Saturday, July 01, 2006

Japan: watersports and no money at midnight

My flight from Shanghai to Tokyo was delayed due to weather. I landed in Narita at 11pm. Since I was going to stay in Japan for a day (I actually extended my stay one more day), I decided upon arrival to visit the restroom in order to give you a follow up on my previous posting “Pissing Dutch”.
The first thing you notice is that the restroom experience at Narita airport is a matter of trust. There is no lock in the door. The system detects that there is someone inside and blocks the access to another person. The toilet has all kind of controls and there are water jets in all directions. But attention guys, if you manipulate the controls while standing, make sure that you use eye protection gear. Otherwise you may find a powerful jet of water going directly into your eye and I do not think that this is what the designer was thinking when he developed these gadgets.
I also found something that you single people may find irrelevant, but it is vital if you have little kids. It is a kind of wall mount to hold naughty children. You simple place them there and forget about them for a while. However I was not able to figure out the use of the foldable stretcher inside the restroom and I leave it for your speculation.

When I got to the arrival hall, an airline employee told me that due to the late arrival of the plane, the only possibility to go to the city was to take a free bus to Shinjuku railway station. The ATM machine did not operate after hours, the bank was closed and I did not have a single Japanese yen.
During my one hour ride, I defined my game plan. I saw three possible alternatives:
Take a taxi that would take Amex credit card
Try to find an ATM machine that would accept my cash card and then take a cab
Take a cab to the hotel and change some money at the hotel service desk upon arrival.
Many options, nothing to worry.

However I realized that I had forgotten a basic requirement, a piece of advice that I always give to people traveling to countries that do not use the Roman alphabet. I did not have the name of the hotel written in Japanese characters (neither katagana, nor hiragana, nor kanji). I was supposed to stay at the Meridian Pacific.

When I arrived to the Shinjuku station I saw a long cue of cabs. I went to the first one, I opened the door and I showed my Amex to the driver. He said “hai, hai”. My first problem, payment, was solved.
Then I showed him the hotel name on my itinerary and he shook his head. Then I tried the basic trick to translate foreign words to Japanese. Use the 5 Spanish vowels AEIOU and end the word with a U (pronounced “oo”). So I told him Meridianu Pasifiku. He said Pasiku, Pasiku. I looked close enough to me and I said “hai”. He was not convinced, so he asked me the phone number. I wrote it on a piece of paper, after adapting it to what I thought would be the local form of it. He punched the numbers on the keyboard of his GPS navigator and a 3D building appeared with superimposed characters. Pasiku, Pasiku! He exclaimed. He drove through Ropongi district and shortly after, we arrived at the Meridian Pacific, a.k.a. Pasiku, opposite to Shinagawa station. It was 1 am.Posted by Picasa

3 comments:

Unknown said...

like... omg! why dont they like speak english over there!???

-you're job is too cool to jet you around like that!

Habibi said...

As a friend of mine and I say: "I love technology".
That's great, actually. Obviously, you could have arrived to a small road hotel called The Pasiku Inn, though, he had that little gadget that took you to the wanted place. This are the stories I like to remember when I say: I am a city guy!

Btw, the word check below starts with gps LOL

ian llorens said...

Ale,
Yes I love my job that brings me around the world several times a year.

Japan is the closest I know to perfection, but English amongst locals is a "rara avis" (except in the good hotels and airports).

Habibi,
You are right, I took my chances, but the 3D building did not look like Pasiku Pension.

You say you are a city guy, but the IP locator tells me you live in a village. Right?