I'm an idiot!!!

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 8:39 am

If I were still doing news and rumors, that title would be neither. I know.

A few friends asked if I could order some stuff for them from Amazon.co.jp. And by "some stuff," I mean "about a thousand dollars worth of Transformers." No problem. The first box arrived THE NEXT DAY. The rest was scheduled to arrive tomorrow.

Today, I got an email saying that there was a problem with my address. Interesting. So I called up the shipping company. They explained, in an incredibly respectful, polite, roundabout, and frustrating way, that I didn't give them the street that I lived on.

Which means that all the mail I've received, in the 5 months I've been here, has arrived thanks to the staff at the local post office actually hunting my ass down. All because, when I wrote my address down for the first time, I left off one line of kanji.

Anyway, it's scheduled to arrive tonight (still ahead of schedule). Yay, me! Yay, stupid, stupid, me.

Post by **Kaylee** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 9:14 am

How lovely

saysadie · Post by **saysadie** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 2:14 am

That's some awesome service from your postal office, though.

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 8:46 am

At my old flat the post office actually refused to believe I existed. Conversations got very existential.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 3:18 pm

This explains why you didn't get my Christmas card.

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 9:39 am

I topped myself today. I did what may be the single stupidest thing that I've ever done. And here it is.

I was scheduled to work at a new school today. This school is a bit difficult to find. The directions I got were basically, "take this train, transfer to this train, transfer to this train, then walk for about 25 minutes to the school." Since almost no Japanese streets have names, my directions looked like this.

Walk for 100 meters. Turn left.
Walk for 85 meters. Turn right.
Walk for...

Still, I gave myself plenty of time to find the school, and figured I could just hop in a cab near the train station if it looked hopeless. Well, it looked hopeless, but there were no cabs. To make matters worse, either my GPS was messed up or I was teleporting at random.

As I was trying to find the place, looking at different maps on my ipod, a black van pulled up next to me and asked if I was lost and where I was going. I told him the name of the school I was looking for, and he said, in Japanese, "Oh, that's no problem. I'm the PTA President of that school. Are you the new English teacher? Yeah? Hop in, I'll give you a ride."

Now, here's what went through my mind at that very moment:

1: DO NOT GET INTO A GODDAMN VAN IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE JAPAN WITH SOME GUY YOU'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE.

2: If this guy really IS the PTA President, and I refuse his generous offer, I'm gonna get fired and my company is going to be in a ton of hot water for employing such a disrespectful person as a teacher.

3: He doesn't have a gun. People who abduct drifters in this country don't have guns. He may have a knife though.

4: Even if he DOES have a knife, I could totally take him.

5: In the event that he starts driving away from the school's general location, has a knife, and attacks me, I think I'd still have enough time to deal with him and make it to work on time.

So I took some guy with a van and a dirty Anpanman doll in his front seat up on his generous offer to drive an unfamiliar trenchcoat clad foreigner to an elementary school. He showed me a few of the landmarks along the way so I could find my way back on Thursday, dropped me off at the gate, then drove off to (presumably) his office.

But, yeah, definitely the stupidest decision I've ever made.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 12:41 pm

Follow this:

Professor Smooth wrote:They explained, in an incredibly respectful, polite, roundabout, and frustrating way, that I didn't give them the street that I lived on.

with this:

Professor Smooth wrote:Since almost no Japanese streets have names

and then repeat after me: W T F?

No street names? How does that work? Are all addresses just a list of directions from their nearest landmarks? And how would anyone find the landmarks to begin with?

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 8:55 pm

I assumed he meant they just didn't have street signs.

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 11:26 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:I assumed he meant they just didn't have street signs.

Nope. No names at all. Only major streets have them. Everything else is nameless. It is incredibly frustrating and I don't understand how anyone can get around without a map or gps.

Obfleur · Post by **Obfleur** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 11:51 pm

Haha, but that's insane!
What do you tell a cab driver?

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 7:40 am

Obfleur wrote:Haha, but that's insane!
What do you tell a cab driver?

Just give him a location. Every cab I've ever been in has a GPS navigation system. So do about 95% of the cars I've seen, come to think of it. Along with most people walking or on bikes.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 12:31 pm

Well, I guess that'd put pay to Baron Greenback's scheme of bringing the world to its knees by destroying all the signposts in this Danger Mouse episode.

Obfleur · Post by **Obfleur** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 12:48 pm

Professor Smooth wrote:
Obfleur wrote:Haha, but that's insane!
What do you tell a cab driver?
Just give him a location.

What does "location" mean in this context?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 1:05 pm

And what would an address look like?