What is going on here. Literally.

So about finding places in this country. I mentioned in the last post that Lauren and I had given up on
trying to find specific restaurants because, a.) we couldn't find goddamn anything for the life of us, and b.) all the random places we went to always ended up being good-to-excellent. So that brings me to last night, where my new friend Yuki the Chef had reserved a seat at a relatively prestigious restaurant for me for 8:30. I was going to be prepared this time though: Yuki gave me the restaurant's business card with its address in Japanese on the front and a map of its exact location on the back. It was a block away from a major intersection that I knew I could find easily.

Simple then, right? Well, as I said, we'd been burned before so I was not going to mess around this time: I
set off at 7:45, even though I knew the restaurant to be less than a mile away. I had a long conversation
with my hotel conceirage about its exact whereabouts, and, when he selected a cab for me, he had a
similarly long conversation with its driver about where I was going. The driver examened the buisness card,
and then they talked some more: finally, yes, coordinates were locked in. We drove for about 5 minutes, and then he dropped me off... at the major intersection near the restaurant. Shit. It's ok though! It was only 8:00
so I still had plenty of time to find this place, which was basically within a 2 block radius of where I was
standing.

I went to where I thought it was: it was not there. I went to the next block: it was not there. I continued
to search, in incrementally larger sweeps, until it was 8:25: still nothing. I was starting to panic (have I
mentioned that Japanese people are serious sticklers for punctuality?). Finally, I broke down, and asked for
directions. The clerk at the store examined the business card for a suspiciously long time ("aren't we, like,
right here?", I thought) and pointed me down the road. I went: still nothing. It was now 8:35. I was at
my wits end when I asked two old men, security guards, for help. They too examined the card for while, talked animatedly amongst themselves for a painfully long time, and then, simply, pointed across the street. There it was, less than 20 paces away.

Now here's the thing. It's one thing for a tourist with a lousy sense of direction to get lost: that's to be expected. But for fuck's sake, are you kidding me? The address on the business card was in Japanese, with a map in Japanese, and still no one had the faintest notion where it was. How does anybody find anything in this country. If there's anybody reading this (there's not) who has spent time in Japan and has anything to add, I'd love to hear it. Because I am mystified.