The Dumb Americans

  Andi and I set out today confident that we could negoiate getting to where we wanted armed with 3 maps and good ole' common sense...little did we know.

We sat in a closeby Starbucks planning our route on an interesting self guided walking tour.  "How hard can this be?" we said to ourselves.    So off we went maps in hand, determined to find our way.  We were lost 100 yards out Starbucks.  We looked on the map by Oedo Station and then walked.  We looked at the map by Shimbashi Station.  And we walked. We walked and we walked and we walked, looking for something that looked liked something on the map.  Trying to find where the Ginza and Asakusa subway lines curved near each other.  One of the problems with finding your way in Tokyo is that most streets are not labeled, never mind that the ones that are are only labeled in japanese characters.  We walked up and down the same street 4 times.  We veered over the place with the bend in the road.  We walked away from Chuo Dori (the only road I know the name of and exactly where it is for sure)knowing it is in the Ginza neighborhood not Asakusa where we were going.  We asked a very nice gentleman where we were by pointing at the map.  He kept trying to put us on a subway which we did not want to do.   Finally we sat down 2.5 hours later, on the Ginza road (the wrong one) staring at the map.  We knew where we were, knew where we wanted to be but couldn't see to end up there no matter how hard we tried.  A kind japanese woman asked us in English if she could help (my daughter doesn't like to give in and ask for directions), thank goodess.  She told us we would need to take the train to Asakusa because it was at least an hour away by foot...which accounted for why none of the few labels we had matched anything we knew and why we kept walking in circles.  And why the other man kept trying to put us on the subway...the lesson to be learned here is .
1.  Don't wait too long to ask for help.
2.  Read the guidebook carefully.

We are now back at the hotel, it's 12 noon, and we are exhaused.  We will take a nap, eat a little something and go find a train.  Jeez.