Misadventures of Mr. Clubbs
Is it Day Seven? I think so. I am losing track.
I need to finish telling you about yesterday, though. Sorry about that! When I got back to my room my internet connection had expired, and I didn't want to pay for another day since we were leaving out in the morning. So let me start with that.
You know that I saw the Lion King, but now you need.... the REST of the story, as Paul Harvey would say.
So you may have noticed that I was kind of keeping my options open for my free day. I was just kind of playing it footloose and fancy free. There were many good options, including an offer to go to Nikko (Thanks, Tim.) Even though I am essentially not leaving Tokyo during my trip, I just decided I didn't want to use up any part of the day traveling. That's kind of funny, considering how much of the day I ended up spending walking around.
So here's the tale: I had seen an ad for the Lion King on the subway. I looked it up online, and sure enough it's playing in Tokyo. So Saturday morning I went down to the travel desk and they called the theatre for me. Have I mentioned the travel desk? It was so awesome to have our own personal travel agents in the lobby of the hotel. Those girls were so nice. They made many phone calls on my behalf last week. Anyway, she found out that you had to go down to the theatre and get your tickets yourself. There were shows at 1:00 and at 5:30. So I decided to head on down there.
On my way down, I accidentally got on the wrong subway train. I had the right line, but I just went in the wrong direction. I wanted "Shimbashi" but got on "Shibuya." I guess I must've just looked at the first three letters. So I got off and thought I'd switch. Now usally the 2 trains leave from the same platform, but for some reason when I got out it wasn't the case. I had to go all the way out of the station and come back in. This was the first in a series of mis-steps that I can't even recount all of them. I know that at other parts of the day I: went through the wrong entrace gate in the subway and had to get a refund on my unused ticket, had to pay extra fare on a ticket that I wasn't sure how to do, make a transfer to a different train run by a different company, etc.
When I had to make that transfer, I learned a magic word in Tokyo: "Sumimasen." This means, "Excuse me." I already knew it, but I hadn't quite harnessed its power. At the ticket machine for the new train, I approached a nice looking young lady and said "Sumimasen" and showed her my map for where I wanted to go. She spoke English pretty well and helped me buy my ticket and showed me to my gate. She was so nice! She was just the first in a series of people that helped me along my way yesterday.
So once I finally got to the area where the theatre was, I walked to the theatre. I got there about 15 minutes oo late for the 1:00 show, so I bought my ticket for the 5:30 show. Then I got out my little Tokyo guide map and looked for interesting stuff in the area of the theatre. When I went back over to the box office and showed her my map, saying "Sumimasen... Tokyo Tower?" She looked on my map and then told me to go down this street, turn right and keep going. "You will see Tower," she said. So I did as she said, and sure enough I did see tower. It just turns out that I didn't see Tower. Let me explain:
The Tokyo ower is a large orange metal tower in the shape of the Eiffel tower. Well, it turns out that there are broadcasting towers on the top of lots of buildings that are also orange. And when lots of tall buildings are blocking your view and you can't see below the organge part, so from a distance they look vey much like the Tokyo tower. So I chased not one, but TWO "faux" Tokyo Towers. Yeah. After the first one turned out to be a fake, I saw a second one in the distance and went to that. But it wasn't real either. So I just started asking people about every 5 or 6 blocks or so and eventually they kept pointing me in the right direction until I saw what was REALLY the Tokyo tower.
There was a very cool temple right in front of it that I visited first, and then it was on the Tower and its observatory. I think it's funny that I went in the Tokyo Tower but I've never been in the Gateway Arch. I really should do that sometime...
But as I wrote yesterday, I don't regret anything. I got to take in lots of sights, sounds, and smells and I got to talk to a lot of nice folks in Tokyo. Absolutely everybody that I asked was very glad to help me, even if they didn't speak English. Such nice people in such a huge city.
I need to finish telling you about yesterday, though. Sorry about that! When I got back to my room my internet connection had expired, and I didn't want to pay for another day since we were leaving out in the morning. So let me start with that.
