Japanese feet must not be the same as American feet. To the naked eye, they may appear the same: appendages extending from the legs and ending in five toes of various shape/size and protectively capped with toenail. Perhaps somehow the contents of the package vary, depending on nationality?
This is only--implausible, but only--explanation I can conceive for the fact that Japanese people, and women specifically, seem to have no problem trekking through their days in Tokyo on tiny little high heeled pinchy pointy shiny sandals.
In contrast, I present my own case: last Monday, May 9th, I decided to visit the Tokyo Immigration Bureau (hereafter known as "Im") to obtain "re-entry permission". This makes a lot more sense in Japanese than English. What it means is, if I were to leave this country without "re-entry permission," I would be in trouble upon trying to re-enter. Got that?!
Though I don't have concrete plans to travel out of this country at the moment, it seems best to be prepared for the moment I may receive an OK from the overseer of the family funds. Thus, my trip to Im. And may I comment that I feel I deserve to travel outside the country, now that I have conquered the trek to Im.
The first step was to drop Koji off at a friend's house. Wisest move of the afternoon, that was. Next, leave friend's house a little before three, knowing that Im closes at four. Walk hastily to the nearest train station. Descend to the platform of the Oedo line, which, excuse me, has been built on the next floor up from hell! It is that far down, and correspondingly hot!!
Travel about three stops, emerge from the pit of the earth, search for the monorail station, find it, trudge up four flights of stairs while thanking God I don't have Koji with me, buy a ticket, get on the monorail. Safely inside the monorail, get out tools for cooling my temperature back to that of a non-roasted human being. Fan self and mop embarrassingly sweatly countenance with hankie, while feeling impressed that said accoutrements were ready in my bag!
Get off monorail. Ask station guy where Im is. Get vague directions. Walk. Walk. Walk. Look for Bullet Train passing over head. Spy it in the distance yonder. Walk. Walk. Turn right under Bullet Train and start over bridge. Gaze longingly at bus that apparently transports less stupid people to the front of Im, but is running way the heck on the other side of enormous bridge and firmly out of reach. Walk. Walk. Reach other side of bridge. Hesitate. Turn head left and right. Walk more, hoping the direction being walked is correct. Arrive at Im and run up stairs to frantically pull a number at 3:58!
Wouldn't it be great if this was the end of the story?!
Getting the re-entry permission was easy, a matter of filling out a form and paying about sixty dollars to get another fancy stamp in my passport. I am now qualified to travel in and out of Japan at will for the next three years. Woohoo...
After the extreme effort involved in coming to Im via the route I had chosen, I was not willing to return the same way. So I lined up for the bus in front of the building, while gulping a bottle of iced coffee from the Ampm on the first floor. Reliving the experience is becoming painful, so I'll try to cut to the chase.
Sitting on the bus was a nice change. Once I arrived at Shinagawa Station, I realized that I needed to find another bus terminal to get back to my friend's place and pick up Koji. However, I was temporarily and happily distracted by the discovery of a Dean & DeLuca...
Once I finished exploring D & D, an adventure that ended ever so cheaply with the purchase of a few cookies for less than 400 yen (about four dollars), I was back on the hunt for the bus terminal. Calling it a hunt is a little too lofty...a hunter would be able to actually find her prey...I went out of the other side of the station and promptly turned in the precise wrong direction. I was sure I had seen a sign saying the bus terminal was 400 meters away.
Confessing my ignorance is a sad but necessary point of the story. I have NO idea how far 400 meters is. So once I had walked what felt like about four miles, and actually arrived at some kind of bus parking lot instead, I had to admit that I was lost.
I found an off duty bus driver and asked him where I should go. He gave me very precise directions for returning to the train station on the exact streets I had just come on, so that I could pass the place I had made the fateful wrong turn, and go just a few more meters to find the bus terminal, right there. Argh!
Having no choice, I dragged my sad self back to the train station and beyond, to the bus terminal. As I was contemplating the bus schedule and the likelihood that a rush hour bus would take way longer than the train to get me back to where Koji was, an email came to my phone. It was my friend, asking that I pick up some dinner at a certain shop near the train station nearest her house, on my way back there. Right. So I turned around and went back into the train station and back to her house via the train, the dinner shop and McDonalds.
It's fortunate that through all this, I was wearing my pedometer. My feet may still hurt from all that tromping around in backless sneakers (which were not nearly as cute as the tiny little high heeled pinchy pointy shiny sandals I mentioned earlier, but still not supportive enough for these American feet), but at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that I walked 20,493 steps that day!
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