Lost in Transit

In the past, I’ve spent a lot of time wandering around in foreign countries. Sometimes I know where I’m going, sometimes I don’t. When I arrived in Shibuya, Tokyo and didn’t know where I was going, I did what I oftentimes do in these cases. Which is get in a taxi and let them figure it out for me.

I waved down an empty cab, and the friendly middle-aged man smiled widely. He impressed me by he pressing a button that automatically opened the rear passenger door. After laboriously pulling my baggage and myself into the car, I showed him the English name of the hotel. He repeated the name out loud a few times, transliterating it into Japanese. “Met-sa ho-tel-a.” He repeated it again, elongating each syllables as he sat deep in thought, quietly questioning if he knew the location. “Met-saaa ho-telll-aaaa?”

He pulled forward, asking a traffic controller a few questions in rapid-fire Japanese. After a few minutes, he merged into traffic and we were on our way. Turns out, the hotel was very close, but hard to find. We drove around the block a few times until we found it. I gave him 1250 yen, or about thirteen dollars, and thanked him profusely.

The following day, I set out to find a MUJI store that was fairly close to where I was staying, or so I had gathered from my online research. In the lobby of the hotel, I asked the receptionist to write down the address, so that I could take a taxi there. She seemed surprised that I wanted to take a taxi, and then seemed sorry for her surprise, shyly saying that it was “only maybe 15 minutes by walking.” She gave me a bad map with worse directions, and off I went.

I was lost practically before I even begun, and stopped somebody on the street right outside the hotel. He pointed me in the right direction.

After walking for awhile, I cornered a couple for further help. At this point, I realized I had forgotten to get the receptionist to write MUJI down in Japanese. I tried various pronunciations of the word. “Moooojii? Mewwwjiii,” I mused out loud. Finally, a spark of recognition crossed the couple’s faces, and they said, “Oh! MUJI!” I smiled at my success and nodded emphatically. The man put his hand on his chin, and then asked, “You mean, no name quality goods.” Yes. Exactly what I was looking for.

A few minutes of directional hand-waving later, I was on my way again.

I was told to cross a few intersections, and then turn right at the big intersection. The second or third intersection was fairly large, so I started to wonder if I would know which intersection was the “big intersection.” Then I happened upon what I later learned was called Hachiko Crossing, and realized there was no way I could have missed it.

It was quite possibly the biggest, busiest intersection I ever seen. And unlike China, these people were all waiting patiently. Nobody jaywalked, not even a single person. There wasn’t even jostling at the front lines, but I found a place out of trampling distance anyway, standing rooted to the ground in awe. When the walk light lit up, people poured onto the street.

With a lamp pole at my back, I contemplated what “turn right” even meant. There were no less than five different corners at this intersection. I watched several the lights change several times, before I spotted a gaijin, a foreigner, on my left. I turned to him and asked if he knew where I could find the nearby MUJI.  He furrowed his brow as he read some of the Japanese on my map aloud. At this exact moment, the walk light turned green again, and we were swept up and across along with the massive masses who were moving. He chatted idly with me as he led me, and I found out he was from Philly. As we parted ways I was left standing in front of LoFT, which I explored before continuing in my quest to find MUJI.

By this point, I had taken no less than 27 wrong turns. I was getting overheated from wearing too much clothing as the temperature of the day continued to rise. I was feeling tired from carrying my ten-pound camera around my neck and walking for miles wearing four-inch high heeled boots. I had been lost for hours, and the familiar feeling of anxiety was starting to well up in my chest.

Then I stopped in my tracks. I wasn’t lost. I simply had nowhere to go except exactly where ever I wanted to go. And I was enjoying the journey immensely.

April 6th, 2009

 

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