I enjoy traveling around japan…
… but today was ridiculous. We left Hakata at 10am for Kyoto. The 3 hour ride through the rain was lightning fast. It was so fast that I left my day bag on the shinkansen that was Tokyo bound. In the bag was my camera, ipod, and some random receipts. Luckily, the passports and JR train passes were stowed away in my jacket. I would have jumped in front of a speeding Nozumi express if the train passes went to Tokyo along with the bag.
The staff at the Kyoto info desk contacted the conductor on the train we were on, which at the time was still enroute to Tokyo. Miraculously, he found our bag! And just as amazing, was how they were able to reach the conductor while the train was still in transit! We love Japanese technology and efficiency! Our bag was going to be kept in the lost and found office in Tokyo. We decided we needed to go to Tokyo that night. But at least with our bag located, we felt better and decided to check into our Ryokan, where we can dump off our 30 pound backpacks, before trekking out to Tokyo to get our bag. What was supposed to be a three minute walk from the train station, turned out to be a 20 minute walk of getting lost…in the pouring rain!! After asking about 6 different people where the Chita guesthouse was, we finally found it tucked in an alleyway. Upon our approach, Karen nearly gets hit by a car, we angrily shout at the driver in English…only to learn that we just cussed out Mrs. Sakai, owner of the Chita Inn. Luckily, she doesn’t know one word of English! We kissed and made up, when she heard (based on our broken Japanese and gesturing) about our bag incident on the Tokyo bound shinkansen. She drove us to the station and agreed to keep the door open for us in case we returned after the 11PM curfew.
Three hours later, we arrived in Tokyo. We had a small window of 30 minutes to get our bag and catch the next train back Kyoto. There was a lot of lost in translation and frustration trying to explain in our bad Japanese what we were looking for and moments of sheer panic when they didn’t seem to have our bag! We finally spoke with the lost and found manager and were lead to the shinkansen head office where I picked up my bag with all the contents untouched! If this were to happen back home, all the contents PLUS the bag itself would’ve been sold on the street! I signed some form, and graciously thanked the staff. We left the office with the widest of smiles and headed back to platform 15 to catch 7:06 Hikari express.
We arrived at the Chita guesthouse at around 10PM and were greeted by Mrs. Sakai who presented us with an ice cold can of Asahi. No translation was needed for her to know that was exactly what what we needed.
