A Guest Writer on GLessansAtSea !

Hey everyone.

My good friend Hannah on the voyage had an insane experience in Japan, and I want to share it with you. When she told me the story in its entirety, I had to fight back tears. You know when everything seems horrible, and like your life is just going to end... and then all of a sudden, things just seem to "line up". All of a sudden, the most horrible situation may turn out to be a wonderful one.

This is Hannah's story of losing her US Passport in Tokyo Japan, 24 hours before the ship sailed to Hawaii (No passport = no sailing = game over, go home.)

Enjoy it! Her blog is http://hpontheship.blogspot.com in case you'd like to keep up with her travels or get some more insight on the trip!


--Greg

*Her blog entry, copied in part, appears below*



"The next morning we woke up, got ready to meet Chris for Adrienne’s tattoo appointment, and I realized my purse was missing.  FML.  Game over.  Life over. City of misfortune.  I searched the room through and through.  I checked everyone else’s bags, I wandered the streets, I went back to the club but it was closed and wouldn’t open again until 3pm.  My purse was nowhere to be found.  Everything was gone. 

Now I know that losing those possessions was incredibly stupid and irresponsible and I felt horrible.  I wanted to dig a deep, deep hole and crawl into it and never come out.  I felt ashamed that this kind of idiocy could have happened to me.  Who leaves their purse with ALL OF THEIR BELONGINGS and OTHER PEOPLE’S belongings in a club.  WHO? I do.  Sooooo sooo sooo stupid.

We met up with Chris and told him the situation.  He immediately brought us to a police cube, which they have on nearly every street and we reported the loss/theft.  I could barely talk.  I couldn’t eat.  I felt terrible that this was putting a huge, black rain cloud over everyone’s second-to-last day in Japan.  I didn’t want anyone to miss out on their plans because of my foolishness.  Kendra had planned to meet up with Mary, so I told her to go.  Adrienne wanted to get a tattoo, Jill was going to go to the Pokemon store, and we both had tickets to go to a Japanese baseball game and I didn’t want her to miss it.

Kendra went off at noon to meet Mary, Jill met up with Win to tell him she couldn’t come to the Pokemon store, and then Adrienne, Chris, Jill and I went to eat since it was noon and we hadn’t eaten.

I didn’t eat.  I just sat, wanting to wake up from the nightmare I was in.  I decided that I would go back to the club at 3 to make sure my bag wasn’t there.  I hoped and prayed and wished it would be there.  Everyone kept telling me that if you lose something in Japan, people will turn it in to the closest police station.  They told me no one steals.  City of lies.

After everyone ate, Chris took Adrienne to get her tattoo.  Jill and I came with and waited while the tattooist embellished the design and colored it in and drew it on Adrienne’s shoulder.  We watched him start the process and then Chris, Jill, and I went back to the train station so Jill could catch a train to get back to the ship in Yokohama and meet up with the people going to the baseball game.  Jill was really hesitant about leaving me, since I literally had nothing.  No passport, no credit card, no debit card, no cash, no phone, not even the green information sheet we are given by SAS for each port that has important phone numbers and addresses on it.   Chris let me use his phone to call Mary, though, and I planned to meet Kendra and Mary in another district of Tokyo, so I wouldn’t be totally alone. 

So we went to the train station and got a guard to open our locker since the key was in my purse.  That cost extra.  Then we got our huuuuge backpacks out and Jill hugged me goodbye.  She gave me about 4000 Yen since I had no money.  She was so good to me.  Such a good friend.  She really didn’t want to leave me, either, but I didn’t want her to miss out on Tokyo because of me.  Adrienne had also been incredibly nice and understanding.  I don’t know why they were being so nice, because I didn’t feel like I deserved anyone’s sympathy.

 Jill left, and Chris helped me catch the right train to meet up with Kendra and Mary.  I found them in the train station in Asakusa.  I told them my plan to go back to the club and if all else fails to go the US Embassy to get a new passport.  The embassy seemed like a last resort because I was still holding on to the idea that I would find my purse in the club.  It is the city of magic, anyway.

They told me they planned to see the Thunder Gate and some other sights. I didn’t want to impede on Kendra’s time with her friend nor her one chance to see these things in Tokyo and I told them this.  But I also told them that I had nothing.  I didn’t know the language, the area, I had no way of contacting anyone, I had very little money.  So Kendra wrote down some phone numbers and the address of the embassy from her green sheet on a piece of paper for me, and I went off in Tokyo, on my own.  Completely alone, apart from my 30-pound backpack.  I was scared out of my mind.

