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come back here, foreigner! |
Kapsule
4/2/03
Evangeline and I went to Tokyo this summer, looking for a tourist
info center that the travel guide recommended as the best in Tokyo. After
searching for quite a while with no success, we went to a local police box to
ask for directions.
Tokyo is a metro area of about 30 million
people. It’s crowded and the streets don’t run in any planned fashion, nor do
they have names. Yes, that’s right. In a city of 30 million, the streets aren’t
named. Just try to find something!
When you can’t find a place, you ask at the
police box. The policeman was very nice and pulled out his maps, but with no
success. We thanked him and were going to leave, but he insisted that we stay
while he made some phone calls. He called around, but no one had ever heard of
this place which was, according to the guide book, the largest tourist
information center in Tokyo and should be right in the neighborhood. Now, we
weren’t the last bit surprised that the tourist information center was hidden
that well. We’re getting used to things like that.
Finally, the policeman gave us directions to a
nearby hotel, suggesting that we ask there. We thanked him for all his help and
left. Now, the police box was located just across from the Emperor’s palace, on
one of the largest streets in Tokyo. It was mid-day, the traffic was heavy, and
probably close to 100 people were waiting at the intersection to cross the
street. We joined the crowd and when the light changed, we crossed the street.
As we approached the far side, suddenly a loud
voice blasted above the roar of the traffic and city noise. At first we didn’t
catch it, but everyone looked at us. The second time we caught the announcement:
“Foreigner, come back here.” We looked, and there was our friendly policeman,
shouting through a bullhorn and waving for us to come back. Of course, everyone
was looking at us and wondering what crime we had committed.
We turned and ran quickly across the street, to
find that the policeman had located the place we were searching for.
There is no end to the kindness of the
Japanese.
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