Lost in Tokyo (but not in Translation)

Yup.

We ventured out into Tokyo this past weekend.  We thought about taking the train, but the train’s for the unadventurous.  And we are not unadventurous.  We are the opposite of unadventurous, whatever that is.   So, we drove.  We wanted to keep it simple, so we decided we’d drive to see the Tokyo Temple, walk around a little bit, get some food, and come home.  Simple, but not unadventurous.

We had written directions to get to the temple, and we borrowed our neighbors’ GPS that we planned on using to get home.  Also, you should know we had the Japanese GPS that came with our van and a map of the Tokyo metropolitan area.  (That’s called ‘foreshadowing.’  Learned that from my 8^th grade English teacher, Mrs. Klein.)  

So we went.  Left our house about 10:55 Saturday morning.  We took Route 16 south to the Chuo Expressway.  Chuo to the Shuto Expressway.  Pretty easy actually getting to downtown Tokyo.  Once downtown, we missed two of the streets we were supposed to take, so we had to turn around twice to get to the temple.  But other than that it was smooth sailing to get to point B.  (U-turns are prohibited, so in order to actually turn around you’ve got to go to the next street and hope it can lead you back to street you were on.) 

Driving was very exciting for me.  We’re driving on the “other side of the road” over here, so part of the reason we decided to not be unadventurous is because I wanted to try my hand at driving in the big city.  The driving went well, except for a minor hiccup when the traffic light turned yellow and, being a bit overly cautious, I stopped instead of motoring on thru.  I stopped before getting to the intersection, but we ended up right on top of the crosswalk.  I started praying that no one would need to cross.  At first the coast was clear, but after about 30 seconds an elderly Edokko (Tokyoan) came strolling up.  I mouthed the word sumimasen (excuse me), but all I got back was the stink eye.  A very intimidating stink eye. (And in case you’re wondering, the stink eye don’t need translation.  Message received.)  As he was passing in front of our car, very visibly annoyed, he exaggeratedly leaned over to get our license plate number.  He kind of made a motion like he was going to write down the number, but then must have realized that we could probably see that he had nothing to write on or with, and went disgruntledly on his way.  I was glad to have him gone.

We eventually made it to the temple.  We parked and walked around the temple for a bit.  

The temple takes up about a 3^rd of the city block where it sits and shares the block with an LDS church and the parking lot for both.  Across the street from the temple is a beautiful park area.  The girls were more impressed with the park.  The park had ducks, and fish, and turtles.  

Oh, and bridges.  Apparently there was a library somewhere back on the other side of the park (a “famous” library, is what Sachi told us), but who needs books when you’ve got turtles and bridges.

After the park, we went searching for some food.  We resisted the urge to take the first restaurant we came to: Salsa Mexican Kitchen (true story).  We kept going down the street, but found ourselves intimidated by the kanji on all the shops.  We found one that had some tasty looking pictures, so I went in and asked the server if he had an eigo (English) menu.  I got the “hold on” finger (again, no translation needed), and instead of coming back with an English menu, he sent back a server who spoke pretty good English.  Even better. 

We learned that we had actually chosen a Korean restaurant. We selected a plate with “much vegetables and pork,' and a plate with spicy pork and kim chi. The food was brought out in scorching hot stone bowls (called dolsot) that we learned actually cook the food while it’s on your table.  It was great cuz our food was warm or hot the whole meal.  It was really good.

After lunch, we went back to our van and started for home.  We fired up our English GPS with high hopes that we’d be guided easily home.  We were skeptical of the English GPS from the get-go when it pointed to the opposite direction that we had come from.  Cassi even voiced the nutso idea that we should just retrace the path we had come.  I should have listened to her, but I thought the GPS had our back.  So, we went with the GPS, went a few miles, and then lost confidence in the GPS.  I turned around on a narrow street that turned out to be one-way street.  We almost got to the intersection, but then a taxi turned and started coming toward us.  He wouldn’t budge, just kept wagging his index finger until I got the message that I was going the wrong way (finger wag, got it).  So we had to back up until we could back into an alley way.  We went back to the GPS.  This time, we selected “home” hoping that would take us to our neighbors’ “home”, and we liked our chances of getting to our home from there. 

So, even though it felt like the GPS was taking us the wrong way, we kept at it.  I, like Kip, love technology, so I trusted technology to get us home.  But, when we found ourselves overlooking the majestic Tokyo Bay, we started to wonder if our neighbors’ “home” was a boathouse in the Pacific.  So we pulled the plug on English GPS. 

I had a hair-brained idea.  I plugged in our Japanese GPS (JGPS). There was an icon with a house on it, so I figured there was a chance that the owners who installed the Japanese GPS might have resided near Yokota Air Base.  We couldn’t understand the vocal commands the JGPS was spitting out, but the on-screen arrows were easy to follow.  We started going back toward where we had come from, so we gained confidence.  We got back to downtown, but then the JGPS took us past a turn off for the Chuo Expressway.  Remember, I love technology, so I wasn’t going to give up on JGPS just yet.  It was, after all, taking us away from the Pacific, so it was doing something right.  But as we got farther down the road, I started getting uneasy.  We were in kind of a traffic jam, so I had time to consult the map (remember the map we brought??).  And wouldn’t Rand and McNally be proud that it was the map that helped us get back on track.  The map disclosed that JGPS was taking us more south than we wanted to go.  The map also disclosed how to get back to Chuo Expressway.  So we turned around again, trusting the map and it turned out to be the right choice.  Within about twenty minutes we found the Chuo, which very predictably took us to Route 16, which brought us home.  And we were ready to be home.