Rough day.....

Actually, it was yesterday.....

We decided to take a day trip out to Nikko to visit the World Heritage site....a beautiful site!  But, we had to change apartments that day, so decided to put our bags in locker storage at one of the metro stations we were passing through, and would pass again on the way home.   It was a long train trip, just under 2 hours, and we would arrive around 12:30.  Well, we got on the train, without grabbing any food....oops, especially for those of you that know our Joshua!!  He was starving by the time we arrived!!

We had a great afternoon in Nikko, definitely worth the visit; beautiful, tall trees and temples. One of the temples was under restoration, but it was still really neat to see!  We decided to head home around 4:30 in the afternoon, on the local train, which made about a thousand stops!!!!  It took us just about 2.5 hours, but we had stocked up with snacks, so no problem!!!

We arrived back at the station to retrieve our bags, with our claim slips in hand, but......we couldn't locate where we had stored the bags!!!  The station was huge, connecting several lines!  We wandered around for about 10 minutes, thinking we were getting close, but realizing we really weren't!  We then decided to retrace our steps, from the morning, backwards!  It was really interesting to see what each of us remembered from our walk through the station earlier that day!  Noah remembered a juice bar; Jacob recalled some pillars that were lit, and had a cool design to them; I remembered a coffee shop attached to a book store; Josh recalled climbing stairs.  Once we started on our path, we found the bags within a few minutes.

After retrieving the bags from the locker, we bought tickets and headed to the metro.  We got on the train, only to realize we were headed in the wrong direction, so off we got and caught the train back the opposite way!

When we arrived at our stop, in search of our new apartment, everyone was ready for a meal and to relax.  According to our map, we had a 10 minute walk to the apartment.

We started our hike to the apartment, with very tired kids in tow, each carrying their packs, which we officially weighed today as we headed to Osaka via plane, each of their bags weighs just under 7 kgs!  We arrived at the address Google maps led us to, only to find that it was not an apartment building, but a school!  Todd looked back in his emails, to find that he had a couple different addresses, some of them more complete than others! We had tried contacting the apartment owner a few times earlier on in the week, with no response, but thought we had everything we needed.

So, we enter another address, and follow it, only a few minutes walk away.  We ask several people for help, and they are very gracious in bringing us to the address listed, only for us to find out that it was not the correct address!

After one hour of wandering around a 10 block radius, we decide to take a break, and end up at the nearest McDonalds.  We do some more looking into Todd's emails, and on Airbnb itself, to see if we can find a different address.  We finally end up with something new, and decide we are going to give it one last try, and if it doesn't work, we'll grab a hotel!

So, we head to a completely different area of town, and feel like we are so close, but still can't find the building.  We had thought of taking a cab, but with six people, we really didn't want to split up, in case we ended up in different locations, as we have no way of contacting each other.  Anyways, we walked the 20 minutes to this new area, and feeling like we couldn't find the place, we hired a taxi.  He drove us 1 minute down the road, and pointed us to the left.  We had been right at that spot, but had gone right instead!  We ventured down the little side road to the left, and sure enough, there was the apartment--3 hrs later than planned!


Same address, in 3 different formats!  I think we have it figured out (kinda??) now!

〒100-8994

東京都中央区八重洲一丁目5番3号

東京中央郵便局

5-3, Yaesu 1-Chome

Chuo-ku, Tokyo 100-8994

1-5-3 Yaesu, Chuo-ku

Tokyo 100-8994

In the end, it all worked out great, but we are all tired today and have very sore feet!  We learned a lot about addresses in Tokyo.  We had incomplete addresses for the first area we were in, and therefore were in the wrong area of town.  The exact same addresses exists all over town, all that really differentiates them is their area!

I'm sure we'll have many more days like this, but I really hope they are well spread out!!!