Silly Gaijin... or How I Spent My Saturday.

Above is Landmark Tower in Yokohama. We've been there before, but we were in the area this afternoon, so up we went.

Up, up, up, in Japan's fastest elevator. It takes you from the 2nd to the 69th floor at a rate of 750 meters a minute. The whole trip takes 40 seconds.

The amusement park in the area is called Cosmo World. The first time we visited the area, we wanted to give the Ferris Wheel a whirl. The Ferris Wheel there is one of the biggest in the world. Unfortunately, it was closed on Thursdays. Today we were just up for a quick trip in the area and we didn't even venture over that way.

Below is a picture of a enclosed room with an ATM machine... and the reason for the title of this particular blog entry.

We were hungry, and out of yen, so we decided to get some money from an ATM. The screen was entirely in kanji. Kanji that is way above my reading ability! I stopped two women passing by and asked them if they could help. The came in the room with us and tried to help. One of the women ended up calling for assistance on the phone attached to the ATM. Ultimately, the machine would not honor cards not issued in Japan.

We're done, right?

WRONG!!!

We all turned around to leave, but the doors were locked! Evidently, there was some security feature that locked us all in that tiny room. I ended up down near the floor banging on the glass until someone finally saw me and went for help. Several people were outside the room trying to get the door to open while we were inside doing the same. Eventually, an official-looking woman came and told us to hang on. She ran from the area and the doors opened a few minutes later.

I apologized to the two women who stopped to help and bowed my deepest gratitude bow. They were very gracious, perhaps because they now had a great story to take home to their families about how they saved some gaijin.