Disaster!!!

Today started in a really hectic way,

trying to organise a train ticket,

trying work out where I wanted to go and how to get there,

no decent coffee yet……

The same as I had found last night, everyone was incredibly helpful, as soon as I looked slightly lost people would come up and ask if I needed help. Eventually I had may day pass ticket and it was time to reward myself by the lifesaving task of finding a coffee. After negotiation the million bikes that are everywhere in Osaka (with surprisingly few cars – my sort of balance), I found my goal.

It was ordered, I was relaxing, went to pull out my wallet and……..

it was gone!!! I had it when I’d bought the ticket and that was the last time I had needed it! After pulling everything out of my bag around 10 times and checking the same 4 ” square of pockets about 50 times I new I had to give up; the first time in my life I had lost my walet and I did it overseas! The wonderful women at Safecup Coffee went and exchanged a 5US note for me, so I could at least relax with the cup before the hassles began.

After a while my heart slowed down to only around 300 beats and I began to realise it could have been much worse.I have about $100 US I hadn’t exchanged yet and around $1000 in old travelers cheques. I have a day pass train ticket, I had emptied most unnecessary cards and Masako was arriving tonight so we would make do.

Not calm but feeling a bit better I went back to the station to try to find the counter I had bought the ticket, this is no trivial task as Namba station is immense, it takes almost an hour walk one direction alone. I couldn’t find it, but instead found a station office, tried to explain my situation to someone with a very small amount of English. As soon as he clicked what I’d lost he asked me to wait and ran off, presumably to get someone who spoke it much better.

Around 10 minutes, which seemed closer to a year, he came back smiling and handed me my wallet again! I have never felt so relieved in my life! Of course, being in Japan, every cent was still there.

A quick Ramen noodles (800 yen, about $8 , food here can be very cheap and really nice, now it’s time to relax into being a tourist….