Fond Memories Of My Japan Travels — Part 1
The people in Nagoya and Nara
INTRODUCTION
We’ve just stepped out of the metro station in Nagoya city, it’s around 23:00, and my girlfriend and I are tired from the traveling. It’s taken roughly 21 hours to get here, involving…
Taking a city bus from my town to Philadelphia -> Taking the “Chinese bus” from Philly’s Chinatown to New York’s Chinatown -> Taking the (surprisingly unimpressive and somewhat rundown-looking) NYC subway (I think it was the “A” line) -> Flying on Japan Airlines (JAL) into Narita International Airport (easily the best leg of the trip overall) -> Taking the Airport Express train connecting to Nagoya City (honorable mention for comfort and convenience here).
Little did we know that merely a few minutes into walking out of the station, we would be experiencing our very first live, in-country interaction with a Japanese person that would make the greatest first impression on us. Honestly, I am still moved as I recall that experience now.
THE 30-SOMETHING JAPANESE WOMAN DRIVING HOME LATE AT NIGHT
As we walked out of the station, I immediately pulled out my printed map from MapQuest. This is well before there was such a thing as Google Maps available. No smartphone, therefore also no SIM card and local data plan.
The surroundings of the station were quite dark overall. A police box sat right next to the station, but it was unoccupied. Must have been outside working hours for that location. I was in charge of getting us to the hostel, with our suitcases in tow and while wearing backpacks. We looked at the map, then back up at the intersections nearby, then back to the map. I orientated myself and we started walking. The walk to our hostel was expected to take a maximum of 10–15 minutes. No big deal. Especially with the nice, warmish temperature of this late-august Japanese evening.
After having walked for around 10 minutes, down mostly dim-lit streets, we couldn’t seem to find our hostel’s street. Our “official” check-in time was 23:00 and it’s getting close to 23:30 already. There was no one in sight. No open shops in this neighborhood. I also hadn’t yet had a chance to withdraw Japanese money and spend it on anything that would have provided me with some change that I could have used with a payphone, assuming that I could’ve found one. The pressure was definitely ON by now. UGH.
And it’s at that moment, while my girlfriend and I were standing on the sidewalk looking around with perhaps an almost imperceptible tinge of despair in our eyes, that a woman stopped her car in the street next to where we were standing.
Hope. Concern.
Time to try out my rudimentary Japanese kills. I hope the few months of self-study leading up to this moment are going to pay off now.
She rolled down her window and said something that was probably made up of a mix of Japanese and basic English, but clearly conveyed that she thought we needed assistance. So I showed her the directions and tried to explain that we were looking for the street our hostel was located on. And I’m sure that the fact that we were dragging our luggage behind us made our predicament fairly obvious as well.
She told me to wait for a little, took out her mobile phone, and proceeded to call our hostel to ask for directions. I made sure to thank her repeatedly. And after being on the phone with the hostel staff for a handful of minutes, I think that she came to the conclusion that it would be too difficult to try and explain to us how to get there, and she opened her car door and motioned for us to get in.
My girlfriend and I were floored by this gesture. Here was a small Japanese woman, driving her car by herself at 23:30 on her way home, certainly tired after a long day of work (it was a Wednesday), inviting a couple of complete strangers into her car, in the middle of a deserted neighborhood. And while it’s true that I was accompanied by my girlfriend, my height and size could be easily intimidating to people in that part of the world.
So she got us to our hostel, safe and sound, even walking in with us to the reception desk to make sure that everything was okay, and bid us farewell. I have no idea what her name was. I wish that I had been able to better communicate so that I could have more effectively thanked her and maybe found a way to repay her kindness somehow.
THE TWO MEN WHO HAPPENED TO BE STANDING OUTSIDE
We were in Nara and we had finished visiting the places we wanted to in the morning. According to the itinerary, we had time for a scenic walk through the town which would take us all the way back to the train station where we had left our luggage in storage lockers. From there we would be getting on another Japan Rail (JR) Express train on our way to the next planned destination.
This was a much more interesting way to visit than simply taking a taxi or public bus back to the station. The catch, however, is that we were zig-zagging along a path made of main streets and small alleys rather than following the main road and signs that lead straight there. At one point during our enjoyable walk, we realized that we were starting to run short on time and, that we might not be able to reach the station early enough to catch the train that we were planning to get on.
And since we only had a day or so to visit most of the cities we were traveling to, it was important that we don’t miss the bullet train we wanted to take. And this is when we stopped at a building where I saw two Japanese men standing outside and talking so that I could walk over and ask for directions to the nearest metro station. I briefly stated our situation (speaking Japanese was becoming slightly easier with each day that passed), they discussed it with each other, and then with me, and decided that it was best if they just gave us a ride there, in the interest of time.
Another great example of hospitality and friendliness on the part of the Japanese people toward two complete strangers, right in the middle of their day and whatever it is they were doing. The car was smaller this time and somewhat cramped as we sat in the back with our backpacks, but the conversation was pleasant all the way there. The two men were very interested in where we were from and asked what we thought about Japan, and I managed to carry out a basic conversation with them all the way there. I thanked them for their help and we parted ways.
We got on the train on time and all was well.
CONCLUSION
There’s no doubt in my mind that impromptu interactions with locals like the ones I’ve described in this article always make a trip more memorable. And they don’t have to be about receiving help or anything like that either. It could be simply an interaction with the service staff at a restaurant, for example, and as long as it’s genuine and doesn’t feel “forced”, it’s what a lot of great travel stories are made of as well as what drives that wanderlust passion for travel.
Q. Have you been helped by a stranger in a foreign land?
Or maybe you’ve been in a situation where the roles were reversed and in a position to provide assistance to someone who was visiting your country and needed it.
Share your experiences in the comments!
All the best,
Pascal
PS: You can go here to read how I planned my trip to Japan and the helpful things I learned from accomplishing that. You can also read more about me here.
