Well, there is no doubt about it – transit days always suck. But this one sucked even worse than usual.
We felt pretty well sorted – everything was planned well. However the best laid plans of mice and … Meh. you know the drill. First thing to happen to us on this transit leg was for our accomodation to get cancelled on us. Only downside of Airbnb, if something happens, and your booking gets cancelled on you – then you’ve got to scramble. So the apartment we were going to stay in – something happened, no idea what, and we had to find a new place. Airbnb were great, they transferred our credit amount and gave us another US$50 to help us find another place on short notice and we did. It wasn’t in the same part of town, and we had somewhere to stay, but it was a bit of a pain in the arse. Luckily that was sorted a couple of days ago, but it came back to bite us a bit.
We took a late disembarkation off the ship time so we would have heaps of time to get from Yokahama Pier to Shinjuku where we were now staying. All good, slept in a bit, went up for breakfast and pottered around to be getting off the ship around 9am. There was a free shuttle to the JR line, so we jumped on that waited around a while and found ourselves at the train station – whereupon a rapid panic ensued. The Small Child, the only one with a free hand, had been carrying the stamped walking poles that Mr K, SaucyMary and himself took all the way up Mt Fuji and back… and he had accidentally left them on the shuttle bus in the hustle to get off. FUCK.
Mr K, ran back to the shuttle stop to try and see if another driver could radio the other drivers and find out where they were. No go – language barrier BS. He then decided to taxi back to the pier in the hope he could head off the shuttle before it started his rounds again. Got half way up the pier, got stuck in a traffic jam, decided to get our and run up the rest of the way (if you’ve ever been to Oshanbashi Pier, you’ll know this is NOT a good plan, expecically not in 34C heat). He got to the shuttle stop and was trying to communicate with other shuttle bus drivers when one of the pier staff found him and said ‘Are you looking for Fuji poles?’ They had been handed in immediately – much to his relief. Another taxi back to where I was stuck looking after four suitcases and four backpacks and an hour lost to find poles. Poor youngin’ felt so guilty about leaving them behind, and I kept telling him that ‘shit happens’, but he was distraught until Dad turned up with the poles in hand.
Next we finally made it onto our trains, then switched trains, then found a pair of taxis to take us to our accommodation – and neither cab driver knew where the place was. It took us a full 30 mins of wandering around tiny back streets and around corners to find the right building let alone figure out the comibination mail box lock BS to get the key out. Eventually squared that away and dumped our stuff so we could go out for the afternoon. That took us up until about 1pm of fucking around in the ridiculous heat. :/
We were going to go do some last minute wandering around at Asakusa … but changed this plan due to the whole ‘well, it’s an outdoor market and it’s blistering hot and humidity’ thing. Decided to go to Akhiabara instead and try to find the Anime Information Centre and a huge well known shop called, Mandarake, which was shut the last time we were here. More trains to Akhiabara. More wandering around in the heat – only to find that the goddamn Anime Information Centre which tells you where all the English anime stores are was CLOSED ON MONDAYS. Arrrggghh! So not having a good day. Expending way too much energy in disgustingly hot conditions for very little reward.
By this stage we were all shattered, so we went looking for somewhere cool to just sit and recuperate for a while. Would you believe we couldn’t find a single place to sit in the air con that wasn’t McDonalds or Starbucks? There are shopping centres everywhere and large department stores – but not a single one of them has any seating. None at all. So McDonalds and Grape Fantas all round while we regrouped and waited for evening booking.
About six weeks ago I booked some tickets for the Robot Restaurant, and we didn’t tell the Small Child, thinking it would make a great suprise for his last night in Tokyo. It is everything that you expect from Toyko Pop Culture. Lights, flashing neon, music, dancing, scantily clad wait staff and performers and all the bells and whistles. We get lost trying to find the place. I eventually ask some staff members at an electronics store if they know where it is – they don’t, but htey have internet so they look it up for me and set us up in the right direction. We get there and find a lonely French man wandering around saying ‘I can’t find out how to get in.’ And… neither could we.
Eventually some staff type people show up and tell us the show is not on. Langauge barriers again raises it’s ugly head and I’m waving a ticket at them going, ‘what do you mean it’s not on?’ It turns out the Robot Restaurant show was cancelled for four days – our day being one of them – and the booking agent I had purchased tickets through said she had been trying to contact me for a few days to switch our dates. Oh ferfuckssake. Could this day get any more screwed up.
So instead of seeing all the lights and fun and weirdness of the Robot Restaurant… we ended up walking around Shinjuku looking for a restaurant that I hadn’t just seen an enormous rat run into. We landed at a Japanese BBQ place, which was lovely, but it was very quiet and certainly not what we had in mind for the evening. Yay, another transit day tomorrow.
