Lost in Higashi-Ueno

September 5 2006 9pm

We wander around Ueno and find a game shop. It's filled with various UFO catchers (The crane game where you manoeuver your crane over an item and try to have it grab it and drop it into the chute).
Apparently "Sorry a maleman can not come in" means that you have be with a female in order to enter the premise. I thought they mispelt 'mailman' and wondered if japanese mailmen were known to cause a ruckuss.
This store had so many UFO catchers that I didn't even know existed.
They had variations of those coin shooting games you usually see in casinos but instead of shooting coins to try and make coins fall down these ones were a UFO catcher/coin shooter hybrid. You put in your money and then use the crane to pickup some candy and drop it onto these sliding things to try and make more candy topple down into the chute. Really cool! XD

We took some sticker pics at some purikura booths (short for Print Club).
These sticker pic booths put the ones we have in Canada to shame.
You go take your pictures and then you select the ones you want to keep. Then you go to another section behind the booth where you get to edit the pictures. You can write stuff, edit the background, add symbols, sparkles, characters, and various types of bling.
Then we went to a section on the floor that had a table and scissors to divi up the pictures. :D

At around 10 we decide to call it a day. Fumi gives a UFO catcher a final go before we leave.
She loses.
Then a drunken old man comes over and starts talking to us while we're wallowing in our loss. Apparently he asked why we (me or mike... or both?) didn't win it for her.
We stand still and smile awkwardly at the drunken old man and he loses interest and goes on his merry way.

We say our farewells at the station and I head home... wherever that is.
The only thing I remember is "take a left at the 99 shop and then take another left".

I walk down the main street and I actually see the drunken old man sleeping on a bus stop bench.
I walk a bit further and see another homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk.
a bit further I'm wondering if I'm going the right way when I see the 99 shop sign. Yay! I'm not completely lost!

Okay,turn left here and then make another left......... but... when?
I try the first street and don't recognize anything familiar... Japan looks a lot different at night.
I'm starting to doubt if I'm in the right place or not now... I backtrack to the 99 shop and try taking a left at the second road... nope nothing familiar. Uh oh... Rich is in trouble.

I walk back and forth down the main road using the drunken old man sleeping on the bench as waypoint 1 and homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk as waypoint 2.
I start using processes of elimination now walking up and down the main road taking lefts at random roads. Was I sure that I had to take a left?

I change my technique and start taking rights now. Still nothing familiar.
The only thing I have with me are my rental papers with the address of my place on it and a card to "Samurai Cafe" which has a tiny map on the back.
I remember Hiromi showing it to me and saying that the place I'm staying at is 'somewhere' over here which is not on the tiny map on the back of the card.

By now I must have gone by waypoint 1 and 2 a dozen times. I'm using the 99 shop as another waypoint called 'Your place is somewhere close to here waypoint'.
I end up going up and down the roads I've already gone by looking at both sides this time. Maybe my place was on the right side instead of the left side of the street.
I'm also trying to not go too far in as to not get completely lost. I keep track of where waypoint 1, 2, the 99 shop and where the main road is.

After 2 hours of wandering, I decide to throw in the towel. On the back of the samurai cafe card, there's a police box close to the station.
This is my matrix. Light my darkest hour.

On my way back towards the station, I'm stopped at a light and I happen to see a policeman on a bicycle. Time to see if 3 years of studying japanese paid off.

<Excuse me. I'm lost. Do you know where here is?> I say, while pointing to the address written on my papers.
The policeman is already looking at a map. He's preoccupied and tells me to wait a little.
After he's done looking for whatever it is he was looking for, he tells me to go down 3 streets and then make a right. I thank him and he swiftly jets down the road on his bike.

My hero...

I walk down the street and pay close attention to how many streets I cross.
1... 2... 3... Okay right here. I walk for a bit and then see the only familiar place I know in Japan.
I remember the keycode to get in. I punch it in and the door makes the most welcoming creaking noise I've heard.

<Tadaima!> I'm home!