All Roads Lead to Home?
Memoirs - A foreigner's experience of getting lost in Japan
All Roads Lead to Home? Memoirs – A Foreigner’s Experience of Getting Lost in Japan. Don’t Leave Home Without a GPS. This is a continuation of my true stories of my time living in Japan, seen through the lens of a foreigner from Canada.
Long ago, in a land far away - Canada
When I was a young man, my friend and I used to ride our bikes all over the GTA (Greater Toronto Area), with the objective of getting lost on purpose. This was well before smartphones and GPS were even imagined, mind you. We covered many kilometers in a single day, exploring new areas we had never seen before. The disappointing (or reassuring) conclusion was that we never actually got lost. Toronto, Canada, is laid out in a grid pattern, and once you memorize the main thoroughfares, they always serve as a marker of your whereabouts. So, this was a fun redundancy of youth when you were killing time.
Years later, when I was a drunken, irresponsible young adult, I walked more or less in a straight line, straight enough for a drunk person that is, from the heart of the downtown core to my home in Scarborough. It took a few hours, but I eventually got home because that is how easy it was.
I realize that you, my readers, are not seeing any mountains. Nope! Toronto has some small hills, but it is as flat as pancake.
In essence, all roads would eventually lead to home, once I knew the name of the major streets.
The subway map is even easier to understand by the way.
Years Later - Far from Home
Years later, you would have discovered that same reckless, intoxicated adult wandering the streets of Japan late at night. I missed the last train unfortunately, and only had an empty wallet, a flip-phone that had never known internet, a useless paid train pass, and a gut full of alcohol to keep me going on that hot steamy night. Luckily, I only lived a few train stations away!
I know what you’re thinking. Japan is a country of mountains and rivers. Surely, you can’t expect to walk in a straight line all the way home. But actually, at the time, I lived in a very flat area of Chiba on the Joban train line. There was a river and a few roads that ran parallel. From my estimation, it was an easy hike. I could easily picture how to get home because I saw it from the train window every day! I wasn’t worried at all. So, with one foot slightly staggering in front of the other, I began my journey home.
I learned a valuable lesson then: not all roads lead back home, in Japan.
What street do you live on?
For those of you who might not be aware, most everyday streets do not have names. Only major streets receive names whereas the street where I reside does not bear any. If you closely inspect an electricity pole at the corner of most streets, you might be able to spot a small stainless steel plaque which has a street number inscribed on it, although even that may not be visible or present at times. Hence, I live on a street with no name, and I think perhaps U2 had Japan in mind when they composed that song.
Japan is also full of old roads, shrines, mini-shrines, temples, and other places of worship that modern roadwork has to navigate around meticulously.
Sorry, I digress.
That night, I wandered along the riverside and covered a lot of ground until I stumbled upon an unexpected and unwanted sight – the road suddenly ended!
All roads do NOT lead to home
As you can probably imagine, I never made it home that night. The alcohol had long since burned through my system, leaving me dehydrated and disappointed. However, the sunrise at 4:30 am the following morning at my initial departure point was a pleasant sight to see nonetheless. I had a not-so-useless train pass that I could finally use.
Since then, in the 20 years that I have been living here, I have gotten lost many times.
Once, I drove into a one-way farmer’s field with my wife; we were accompanied by a chorus of frogs singing, “Kiss the girl.”
I got lost with my daughter coming home from our local LaLaPort shopping mall during a horrendous rainstorm. I found myself lost in a few train stations and more.
Even the GPS on my phone or car navi, which requires me to continuously update, resync, climb to higher elevations, subscribe to Hello Kitty News (I exaggerate), often becomes unreliable. This points out to me that it isn’t easy to navigate through Japan. Many of my students have said that getting lost is quite normal.
I learned that it’s best to leave extremely early and expect that part of my day will be spent getting lost.
One Road Leads to Kyoto
There is a famous exception to the rule: I live relatively close to the Tokaido (Route 1), which connects the old imperial capital city of Kyoto to the new capital city of Tokyo.
I have driven on it many times throughout the years I’ve been here. It’s a road filled with traffic lights and can have congestion during peak construction and typhoon days. Although the scenery can be quite beautiful at times, I would rather stick to my favorite game, which is faster and has no traffic lights. As a bonus, I haven’t gotten lost… yet.
Thank you for reading my story. If you like what you read, please give it a like. It would help me.
This is a link to another of my articles in the same Memoirs Series.
Thank you. Have a good day, wherever you are.
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