Tickets

Finally when school had finished on Thursday, Haruka, Yuka, Moe and myself got ready to head to the station. This `getting ready` consisted of straightening Haruka`s hair and then putting it in pig tails with bright red bobbles to make her look Japanese and cutesy.

I left half my stuff at school because I didn`t want to cart around my lunch box and books around Fukushima station so I got to my bike, unlocked it and got out my umbrella although rather reluctantly. I had hoped we`d be walking because it was raining and I wanted to use my umbrella. But anyone who knows anything about Japanese people knows that Japanese people are physically able to do the following things, all at once, while dodging the dodgy traffic; get iPod out of a bag, untangle an iPod cord, send a text message, hold an umbrella, eat an icecream, do their hair, check their reflection in a mirror, make a phone call and the list just goes on. However, being the single-tasking exchange student that I am who`s single task is to avoid being killed is not all that flash when it comes to riding with an umbrella.

However falling into peer pressure (because that is the weak kind of person i am...) I got out my umbrella and took off with the girls towards the station. After launching myself off a few curbs and smashing into a few bushes I managed to make it to Fukushima station probably just as wet as if I hadn`t bothered with the stupid umbrella in the first place. We parked our bikes in a bike parking lot, there were many bikes, and we walked safely inside.

Purikura was as it always is, good fun and intense because of the ridiculous time limits. Afterwards we went to a cafe and had massive icecreams while taking pictures and listening to Yuka tell us that her favourite person, the guy she likes, in fact has a girlfriend who `isn`t cute`. Also we were complaining at the fact that I go home in one week. Afterwards it was action time, time to buy my tickets for Tokyo. Rather, time for Moe to buy them for me.

So we get to the ticket place and I am listening to the Japanese conversation and it sounds like all is going well. I hear the word Saturday though and think, that`s odd. So I mention to Moe in Japanese that it is Sunday not Saturday and she goes, oh ok. So the lady hands over the complicated looking tickets and we are all smiling and walk out of the ticket office with grins on our faces.

Haruka and Yuka have to go somewhere else and so Moe and I get our bikes and begin to ride back to school to get my books. We are stopped at the lights and in general conversation, Moe asks me (in english even) `Are you staying at a Hotel in Tokyo?` and I am like, `Well no, I am only there for one day so no.`

The look on both our faces indicated that we had just obviously made a terrible mistake. In absolutely perfect english Moe then remarks, `Well, back we go`. Laughing the whole way as we ride up hills, around corners, through puddles etc, we finally make it back to the ticket office. The lady looks like she has experienced the most realistic spout of Deja Vu and we explain what had happened.

For the second time we leave the ticket office smiling. It didn`t end there. Due to the hold up of having to go to the ticket office late, we then were back at school late. That meant my books and my lunch box, that I didn`t really need, were inside the school building and everyone was outside. Moe seemed to think it was important that I got my books and took my `Oh, never mind, don`t worry about it` to be polite and ignored the fact that I really didn`t care. So we approach the teachers waiting outside the school and ask if we can go in. They smile and say we sure as hell can go in as if we are taking our lives in our hands if we bother. So we take off our shoes (no shoes inside in Japan) and drop the things we actually did have and enter into the pitch black building. Exhausted from peddling so fast and worrying etc we run breathlessly up the trillions of stairs until we are on the third floor. Moe says it is the first time she has been inside the school in the dark and I told her me too, obviously.

Then the torchlight freezes us in our running poses like kangaroos about to be hit by a car.

I like to think that what he said was nice but I think having two wide-eyed girls, one a foreigner, running through the school with wild, tangled hair and shocked looks on their faces was the most action this ancient security guard had had in years.

I let Moe do the talking and after saying excuse me about 1000 times we eventually entered my classroom, grabbed my stupid books and ran back down the trillions of stairs.

So then Moe and I finally parted and I rode home alone in the dark and rain without an umbrella. It was good fun except I had `Raindrops keep falling on my head` stuck in my head the whole way home.

Anyway, the moral of this story is that I am going to Tokyo and I hope I can have a nice time but I have a feeling a lot of people are worried that we won`t make it there alive and we won`t work out the way to use the stations etc which is a bit dissappointing as I was up for learning and living instead of being stalked by worrying people. But of course will do as I am told, would have been nice to make a mistake though.

Talk when I make it home after Sunday!