For some reason, when I travel, I inevitably end up running to catch something. Previous hasty sprints have involved a bullet train in Nagasaki, a midnight train in St. Petersburg, a flight in Johannesburg, and a transfer in Bangkok.
My most recent episode was a trot through Shibuya station (because who knew the Shinkansen platform was so so far from all the other ones?)Â to catch the first Narita express of the day, to catch my flight to Saigon.
I got to Shibuya station a solid 15 minutes before my train was supposed to depart, so I thought I had plenty of time. But then I had to find the special train ticket machine that sold Narita Express tickets, and then I had to get on the train. I knew where the entrance to the platform was. Five minutes to go – just an easy walk, right? As I walked through the ticket gates, I slowly realized that there was a really long hallway ahead of me, and it had a bend to it, and … where was the platform, exactly?
After turning hallway #2, we realized that maybe, if we didn’t hustle, we’d miss the train.
So, backpacks hefted high, taking full advantage of the already moving walkways, an increasingly hasty jog led us to … more stairs. (Critical reason why backpacks beat suitcases – sprintability). Those walkways are nice and springy by the way. Rather surprising.
We were almost there! So close, in fact, we could hear the wheels of the train hissing, and the beginning of the “Please beware of closing doors” spiel. Leaping down the stairs and almost rolling onto the train…we made it into the closest car (#4).
Usually it wouldn’t have been a problem to walk through the train to my seat in car 7, but this particular train had a conductor’s office in car 6, which blocked the way. So we had to stand awkwardly in the luggage space of car 6 for 20 minutes, until the train stopped at Tokyo station. Once stopped, we sheepishly hopped off the train, stepped two feet over to car 7, and hopped back on.
Phew. The rest of the transportation for the trip was happily uneventful, though.
No pictures of the mad dash, but here’s an amusing sign from the airport. It seems as though someone might have complained about the lack of warning, because there were at least two of these as you walked to the boarding gates. In the exact same format, too, there was also a sign with a real announcement about switched gates. Strange.
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| From Vietnam |
