Traveling Japan...It’s Easier Without the Crazy Lady Inside the GPS

I would assume by now everyone has read my previous blog concerning our rather dismal location and living conditions; yet, this place continues to surprise me by the day. And, by that I mean the seemingly crazy way the Japanese developed their road/rail/flight systems, by making it so damn expensive one can barely comprehend the expense it takes to get out of this compound without having to resort to some sort of eBay fire sale; in which we sell off all the items we can scavenge from other people’s apartments. I’m also amazed at how little English is spoken over here, considering the education system and the amount of foreign commerce they engage in. Far more people in China could speak English and more places contain English to help foreign visitors. And, the Japanese have, for some reason, perfected the art of “Engrish”. If you aren’t familiar with the term, please visit www.engrish.com and you will understand what I’m talking about. (Off the subject, it’s almost lunch time so I’m going to make myself a Hunburger Stake).

On to the the blog for the week....traveling within Japan. Given my first blog and my juvenile assumption that Japan is easy to navigate I’ve somehow proven every theory concerning efficiency and travel about Japan WRONG! Soooo, here we are, planning out a trip to Hiroshima. It’s rather close and should be an easy drive. Emily, Barbara, Vito, and myself decide to hop in the “Cube” (our box like Japanese car) and drive to Hiroshima last Saturday. Only problem is that the GPS device screams at us in a high pitched, angry, Asian voice when we’re doing something wrong. Fortunately for us our translator programmed in our hotel destination, but not before being dumbfounded by the address we gave him. Somehow, Japanese people either can’t understand hotel addresses given in English, or the freaking GPS won’t allow you to program it in...so we used the phone number to get the map...and it worked...for now.

Saturday morning at 8am we depart for our destination and weekend away from the compound life we’re tolerating now. All begins well, that is until we get to the first main intersection linking us to the major highway off this island. First things first, I’m driving, so the risk of something bad happening is highly escalated. Compound that with driving on the left hand side of the road, and signs in Japanese...and you’ve got yourself the equivalent of a land based, cube sized, Kamikaze race car driven by yours truly. When in doubt, just punch the gas and go for it. What could go wrong...right? Thats what I did, and it worked out fortunately. We made it out onto the many bridges connecting us with Honshu, the main island, and a 2-hr journey filled with beautiful sights and some random animal crossing sings that included some sort of cartoon character beaver and a warthog that looks exactly like Pumbaa from the Lion King. Maybe he re-located after the spinoff series “Timon & Pumbaa” and is now running amuck in the hills of Honshu....to each his own.

From this point we reach the next freeway and we have to switch over, which means paying the toll from the first freeway...a mind blowing $25..for 45 minutes of driving. Well, I thought that was bad until we paid the toll when we entered HIroshima...$50. So, for a two hour drive it costs $75 in tolls and another $35 for gas. The trip is only 165km, so for $110 each way it costs $.67 per km..or $1.07 every mile for you metrically challenged folk. (You can do the math on the time it takes, but it’s something like tossing $1.15 out the window every 60 seconds) Maybe taking the ferry over would have been cheaper, but it’s too late now, we’re already here. The biggest problem comes when the angry woman in the GPS tells us to get off the highway and go into downtown Hiroshima...well, there was no exit and the GPS had a brain fart and showed us that we were now driving in the river. I’m assuming the GPS lady was tired of our shit and just wanted us to drive into the river, but unfortunately for her we just started yelling at the GPS and getting irritated because we have no idea how to fix it, or better yet, where we should be going. Eventually I took the next exit and the GPS magically picked us up once we were in the city. We figured out that the GPS did not contain new roads in it’s system and since the new highway that went through Hiroshima was new...it could only assume we we’re taking a ferry down the river, that the next most logically answer, right? The problem is that...well, it’s Japan, they’re supposed to be super hi-tech around here and the GPS device can’t detect a new stretch of highway...what did the highway just pop up overnight? Come on Japan, get in the game...why don’t we have robots driving us anyways. Japan is nothing but a super-expensive let-down at this point.

I forgot to mention that it costs about $500 per person for a domestic 1.5hr flight to Tokyo from our location...flying is so expensive we’ve basically limited our sight seeing activities to places we can reach by car. Also, those magical bullet-trains you see on the Discovery channel taking people all over Japan...well, they’re just as expensive and harder to book a seat on, so that option is basically out of the question.

Anyways, we get close to our hotel and find that we actually made it to the right spot...well, right after we took a left turn at the giant coffee cup from the GPS and dodged a few people on bicycles. We parked the car...and decided to walk around for a while to find something to eat. Long story short.. we ate, saw the sites of Hiroshima, which are amazing, and had a long day seeing some really depressing shit about WWII, such as left over clothes, skin, and fingernails from the A-bomb victims...Yeah, it’s in the museum!! In order to liven our spirits we scouted out a few pubs and some Mexican food. The interesting part was not that we found Mexican food in Japan, it was the crazy guy that started singing as entertainment. Apparently he had his friends and family come and root him on, and his songs weren’t that bad, yet just bad enough to make us want to leave. The straw that broke the camels back was his song about his grandmother working in her garden. Seems nice, but the song lasted about 9 and a half minutes, mainly composed of the same short verse that he was having everyone sing, including us, since we were the people that suck out the most, thus warranting several opportunities to make sure we were participating....”Greenpeace Oba-san” (Greenpeace Grandmother). The song will forever be ingrained in my subconscious so whenever Emily, Barbara, or Vito look at me and say Greenpeace Oba-san...the melody and same verse instantly starts playing and it won’t stop for another 9 minutes; which at some point in my life may serve as a pleasant memory of our trip to Hiroshima, but only for 30 seconds, the remaining 8 1/2 minutes will pure hell as I try to get it out of my head.

The rest of the evening found us wandering the busy “nightlife” section of Hiroshima, visiting the likes of an Irish Pub and some place called “Cocktails & Dreams” (from Cocktail with Tom Cruise)...where the place was the size of a large closet and we were offered a very sweet, and delicious, drink called a Cherry Blossom, and one small sweet potato. Where the sweet potato came from, I have no idea, nor do I even want to question why it showed up...the fact is, it did, and I ate it...end of story. There was no Tom Cruise or cocky Australian, only 8 drunk Japanese, 4 confused Americans ,some Cherry Blossom liquor, and a sweet potato...all in one tiny tiny place.

Sunday involved a nice side trip to Miyajima Island via train and ferry. Fortunately for us that day trip was rather easy, as far as transportation goes anyways. Once we returned from a day of hiking, picture taking, and petting wild deer we decided to leave Hiroshima and return to our compound; not like we had a choice. But first, we had to get the out of the parking garage, but not before paying $50 to get the car out. We pull out of the garage and we can’t get the freaking GPS lady to work. We later realized we didn’t hit the “start” button to activate the re-route back home...none of us have yet to learn how to read the sticks and squiggly lines that encompasses the Japanese written language. Remember how the GPS couldn’t find the new highway in Hiroshima, which just happened to be our way home? Yeah..the GPS lady took us on a scenic drive through some narrow streets and alleys of Hiroshima until we were driving directly under the highway we needed to be on. With a stroke of luck, Vito got us on the highway and the GPS lady eventually realized where she was and we made it home...thanks for nothing lady. There’s not much worse than having a back seat driver, but having an electronic Japanese woman scream at you because she has no idea where the highway is, is enough to push a sane person over the edge; fortunately for us, I lost my sanity in India almost two years ago.

All in all, Hiroshima was a fun trip...minus the GPS lady, tolls, and parking fees.

Until next time...Raugh Out Roud..Greenpeace Oba-San...yep it’s in my head at this very moment.