Babies and Bikes

(Traditional Style Room I Stayed In)

   My first thought as I awoke to the first day on my grand adventure in Japan was: "Holy crap this hurts like hell!!" Inspiring, right? The combination of a thin futon and tatami mat flooring was disastrous on my back and impossible on my shoulders. In general I'm not particularly picky with my lodgings. I can easily sleep on couches, on chairs, in cars etc. and none of that really bothers me. So it surprised me just how much of my body hurt sleeping on bamboo! That probably explained why I only slept for 4 hours.....

  I was staying with the aforementioned "fourth-removed" connection due to a laps in time between my arrival time and the time at which I would be able to claim my apartment keys. My temporary host invited me to attend church and I gladly accepted. Little did I know that it would encompass the entirety of my day. (Well, I was given the option of escorting myself back through the maze of city we had gone though to get to this church-- not surprisingly, I declined.) Day one:down.

   Day two was spent getting to Ueno, which is a larger station where I was to meet my manager for my apartment contract "stuffs."(seems to be a very popular word, at least among the Japanese staff in my company) After a few hours and a bunch of paperwork, we headed off to find my apartment. Several train-line changes later we arrived at "my" station. After a little bit of confusion, the manager found the apartment and we finished even more paperwork inside. With the business done, we both set off back to the station. I spent the rest of my day figuring out how to get to the Shinjuku branch I was scheduled to be at the next day. 

  Day three (yep still incredibly sore from another night on the thin futon) I woke up bright and early to make the hour long commute to my new apartment before going to work. I loaded myself down with about half of all my luggage and wobbled off to the train station on my first solo train mission!

.... and immediately got lost trying to find the local train station. Doh! I cursed under my breath and scolded myself, "I can't even find my way to the train station after I tried so hard to remember the short directions!! How can I find my way around Tokyo when I hardly can go three streets without getting lost?!" I was bit upset as I walked around the block a few more times before finding my way.

   Once at the station I checked my directions... "ok, I need a train towards Shinjuku....." The platform I was on felt "right" but was going the wrong direction and to get on the other platform meant I had to hoist all my super heavy luggage up a very large staircase. So after a call to my host to make sure the other platform was definitely the correct one, I started to climb what seemed to be a towering mountain of steps. Of course, as soon I finished my exhausting task I saw where there was a separate entrance for the platform. Hypothetically... if you had 100lbs of stuff  that you needed to get from one platform to the other, you could simply go through this gate and not have to climb a horrendous amount of stairs... yep. My 20/20 hindsight vision often explains why people stare at me.

    I finally arrived at my station! I was bit tired and frazzled, but I had successfully navigated it all by myself! (celebrate the small things...) Now to find the apartment... I had been there only yesterday, but the manager had gotten turned around a bit which made remembering the correct way back more difficult. Ever get the feeling that when you feel lost, looking for your way, time passes much quicker? I blame adrenaline. Anyway, I was trying to calculate the amount of time I needed to walk and then attempting to recalculate that in light of how I knew my adrenaline was throwing off my mental clock. I could feel I was getting close, this one bike shop seemed familiar. But then again, my directional "feelings" are usually wrong.

   Just then I saw one of the locals being a little more obvious with her stares as she was putting out her trash. I have taken this to mean that they are more open and willing to help the lost looking me, so I took advantage of it. I approached her and said something like "sumimasen, kokowa doko?" while pointing at my map of the town. She was super nice and after not being to decipher the map nor the address, she decided to set out on the town in search of it with me. I implicitly trusted the directional sense of this native house wife. Which proved to be a bad decision because after stopping three times to ask other townspeople and going the length of the town both ways (seriously we walked forever!) we still hadn't found it. 

   I was not a pretty sight to behold. I had dressed warmly for the cold morning air, but now it was much later in the day and the sun's warm rays were seeping hotly into my thick black winter coat. Not forgetting that I was also lugging the equivalent weight of an additional body all over town. I was an exhausted, sweaty mess. For my prides sake, more than anything, I desperately tried to keep up with her fast pace, but as the search continued I began to drag further and further behind. 

   She had called back to me, but at this point my brain could not muster enough energy to even begin to translate my thoughts into Japanese. Then she walked back to me and as natural as could be asked "Do you want me to speak in English?" It blew me away! Waah!? She hadn't spoken a single English syllable before this and now she was speaking in fluent English! Well, this made things easier. I gave a few more specific memories that might help find the place like, "I think it's near that bike shop." She gave me a quizzical look at this remark which I took to mean "that can't be right." So I dropped it, she must be right, I mean she is local.

In front of the "bike shop"

   After not being able to find it she proposed that I come to her house. She needed to take her daughter to preschool soon and said that we could look directions up on Google. Perhaps it's a single female traveling taboo- but I heartily agreed and soon found myself sitting in her kitchen. It was glorious to be able to take off my coat and baggage and sip on cool water. The mother went about the house doing some morning necessities while the young daughter peered at me from a hiding spot in another room. The house wife would come in and out of the room doing various things and usually stopped to ask "Are you sure there isn't anything you need?" I would decline the offer of food as she bustled off to get her daughter properly dressed etc. 

   Then she came downstairs and had me meet someone-- her baby boy who was about a year old. She sat him on my lap and went back to preparing for the day. There I sat; a strange foreigner charged with looking after her drooling baby, unattended in her kitchen. 0.o; It was a weird feeling. Which got weirder as a big, scruffy, and still half-asleep Spaniard found his way into the kitchen. He seemed to take finding a stranger in his kitchen, holding his only son, into stride very well. He give me a quick glance and casually asked me "How're you doing today?" This was the beginning to what became an interesting conversation on chess, Spanish culture, and tri-lingualism.(I learned that Spain has four official languages- and that not all Spaniards speak Spanish.)

   After declining more offers of food, the family finished breakfast and 'Dad' left for work and 'Mom' left to take their daughter to preschool. Again there I sat, with the drooling, happy baby alone. o.o;; A minuet later mom got back, checked Google for directions, popped Baby into a stroller and we were off to find the apartment again! We walked less than a block away and turned.... at the bike shop. Within two minuets we were at my apartment. In fact the cruel irony of it all was that you can see my apartment from her house. It should have taken 2-3 minuets tops to get to my apartment from where I met her putting out the garbage. 

Her house is in that cluster and my apartment is on the right

   Both of us thought it was pitifully hilarious and upon discussing further figured out why "bike shop" didn't register. Bike=Motorcycle and is NOT used as a shortened term for bicycle. So... the town doesn't have a "bike shop," although it does have a "bicycle shop".... really near our houses. 

   I had only come so freakishly early in the morning to avoid the commuter traffic, but after meeting with so many time consuming trials, I was glad I did. After getting into the apartment I had just enough time to unpack a little before I had to leave again. This time as I left, I heavily documented the landmarks with my camera. That morning taught me alot of my ability and limitations. Now when I'm shown the route to new location I always take the camera and make a picture guide for myself.  

One of my original landmarks - They've now added Christmas elves

   It wasn't even noon yet and there was still training and navigating my way to and through Shinjuku....