Welcome to Japan

Our train trip to Kyoto started out less auspiciously than I had hoped. Toni had run around the Sakuragichō Station in Yokohama to find out what we needed to catch the bullet train to Kyoto.   She bought the tickets, chose the 2:30 pm train, and then handed me my ticket with the warning “Don’t Lose the Ticket”. Of course, I took this as a challenge.

I put the ticket in the turnstile. I had to partially collapse my walker and drag my luggage behind me to get through the narrow gate. I was feeling good for having managed this juggling act and went blithely through the gate, forgetting my ticket.  I remembered it about three minutes later, but when I returned it was gone.  Now the cost of the ticket was not a minor thing, as a ticket cost about $120 USD. Even worse, I had been forewarned and now had to face my own idiocy.

It took some time for us to find the Shin-Yokohama Station for the Shinkansen (新幹線), one of Japan’s famous bullet trains. In my defense, there were two numbering systems, one for the normal train system that went up and the other for the bullet train that went down. As one of my jobs while working my way through college was that of a surveyor, I naturally pointed us in one direction and then, discovering my error, in the other. As we bounced back and forth, we missed our reservation, and I was facing the loss of $240 USD and any sense of pride.

In desperation, Toni actually asked a Central Japan Railroad employee, a young woman, for help. This of course was a violation of the male code of ethics, but then Toni isn’t burdened with being male. (Yes, I’ve noticed.) The young woman, whose name I did not get, was a marvel. She first changed the reservation, and then went far beyond that by launching a computer search to see if someone found the ticket and turned it in to Lost and Found. Being from New York, I knew the answer to that question. Nah.

Except like everything that day, I was wrong. Someone had found the ticket, took the time to turn it in, and Lost and Found took the time to post it online. The young woman was almost as happy as we were that she could solve of our problem. She gave Toni a big hug, and we went off to catch our train.

By the way, the bullet train lived up to all of its hype. It got us to Kyoto in just under two hours, traveling at 285 km/hr (177 m/hr.) It was very smooth and had an onboard steward selling beer and snacks, which made our journey even smoother.

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