Too much efficency?

I never realized how travel friendly Thailand is. Sometimes you have to be exposed to how bad it can get before you appreciate how good you have it. In Thailand you're never more than 3 people away from someone who knows English. In my first 10 days in Japan I don't know 3 people in the entire country yet that have more than a 10 word English vocabulary. Granted, I've spent the majority of my time off the beaten path. I can count on one hand how many white people I've seen in 10 days. Honestly it didn't even matter the first part of the trip because Pui's Aunt and Uncle were there for everything we needed.

So how hard could it possibly be to venture out on our own? We decided to head up to Tokyo to go climbing for 4 or 5 days. We went to the train station with her Aunt and Uncle who were kind enough to buy us train tickets. Simple enough - 2 train transfers, straight to our hotel. So we headed out about 4 hours ago and so far I couldn't be more frustrated.

We got on a train that was about 2 minutes early of a 9:43am departure. There are no English signs, so other than matching up the time and platform, you really have no way of knowing if it's the right train. We asked 2 people before we got on by showing them the tickets and they both nodded long before they even looked at the tickets. It can be terribly frustrating asking anything here because the culture is setup that by asking someone a question, they stand to lose face if they can't answer it. Unfortunately, more often than not the answer is a meaningless up and down nod.When we reached what I considered to be our first transfer (again, only by judging the time that we should disembark), we got off amidst 100's of Japanese signs (the English ones were just as helpful). After quadruple checking with 4 people, none of who spoke even a word of English, I ascertained we were at the wrong station.

So climbing back on another train (this time an express), we grew concerned after the train continued on for another hour (40 minutes past our missed connection). It is a really sinking feeling you get when you are on a train, no idea if you are headed in the right direction, no one to ask, basically just waiting to see where the thing goes. When we finally got off at the next station, we again quadruple checked with the question 'Nagoya? + a finger pointing at the ground'. So we were in the right place now, but had missed the connection by an hour.

So now we are stuck, they won't let us in the gate and we have to communicate the above story using sign language. Of course you can probably guess how this played out... $300 later we've got some brand new tickets.

When we got to Tokyo I recounted this story to a friend and he explained where we went wrong. We got on that first train 2 minutes early. If we would have waited 120 more seconds, the correct train (the express) would have come along. Japanese efficiency. God Bless it.