Today the girls and I had another "Tokyo Adventure" gone awry! We had plans with my friend Kim, and her kids Will and Marley, to see the musical Annie at the Christian Academy of Japan. We had mapped it out yesterday, and decided we needed to leave by 2:15 to get there in time for the musical, which started at 4pm. The fun part about this trip was it was around a 45 minute train ride, according to Hyperdia, but on a train line neither of us was familiar with (which typically means it is a smaller line that services an outer area of Tokyo, which this was). We got on and made our first transfer just fine to Ikebukuro Station. At this station, we were supposed to hop on the Seibu-Ikebukuro line (again, according to Hyperdia.com). We walked a very long way in the Ikebukuro station (with four kids in the 2nd largest station in Tokyo), following signs for this line. However, the closer we got to the area we thought we should be in, the less signage there was. The signs were all saying Seibu line, but not the Seibu-Ikebukuro line...which made us have to make an educated guess if we were in the right place. The second issue came with what train to get on- because on the walls, there were no train line maps, we couldn't tell, until we got on the train, what trains stop where- there are several train types- local (which typically stops at EVERY stop), Semi-Express (which stop at fewer), Express (even fewer), Rapid Express (hardly any - a fairly straight shot but only certain routes), etc. The two trains available at the time we were there were the local and the semi-express. We decided to hop on the local, figuring it would get us there for sure, as it stops at every stop, right?? Right??? Well, no, not right! Because we can't read or understand Japanese, we had no way of knowing that this particular local train did NOT stop at all stops, and in fact, only went 4 stops and then TURNED AROUND!! We were at the 4th stop when the train basically shut off, and EVERY single person got off except us- every car was completely empty. We hopped off, knowing something wasn't right, and hearing the conductor say the name of the previous station that we just had come from...we then tried to ask one of the Station employees, in limited Japanese, how to get to the station we needed, and he tried, in limited English to tell us...I think he said we would have had to turn around, go back to the previous station and hop on another train heading out to where we needed to go.
UGH...so, Kim and I, in a brief moment of wisdom (which turned out to be incorrect), decided it would be faster if we went out of the station and found a cab...BAD IDEA. We hustle out of the station, only to realize that we are on the very outskirts of Tokyo- not many cabs to be had, and of those we saw, a few wouldn't even stop for us (not unusual outside of Tokyo- they do not want to deal with the foreigners, because little English is spoken and it becomes very hard to communicate). So, by the time we finally get a cab, it is 3:40, and the musical is slated to start in 20 minutes. We hop in, and to our dismay, the cabbie spoke VERY little English, and the limited he did speak was enough to tell us that the address we were going to (thank goodness for the iPhone- at least we could get the address for the Christian Academy!) was going to take 30 minutes to get to, and that he was not going to "speed"..ha ha, right? It would have been if we didn't have some very disappointed kids in the cab with us! Not only that, but the communications stated because the show was sold out, that were going to release tickets at 3:45! UUGGHHH!!
As the cab driver is driving us, Kim and I discuss the fact that even if we do get there, we will be late and most likely, our tickets will be gone. We made the decision to tell the cab driver that we would like to go back to the Seibu-Ikebukuro station (which now as I type, realize that we told him the train line, and not the correct station name- no wonder we were driving all over town!)..where he proceeds to drive us back to the Ikebukuro station. Our little cab ride ended up costing us 2200 Yen (about $25+ USD), and we didn't end up getting to see the Musical!
We did take the kids to Yoyogi Park to the dog park and to let them run around for a bit, but it was definitely NOT the day I had planned with my girls! I was so very proud of them both though- they didn't complain or get ornery about not being able to see the show- they are starting to get that sometimes we just can't control things (or understand them!), and that we just have to be flexible! We came back and made sandwiches for dinner, popped in the DVD of Annie and had a nice, relaxing night hanging out together...sometimes things just happen for a reason!
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