Postby Ken » Sat May 14, 2005 4:41 pm
We did find a Quad for you in Japan...picture to follow later.
We're in Osaka now....Very tired. We had to take a bus from the hotel to the Shinjuku station, which is a rift in the Space Time Continuum. It's like a video game....walk through endless halls and stairs...Ooops, need a ticket to go farther...turn around...go back up...then down...out and around....find your Ticket Service...exchange coupon for ticket. Level 1 complete. Level 2...find the office to turn your coupon, into a Reservation...other side of building...walk through halls, stairs...Office open in 45 minutes. Find Starbucks...wait..chat with local to find closer office...success...find office..explain to non-english guy you want to go to Osaka.. he points at Train picture. Level 2 complete.
So...back to the story...think of the video game theme. On the bus, this 5 year old japanese girl says Hi. (High in Japanese is Yes...but I believe it's Hello) so I say Hi. The dad says Hi, where you guys from? English! he's from Palo Alto. Tells us he's lived in Japan...but now lives in California. Tell him we're going to Osaka but we need to get to the Tokyo station for our train. He says he'll help. We follow down the labyrinth to the gate...he says go down here...take the Red train...it's circle, so get on any direction. We get on...the Trains are so accurate, you can set your watch...it says 29 minutes to Tokyo station. We ask this guy..point to map...Tokyo Station? He says "HIGH!"...ah...Arigato (thank you). We arrive at Tokyo Station...2 hours before train...just to be sure. We ask 2 booths....they point us closer to our train. We decide to eat...but avoid the "Italian" restaurant and the "Chinese" one...for the Sushi....Grab many plates off the moving track of Sushi heaven. Dinner over....Go through gates to our train. Find our Car position on the platform and wait for 50 minutes.
Bullet train arrives....people rush off....cleaning ladys in pink uniforms, rush on...they spin the chairs to face forward as the train will now go backwards. Clean the 16 car train in 10 minutes...amazing. We get on...lug our luggage on. We ride at 167 MPH (I took a picture of my GPS) and arrive in Shin-Osaka. We have NO IDEA where the Hilton is...it could be a $100 cab ride across town. We ask the information booth....AH...HER RO TON Hoter not in Shin-Osaka...must take other train to Osaka...first stop.
More stairs....halls....no english....another booth....AH...you must go upstairs...Track 15. We go upstairs...find track 15 along with 100,000 other Japanese at 9PM on Saturday night. We get on the train....and go 1 stop....Get out.
We walk aimlessly for 10 minutes...we can't find the Exit!! (think video game)...We find a Hilton ad on a wall...it seems to be ahead of us and to the right. So we drag our shit....it's 3 flights of stairs to get outside. We're exhausted...we all drag our shit up the stairs to the lit up city of Osaka....we stand for a moment...bewildered...No hilton sign....Suddenly...A black guy (first one we've seen out of 1 million or so people in 3 days) says....are you lost? We said yes....we're trying to find the Hilton. He says...It's just around the corner, you can't miss it.
THANK YOU GOD FOR PUTTING THE HILTON HOTEL 150 FEET FROM THE EXIT! We walk into the Hilton...and a team of Japanese men rush to help us with our bags.....
Level 14 complete!
The last words spoken before a YouTube video is filmed: "Hold my beer, now watch this..."
Regards,
Ken Hower
RTF Director
http://www.rubicontrail.org/