I got on a train back to Shibuya and went in search of Vuenos.  I stopped in a hotel and asked for directions, but the concierge didn’t speak good English and didn’t really know where the club was.  A guy behind me was talking in English so I asked him if he knew the club Vuenos.  He did and he wrote out directions for me.  City of miracles.  After about 45 minutes of traveling on my own in Tokyo, wandering the streets, making wrong turns, staring wide-eyed at the Japanese characters on the train maps, taking wrong trains, I found the club.  I knocked on the door, asking to go in and look for my purse.  No one spoke English.  I gestured and spoke slowly.  They sent me up to the office above the club and the same thing happened.  Finally they let me in and the Japanese man I had been talking to told me I wouldn’t find it.  A band was tuning up on stage, as I hunted for my purse. 

It was gone.  Everything was gone.  I had soooo hoped it would turn up, that no one took it, that it was just left in a corner behind a speaker.  But no, it was gone.  With disappointment, I told the man working at the club, “Arigoto (thank you)” and began to leave.  Then I asked him if I could use the club’s phone.  He got confused and wrote down the club phone number.  I tried to explain and I realized that I really had no one to call anyways, so I just left. 

I wandered back to the train station so I could go to Akasaka, a district in Tokyo where the US Embassy is located.  I asked security what train to take.  They told me to take two subways.  So I went off in search of the subway station.  Along the way I saw a few SASers.  I asked a Megan, a friend from South Africa, if I could have her green sheet.  She gave it to me and asked what happened.  I told her and her group and they sympathized.  I ran into another SASer and asked where the subway station was. She pointed me in the right direction and asked if I was okay.  Tears welled up in my eyes, but I couldn’t cry because I had to get to the embassy so I said no but kept walking.

I found the subway and got my tickets.  Finally I made it to Akasaka.  I’d say it was about 6:30 or 7 by this time, but I don’t have a watch.  It was getting dark out though.  I began wandering along the streets looking for the address.  Of course the addresses aren’t plainly displayed on windows of buildings or anything so my prospects of finding this place were looking dim. 

I began to look for someone who could help me and I saw a black man and woman walking along towards me, who looked like they were speaking English.  I walked up to them and asked if they spoke English.  The man told me yes.  I asked if he knew where the US Embassy was and he gave me directions to the embassy.  I thanked him, and then he said, “You know it’s closed, though.”  That was it.  I started crying.  I must have looked so foolish: standing on the street, disheveled hair, pale-faced, carrying a backpack almost as big as me, wearing the same outfit from the night before, crying in front of strangers.

This man immediately asked what was wrong and, in between sobs, I told him that I was student studying abroad and had lost my passport and needed a new one by tomorrow in order to continue on with my program.  He whipped out his phone and called the officer on duty at the embassy.  How did he have that number in his phone, you may ask?  Because he worked at the embassy! Aaron Baloney (great name), Chief of the Military Liaison Group, my hero.  CITY OF MIRACLES. 

I composed myself, and Aaron gave me the phone and I talked to the duty officer.  She instructed me to come back as soon as the embassy opened the next day (8:30am) and bring either my birth certificate or driver’s license and the copies of my passport that I had.  She also informed me that it might take 3 to 5 days to get a new passport so I should discuss my options with SAS.  I had no options.  If I didn’t get a passport by the next day, I wouldn’t be able to sail with the ship to Hawaii.  I would miss 9 days of school on the ship, which is like the most school we ever have in a row.  I would have to pay for a pretty damn expensive ticket to Hawaii. I had to get a new passport by the next day.

After I got all the information I hung up, and thanked Aaron profusely for letting me use his phone.  His mom, Judy, gave me a big hug and said, “It’s okay, honey.  I’m a mom.”  I needed that hug more than she will ever know.  Aaron asked if I had a place to stay for the night and I told him I was going to go back to the ship in Yokohama.  He asked if I had money to get back to the ship and I told him I had about 2000 Yen.  He, then gave me 3000 Yen and directed me towards the right train to take.  I started crying again because I was so moved by his compassion.  His mom put her arm around me and said that she had been having a crappy day until she met me and I brightened up her day.  Oh you’re having a crappy day?

I thanked them for their help and they made me promise I would call once I got back to the ship safely. 

Back to the subway.  At this point I changed out my dress and tights from the night before and put on sweatpants.  Earlier I didn’t feel like I had time to change or eat or drink or do anything.  I also had a tiny box of Frosted Flakes that I jacked from the ship’s breakfast a few days before.  In new clothes and with some food in my stomach I got on the subway back to Shinjuku.  Once in Shinjuku Station I tried finding a train to Yokohama.  A woman came over and asked if I needed help.  I told her I needed to go to the Nihon-Odori station in Yokohama and she helped me buy a ticket for the right train.  City of miracles.  So many strangers helped me in Tokyo.  Thank God.

