On Pre-Travel Handwringing

There are two main sources of my pretravel anxiety: language and metro systems.

I talk to myself before I travel. I talk to myself a lot. As soon as I have my hands on the travel phrase book I repeat words over and over again. Muttering to myself. I'm certain I look crazy, because I certainly feel crazy.

The funny thing is, this repetition doesn't actually do me much good. The words don't sink in when I get where I'm going. Inevitably amnesia strikes when I need to bust one of my crammed phrases out and I end up flipping open the phrase book anyway.

And this does nothing to address my lack of preparation for understanding the answer to my question to be delivered rapid fire in another tongue.

The only exception to this is Spanish, in which I consider myself semi-fluent. If there's a piece of vocabulary I need for a situation, I only need to repeat it a few times and am generally able to recall it since I already have the support of grammar and a pretty robust vocabulary.

Japanese presents a special challenge. Not only are there new sounds and grammar to learn, but there are different character sets. Three of them: hiragana, katakana and Kanji.

I'm sitting on the plane with about two and a half hours to go and though I know I'm supposed to take the Keisei line out of the airport toward my hostel, I'm almost certain the sign will be written like this 京成本線 and only because I looked up the symbol.

If I take the Keisei train bound for Ueno, I have to remember to stop at the Aoto station, and in either case once I get to the Oshiage station I have to transfer to the train toward Asakusa Bashi. It makes my mind race, and my stomach hurts a little bit thinking about it.

What will the ticket machines look like? Will I feel more pressure to navigate this all when the dreaded Tokyo rush hour strikes (a sea of humanity, I'm told, packed ass to elbow)? I actually took this last point into account when I booked my ticket -- there are only a certain number of flights a day into Narita from SFO, LAX and PDX and I took the one that would get me in at 3:30, hoping to have a fighting chance against the subway crowds.

San Francisco's BART system has 5 lines with 7 end destinations. From what I can tell, the Tokyo Metro has over 12 lines with dozens of endpoints. Then there is JR (Japan Rail) and a handful of private-owned rail services shuttling between various destinations.

There is no doubt an order to all of this, but my unfamiliarity makes it appear chaotic.

So what stops this from becoming a full-on freak out? Faith in humanity, in a few flavors:

First: metro system design. A metro system's value predicates itself on delivering thousands of daily passengers through its network. This requires a certain amount of intuitiveness in the design. If people can't figure out where they're going that means either lower revenues, higher costs (more information kiosks), or slower service due to clogging in stations.

Second: some international support. Though it's not always person-to-person I've yet to encounter a metro system (counterexamples and new travel destinations welcome) that hasn't made an attempt to include some degree of international support. Sometimes it's pictographic (a guy with an arrow pointing toward a box can be interpreted by most people as an exit sign). Sometimes its ticket kiosks that allow you to switch them between a variety of languages.

Third: People, people, people. If you stand in one spot looking lost for long enough, someone will eventually make an attempt to help you -- even if they don't speak your language. This one takes constant self-reminding because in my desire to look cool and keep my map stashed, I'm also missing out on one of the biggest flags that I'm in need of directional assistance -- the damn map. (American tourism-city dwellers take note: if you see someone with a map out, offer to help. You have the power to turn someone's trip around!). On this trip, I have the added bonus of being Caucasian -- there's no blending in to be had, so there's also no point in hiding the map. I'm not from here, and people will be instantly aware of this fact. Hopefully, to my directional benefit.

In some sense, this is the part of the ride where you're being towed up the first hill. Your mind is busy click-clacking as a lift chain sags and glides. You stomach gnurls as you look down, off to the side and the ride ahead. You bought your ticket. You stood in line for the ride. Yet somehow at this moment, you are forgetting how, exactly, you got your self into this mess.

If it's your first time on the ride, you have to take someone else's word. If you've done it before you can take your own: you only feel your stomach in your throat for a moment on that first drop before it's replaced with the exhilaration of the rest of the track. You are going to careen around with exhilarating ups, downs and bank turns that defy physics. Before you're ready, you'll be back to the place you left from. Wishing you could go around again.

It's going to be one hell of a ride.

From UA837, Seat 21F