You Know That Scene in Home Alone...

...Where the family wakes up late for their trip and has to run through the airport to catch their flight??

This one:

That's sort of what I imagine we look like to people as we've navigated the many trains we've taken on this trip.

Don't get me wrong. The extensive train and subway system here has been a lifesaver, and gotten us all over Japan successfully. It's so extensive, in fact, that we've only had to take a taxi once, and had a car rental only to move luggage in one town.

But it's sometimes a bit tricky, especially when the timetable looks like this:

So we've spent plenty of time pouring over information screens, pushing buttons on ticket machines and desperately consulting Google Maps. And when we finally figure it out, we realize our train leaves in 3 minutes on a track across the station. Hearing Luca yell, "6 minutes! 6 minutes!" has become quite common, and we all scramble, dropping the groceries we were trying to buy at the station convenience store, madly flipping through the contents of bags for tickets, screaming for kids to come back from whatever havoc they're currently wreaking, grabbing luggage, and running like the McAllisters through the station.

Sometimes instead, we wait patiently for 20 minutes on a platform, only to watch the correct train depart from the other side. And then we do the aforementioned mad dash again.

Several times we've gotten on the train, only to realize that this is an express train, and doesn't stop at our station. We exit, reconsult info boards, phones, etc...cue mad dash.

We've had train doors physically close on two of us, have been shoved so far in the train by a stream of humanity that children were lifted off their feet, but we haven't actually lost anyone yet. And we've always arrived at our destination.

So overall? B+ in Japanese Train Navigation.

#winning