EETO, Where’s the Sakura Hostel? – Adam in Japan #4

Ah, I had a feeling that I’d get lost in Japan at least once.  And when it happened, I just had to shrug it off and stay calm.  I was with one of the other guys on my team, so we had to work together to find our way back to the Sakura Hostel.

Basically, a big group of us went out to dinner, and then the others wanted to go to a bar, and a couple of us didn’t feel like doing that, so we decided to walk back to the hostel. 

I could’ve sworn that I knew where I was going…

I made sure to memorize the path from the hostel to the restaurant, but things changed when it got dark out.  God knew that I wanted a chance to use the Japanese that I had been studying, so he threw me into a situation where I was forced to seek out a friendly police officer, whip out my Sakura Hostel business card, point to it and say, Eeto… Sakura Hostel wa doko desu ka?

You can tell what I was trying to say, right?  He basically pointed in the direction of the hostel and told us where to turn.  I understood enough of it to find my way back to the hostel, but before leaving, I bowed and said arigatou gozaimasu.  That’s when my teammate also bowed, but he said something slightly different… something along the lines of ohayou gozaimasu which means “good morning.”  Like I said before, it was after 9 at night.

I get it, though.  And in his defense, he studies Chinese instead of Japanese, and both phrases include gozaimasu for politeness.  Basically, I can see why he mixed up the two phrases.  And yes, I did laugh afterwards, not at my teammate, but because of the fact that a police officer just heard a foreigner walk away while saying “good morning” to him. 

Oh yeah… I had a lot of fun adventures in Japan, and there’s still more that I want to share with you, so make sure to check back often.  By the way, what do you think are the most useful survival Japanese phrases?  Leave a comment below!

I'm pretty sure this was the day before a couple of us got lost.  Oh, and the food was great!  I think I ordered curry, but it's tough to remember what I ate on this day over six months ago.

We ended up fitting eight of us (and our luggage) into this room for two nights.

I met Colonel Sanders!  

I took this picture near our hostel.  I would have liked it a lot more if it wasn't so bright in the top center.  But I didn't know that my camera would react so poorly to bright lighting.

  

Later,

Adam

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