
I had to check out before 9 and the restaurant only served their breakfast sets (`Westran` or Japanese) until 9, so I was out of there by 8;30. I was really excited about breakfast but it turned out to be a scoop of cold yellow mushy stuff, slightly resembling eggs, covered in ketchup, on top of a slice of cold ham, accompanied by an scoop of potato salad, an area with a couple peices of lettuce and carrot slices and two rolls. The rolls were really good. Coffe, orange juice, milk and water were self serve which was nice. The sign said, `During break fast, soft drinks are a self-service.` It's really nice to see any attempt but I always kind of wonder who comes up with the translations and if they think that that's how it really is of if they just kind of settle for what probably makes sense.
So I checked out, thinking I would have an email from Earth Embassy confirming my reservation. I guess I should have learned from when I tried to WWOOF there. They're not really good at responding. I'll call when I leave here. I also decided that these hostel attempts keep missing the point. I'm feeling really lonely, isolated and dumb for not knowing how to read or communicate with people and I keep trying to go to hostels to meet other people in my same situation. The hostel Saturday night didn't have a living room and felt really empty (my fault partly because I opted for the single room) and then the place last night, the only other people I saw at the hostel were Asian, probably Japanese. So I don't know what I'm going to do today. It's still pretty early so I have time to figure it out. I'll call Earth Embassy and see what's up with them and if that doesn't work out maybe just check into one of the many many cheap, sleezy love hotel places that are all over the place. These signs all indicate the `stay` price along with the `rest` price. I've read that there are some pretty interesting themed ones but I bet they're more expensive and I would hope to find a less popular. And so even if I'm not meeting other people at least I won't get terribly lost trying to find it.
So ever since the accidental deleting of the blog things I think I've been realizing more and more that I really have no clue what's going on. People talk to me in Japanese several times a day and I think I just have a more and more pathetic face every time. I've found myself reading a lot more just to remind myself that there is a language that I (at least used to) have some sort of grip of. I also find myself walking into any store that's playing American music or just speaking in English. Japan apparently loves Fall Out Boy and I'll admit, although I wasn't really a fan before getting here, I now do too. This morning I spent a half hour in a pharmacy because they played Fall Out Boy (haven't been to a place playing American music where I didn't hear them), Eve 6, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Debbie Gibson and Third Eye Blind. Yesterday I even stood in the doorway to some electronics store cause they were playing Nickelback. And I hate Nickelback.
I'm going up to see Errol soon and I'm pretty confident that things will get better/easier/more fun soon. And if not, I'm leaving Japan on the 27th to go to Hong Kong, where ENGLISH IS AN OFFICAL LANGUAGE!!!!! And I'll get to hang out with Danny for a bit! I don't think I would have minded half of the stuff that's been getting me down if there was just one other person to laugh about all of it with.
That's all for now. I'm actually going to go check out what it would cost to rent a cell phone for the remaining time in Japan. I found an English magazine for foreigners living in Tokyo with an ad for Vodophone rental. My only question is if anyone at the Vodophone store will understand any English.
I just realized it may sound like I expected Japan to speak perfect English and now think they're a nation of idiots because they don't. It's not that at all. They speak a lot more English than I speak Japanese, and I'm the one who bought a plane ticket here. I just feel stupid for assuming that not knowing ANY Japanese wasn't going to be that big of a deal. Lindsay studied Japanese for 2 years at UW and she still has a hard time, so really, what chance do I possibly have?
But I'm alive, I'm breathing, I ate some version of breakfast, I'm writing a blog entry in a ridiculously nice leather recliner and I'm wearing my new supercute brimmed beanie, so really life isn't bad. Just kind of confusing.
Lastly, Danny's blog has a pretty funny recap (with lots of pictures) of our Korean experience.
http://writemoreoften.blogspot.com/2005/11/korea-what-went-down-friday-its-6-pm.html is the first part.
http://writemoreoften.blogspot.com/2005/11/korea-second-half-sunday-sometime.html
is the second part.
posted by beth at 2:25 PM
1 Comments:
"Is attention the opposite of anonymity?"
how come your spammers are so much more philosophical than mine?
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