You know that I saw the Lion King, but now you need.... the REST of the story, as Paul Harvey would say.
So you may have noticed that I was kind of keeping my options open for my free day. I was just kind of playing it footloose and fancy free. There were many good options, including an offer to go to Nikko (Thanks, Tim.) Even though I am essentially not leaving Tokyo during my trip, I just decided I didn't want to use up any part of the day traveling. That's kind of funny, considering how much of the day I ended up spending walking around.
So here's the tale: I had seen an ad for the Lion King on the subway. I looked it up online, and sure enough it's playing in Tokyo. So Saturday morning I went down to the travel desk and they called the theatre for me. Have I mentioned the travel desk? It was so awesome to have our own personal travel agents in the lobby of the hotel. Those girls were so nice. They made many phone calls on my behalf last week. Anyway, she found out that you had to go down to the theatre and get your tickets yourself. There were shows at 1:00 and at 5:30. So I decided to head on down there.
On my way down, I accidentally got on the wrong subway train. I had the right line, but I just went in the wrong direction. I wanted "Shimbashi" but got on "Shibuya." I guess I must've just looked at the first three letters. So I got off and thought I'd switch. Now usally the 2 trains leave from the same platform, but for some reason when I got out it wasn't the case. I had to go all the way out of the station and come back in. This was the first in a series of mis-steps that I can't even recount all of them. I know that at other parts of the day I: went through the wrong entrace gate in the subway and had to get a refund on my unused ticket, had to pay extra fare on a ticket that I wasn't sure how to do, make a transfer to a different train run by a different company, etc.
When I had to make that transfer, I learned a magic word in Tokyo: "Sumimasen." This means, "Excuse me." I already knew it, but I hadn't quite harnessed its power. At the ticket machine for the new train, I approached a nice looking young lady and said "Sumimasen" and showed her my map for where I wanted to go. She spoke English pretty well and helped me buy my ticket and showed me to my gate. She was so nice! She was just the first in a series of people that helped me along my way yesterday.
So once I finally got to the area where the theatre was, I walked to the theatre. I got there about 15 minutes oo late for the 1:00 show, so I bought my ticket for the 5:30 show. Then I got out my little Tokyo guide map and looked for interesting stuff in the area of the theatre. When I went back over to the box office and showed her my map, saying "Sumimasen... Tokyo Tower?" She looked on my map and then told me to go down this street, turn right and keep going. "You will see Tower," she said. So I did as she said, and sure enough I did see tower. It just turns out that I didn't see Tower. Let me explain:
The Tokyo ower is a large orange metal tower in the shape of the Eiffel tower. Well, it turns out that there are broadcasting towers on the top of lots of buildings that are also orange. And when lots of tall buildings are blocking your view and you can't see below the organge part, so from a distance they look vey much like the Tokyo tower. So I chased not one, but TWO "faux" Tokyo Towers. Yeah. After the first one turned out to be a fake, I saw a second one in the distance and went to that. But it wasn't real either. So I just started asking people about every 5 or 6 blocks or so and eventually they kept pointing me in the right direction until I saw what was REALLY the Tokyo tower.
There was a very cool temple right in front of it that I visited first, and then it was on the Tower and its observatory. I think it's funny that I went in the Tokyo Tower but I've never been in the Gateway Arch. I really should do that sometime...
But as I wrote yesterday, I don't regret anything. I got to take in lots of sights, sounds, and smells and I got to talk to a lot of nice folks in Tokyo. Absolutely everybody that I asked was very glad to help me, even if they didn't speak English. Such nice people in such a huge city.
posted by 1UP RPG | 4:44 AM
2 Comments:
Wow, I'm glad you seemed to enjoy getting turned around because that's the part that would really freak my freak if you know what I mean! Your clear umbrella kind of cracks me up by the way. It would have been even funnier if it was sort of bubble shaped :) Anyway, I enjoy checking your blog every day to see what you've been up to. I'm happy you are keeping busy and having fun!
Krista
Sounds a lot like a made for television movie...
I'm thinkin' "The Tokyo Connection"
What do you think?
Post a Comment
<< Home