OIJ

It happens routinely here in Tokyo, some are better than others, but this one happened to me yesterday.  As you all know, Bo, Cyndi, Olivia, and Eli are going to visit us here in in ONE WEEK, and we are so excited. I am scurrying around so our 10 days will run smoothly. One chore I had to do was to find all the "Pasmo"(pronounced pass-e-mow) cards I have purchased--and lost---load them up with cash. Pasmo cards are the subway cards for all subways here in Tokyo. You flash them on the entrance coming and going, and it just subtracts the yen for each trip you take. Almost all of the time they work fantastic!! Every once in a while you will be 'stopped' by the gates, usually because you do not have enough yen on the card. I wanted to make sure I 'loaded' the 5 cards up to start our adventures. This is what a Pasmo card looks like. (The red dot is my 'touch' because they all look alike, this way when I pass them out all the kids have to remember is which one is theirs each trip)!

I was down in my 'home' station Kamiyacho loading them up with 2,000 yen each. Everything was going well, with the exception of ONE!! It kept rejecting it, and saying "SEE ATTENDANT". So I kind of-- (I will admit) sucked my teeth a little and walked over to the attendant, ---"reject-o des ka?" He REALLY sucked his teeth loudly, and said, in slow stuttering English (whew!!) ,," ahhhh soooo month ago----ahhhhh---no return---arrived at Nakameguro"----- I understood!!! Yeah, cherry blossom time, very crowded, and perhaps it did NOT register when I came. So I asked him if he could correct this?? He asked me if I remembered WHAT STOP I returned to??? "YES!!", I replied  "this one Kamiyacho"!!! Ahhhh so des a nayyyy!!!!-- he subtracted the yen (160) from my card and gave it back to me!!!  It still had 1000 yen on it, and I could load it up with MORE!!! OIJ!!! In NY they would have taken the ENTIRE amount on your card and THEN some!!! Days like this make me LOVE JAPAN!!!