Are you traveling in the right box?

Posted on June 17, 2007 by Subodh Dhakal

In the third of January this year, we made an eleventh hour plan to visit Nikko. Some of our friends in Saitama University wanted to experience heavy snow fall but we were already in the last days of our vacation for Christmas and New Year. Since I have amazing memory of almost 5-6 feet thick snow fall in Luxemburg and The Netherlands in the New Year 2003, I didn’t expect anything better than that here in Japan. That is why I bargained for some multipurpose attraction where we could enjoy both the snow and some other natural beauty, and then we decided the place called Nikko to be the best one.

We browsed the internet for the travel plan and the major attractions to visit because our plan was only for a single day; obviously we were bound to avoid many places. We rushed towards Asakusa early in the morning, we had a really hard time waking up so early but we didn’t have any alternatives. We looked for the All Nikko Pass for foreigners in Asakusa but unfortunately we couldn’t get that. The personnel at the ticket counter suggested that we take the Nikko Free Pass. We followed his suggestion and purchased the tickets for 4400 yen each. We looked at the train box with many seats vacant and took our positions. We were happy to sit in relatively comfortable seats and we had plenty of time to gossip because according to the travel plan it takes more than 2 hours to reach the base station of our destination. Many of us were involved chatting about snow experiences and places of attractions in Nikko as we had copied of some of the information from the internet. I had my little girl with me in her second year; she was talking in her own languages. Some of us, including my wife, were busy playing with her. After a while many of us fell asleep, I was still playing with my baby. I had a hard time checking her not to go to strangers to disturb because she always wants to look, smile and have fun talking in her own language even with strangers.

There were frequent announcements in the train but we didn’t care about that because we noticed that the information was about the station name and our destination was the last station. When the train stopped in one of the stations (I don’t remember the name), one of my friends in the back suddenly stood up and told us in hurry that we got to change the box of the train; our box will not go to Nikko. Fortunately, he knew the information from one of the Japanese he happened to talk to for a while on the train. We took our bags and Jackets and rushed towards the right box. I held my baby and her shoes in my hand, my wife took jacket and bags. Baby didn’t understand why we were in a hurry and where were we heading for, she didn’t feel comfortable. Finally we reached the right box but to our bad luck the box was already packed, we could hardly find a place to stand. By then my child started to cry, the box was so hot, suffocating, and full of people that we didn’t need to think more why she is crying. Our all effort to calm her went worthless; she started to cry even more. People were looking towards us; I was looking all around to see the reaction of people. Suddenly, I saw a gentleman looking furiously towards us. I didn’t know what to do, I felt very sorry and humiliated about the situation, which was the first time this had happened in my life. After the next 3 or 4 stations, the train seemed a little less crowded and some fresh air circulated inside. Slowly my child started calming down, finally we reached our destination. I'll never forget this bitter experience of traveling even though we enjoyed in our full quota of snow and other natural beauty including the water falls and the lake and the beautiful sun set in the top of the Nikko hills.