Lost in Translation

The movie “Lost in Translation” starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, was about two characters who felt lost in a foreign country whose language and culture were very different from theirs. He felt neglected, she was lonely and they found friendship in each other.

My “lost in translation” story in Japan was not as beautiful and sad as theirs. I think mine was just comical and sometimes silly.

We decided to self drive in Hokkaido. When I rented the car in Singapore, I asked for a GPS in English. After we arrived at the car rental outlet at Hokkaido, the staff said there was no English GPS, but they would give us a GPS with an English speaking guide. We found out that everything indicated on the GPS screen was in Japanese but the audio on the GPS would tell you to turn right or left in English. Armed with this GPS and a rough map, we started our adventure in a foreign land. 

 

The GPS was a breeze to use. All we had to do was to follow the pink route. The only challenge was we could not key in the destinations in Japanese. We ended up asking staff at one hotel to key in the address of our destination. We also had help at the national parks, from the carpark warden to the Japanese tourist. Though they spoke little English, they had no problem in showing their friendliness and helpfulness.

After a couple of days, we found an easier way to key in the destinations - using PHONE numbers.

After keying in the phone number (including the area code which we didn’t know in the first place), you then double checked the Kanji characters of your destination (some characters look like Chinese characters) and then off you go.

There was a day when we had been driving for a couple of hours. We wanted to find a place to rest and have a cup of tea. On the way, we saw a big ice cream cone outside this building and decided to stop and see. However the name“增家”made us wander if this was a residence instead. We ended up peeping through the windows and found restuarant setting inside the building.  

This place served excellent noodles and the interior was very feminine and pretty. When we were paying our bill, I saw a magazine which introduced this resturant as one of the top 100 noodle places.

Hmm, don’t I love these little surprises :)