I got on the train.  I had to stand for a while until the car emptied out a bit.  When I finally got a seat, I was exhausted.  I had been hauling my huge backpack around all day and it had been a pretty draining day without the extra weight.  Everyone else on the train was exhausted too.  The Japanese really know how to sleep standing up while holding on to the overhead bar on a train.  I’ve never seen anything like it. Every single person is asleep.

My stop was one of the last ones and it had been about an hour ride, but it could have been quicker if there had been less stops.  I got off the train and saw some SASers.  I asked if I could follow them back to the ship since I didn’t know where the ship was docked, because the last time I had seen the ship was in Kobe.  They agreed and we made our way back.  When getting back onto the ship everyone swiped their ship ID cards and when it came to me I told security I lost my card.  She asked for my passport and I told her I lost that too.  I explained that I had lost my bag that contained most of my belongings.  She seemed frustrated and began asking me all of these questions like my room number, my ID number, what classes I took on the ship.  Once she was satisfied that I am indeed a student on Semester at Sea she told me to go immediately to the front desk and alert them of my passport.  I did so.  

Honey, the lady at the front desk, made me a new ship ID and called the dean on duty.  The advice from the dean on duty was to go to the embassy as soon as possible the next day and get a new passport.  He said it could be done pretty quickly, and another student had lost her passport earlier and she already had a new passport.  That gave me some hope.

I got back to my room and put down my bag.  Kendra was there.  She asked how everything went and told me that if I couldn’t get a new passport she would ask her aunt and uncle in Hawaii if I could stay with them until the ship got there.  I couldn’t really handle that idea and at that point, all I wanted to do was call home.  All I wanted was to talk to my mom.  I tried to buy a phone card but Japan has its own network for phones and Internet so phone cards wouldn’t work and the Internet on the ship was turned off.  I didn’t know what to do.  I really couldn’t keep it together much longer.

I went over to Caroline’s room and told her what happened and asked her if her phone was working. It was and she let me borrow it.  She let me use it the whole night, even after she went out.  I have such good, caring friends.  I am so lucky.

I went outside on the front of the ship and tried calling my mom.  She didn’t answer because it was pretty early back home.  Finally she called back and I broke down.  I was scared, tired, devastated, and in need of some motherly love.  She gave it to me.  She was so supportive, so levelheaded.  She was my mom and that’s what I needed then.  Thanks Mom.  I love you very very very very very very much.

Once I got a hold of myself, I called my parent’s college friend Mark Schumacher, who I planned to meet up with the next day and told him of the situation.  He told me we could meet up a bit later after I sorted everything out at the embassy, so I said I’d call him the next day.  Then I called Aaron Baloney and left a message on his answering machine thanking him for everything and letting him know that I got back to the ship alright.

It was weird having a phone again.  I talked to my mom several times that night as she did more and more research on getting a new passport made.  I finally went to bed around 1. 

The next morning I got up at 6, I packed my smaller, more manageable backpack with my drivers license, a copy of my birth certificate, a copy of my passport, two passport photos, $100 USD (I had $102 USD left in my safe), 4000 Yen, the address for the embassy, Caroline’s phone, and some cereal and went on my way to the embassy.  I got to the embassy at about 8:20am.  I went through security and then took a number and waited.  I was third in line, I believe.  They called my number, I told them the situation, gave them all my papers, filled out some paperwork, and waited for them to process an emergency passport for me.  An emergency passport is valid for one year.  I have to get it renewed in the US when I get back.  It looks the same as other passports, except it has EMERGENCY written across it and I think it has less pages.  It also won’t have all the cool stamps, stickers, and visas my old passport had.  But oh well, it’s a passport.

While I waited for my passport, I watched the cutest Japanese family.  A mom, a dad, and a little boy and little girl.  They spoke fluently in English as well.  Those little kids were so cute.  The mom was counting some yen, and the little girl leaned over her mom’s shoulder and said “Is that mine?” and her mom said, “No,” and the girl said, “Oh…well where’s mine?”  Then the two parents got up to talk to one of the workers at the embassy and the little boy sat at the table trying to open his water bottle.  “Daddy! It’s tight!” he cried out, when he couldn’t open the bottle.  His dad didn’t respond.  “Tight! Tight! Tight! Daaaaaaad it’s tiiiiiiiiiiiiight.”  Still no response.  It was pretty funny.  Finally he gave up.

At one point I looked up and Aaron Baloney was walking towards me.  I stood up immediately and thanked him again.  I asked if he got my message and he said yes.  I told him I would pay him back for his loan and he gave me his e-mail address and told me he was glad everything worked out.  Aaron Baloney saved my life.

At about 10 o’clock I had a new passport, so I called the dean on duty on the ship and let him know, then I called my mom to let her know, everything worked out."