Wasuremono!*

I forgot to mention here that Ashlie and I had a wasuremono (*lost things/articles) adventure last week. We proved to ourselves that we cannot speak Japanese.

Remember that pretty pink Sophia University envelope thing I posted a while back? The thing that holds books and papers and school things? Ashlie forgot hers at the ticket counter of Shibuya station, and we didn't realize it until after half an hour of shopping. We went back to the ticket counter and saw that it wasn't there, so I flipped through my Japanese notes as to how to go finding a Lost & Found office, describing her bag, etc.

Too bad I don't have enough vocabulary to understand a lot >.<

I managed to ask a station manager where the Lost & Found was located, but I didn't catch most of what he said, only "ichiban." (Number 1? What the hell does that have to do with anything?) We figured out he meant it was on platform 1, but only after consulting a map in English located elsewhere in the station.

So we are at the Lost & Found office. I have no idea what those envelope things are called in English, much less Japanese, but we described a bag with Japanese textbooks inside that we lost at Hachiko exit about half an hour earlier. Great. Okay, they're holding the book bag thing at the first station manager desk we went to.

Frustrating, but technically I didn't ask if the station manager had the bag -- I asked where the Lost & Found was located.

They made Ashlie show her Sophia student ID fill out a form with her name and address in order to get back her bookbag. They don't do that in America, do they? They just give you the article back no questions asked. Either way, Ashlie got her books back and we went to an idol shop to go buy Arashi merchandise to feel better.