05秋季日本行(第二天買票記) Japan Trip 05 (Day II Purchasing Tickets)

往富士極途中拍到的富士山The Fujiyama taken on the way to Fyjikyu

按照老媽的計畫，第二天的行程是富士急樂園和富士山河口湖。到富士急樂園是為了看芊芊很喜歡的湯馬士小火車，因為裡頭有個湯馬士樂園；至於河口湖，則是預計去看猴子劇場。
According to my mom’s plan, the destinations for the second day were Fujikyu Highland and Lake Kawaguchi. The former was for the Thomas Land because Chien is very fond of the animation “Thomas and Friends”. As for the latter, it’s for the monkey theater.

早上吃早餐時，就和老媽有點不愉快。因為平常沒有在用日文，所以老媽的日文的確退步了不少，所以從第一天抵達東京以後，我們就決定要考驗日本人的英文程度，盡量讓我用英文來處理大小事情。之所以和老媽起了小爭執，是在於她雖然查了資料，卻都是日文，一大早我人還沒睡醒，眼前就遞來了一疊日文，殊不知我的日文大部分都是聽一聽猜一猜，只要扯到除了漢字以外的五十音，我就直接投降，一個字也唸不出來…所以老媽把資料遞過來，示意等會兒到新宿車站時要我去買票，我人都傻了…坐什麼車、目的地是哪裡、怎麼換車等，都是日文…
During breakfast, I was having a small fight with my mom. Mom used to speak some Japanese, but because she’s not using it often she almost loses it. So after we arrived Tokyo, we’ve decided to test the English level of Japanese people that I should take care of everything with English. The reason for the fight? Well, my mom did look up for information about the trip, but everything was in Japanese. I wasn’t really awake since we got up early and some papers in Japanese were handed to me. My Japanese? Well, I can only guess by listening. As to reading Japanese, I guess with Han characters (which were adopted from the Chinese language) but when it comes to the fifty sounds I can only surrender! I don’t know a single sound of it… So when my mom gave me the papers and said I should go and purchase the train tickets, I was about to “faint”… what train to take, where is the destination, where to change, etc. were all written in Japanese.

老媽也跟我一起脾氣不好，賭氣之下，她拿著資料決定自己去買票，而當我們抵達新宿車站時，她也就真的自顧自地走進了售票處。我不放心，隔了兩分鐘還是決定跟進去…
So my mom decided to buy the tickets herself. When we arrived the station, she went directly to the green window. I wasn’t feeling sure about it, so two minutes later I went inside as well.

老媽拿著手上的紙，用日文告訴售票員她的目的地…一切似乎都很順利，一直到售票員問我們要搭九點半還是十點半的火車。看了看錶，距離九點半只有10分鐘，不過要在新宿車站等一個小時也挺累的，老媽在一旁猶豫不決，我則使勁地催促她趕緊作決定，因為要搭九點半的車，我們只剩十分鐘買票找月台跑火車，更別說還有的偌大的娃娃車得要搬…終於決定要搭九點半的車，不過接下來的發展就有點好笑…售票員以為是兩張票，更正是三張以後，售票員霹靂啪拉講了一堆日文說明又沒人聽得懂，我換用英文問她，她竟然還是用日文回答我…然後我又莫名其妙簽了兩張簽帳單，她交到我手上的有三張，還把其中一張圈了起來，不過我完全沒搞懂這些到底在幹什麼，只知道快來不及了，也只好拿著車票往外衝…
With her papers, mom told the lady where she wanted to go. Everything seemed to go well, until the moment we had to decide which train to take, the one at 9:30 or 10:30. We only had 10 minutes to get to the train if we took the former one, but it’s tiring to wait for another hour in the station. Mom was hesitating and I was trying to hurry her to make a decision, for the reason that taking the 9:30 train we’ve only got 10 minutes to buy the ticket and look for the platform, just don’t mention that we still had a stroller to carry. Mom finally made up her mind to take the 9:30 train, but the following “developments” were kind of funny… The lady thought we’re getting two tickets instead of three, and after the correction she’s trying to provide information with a series of Japanese which none of us could understand. I switched to English to ask for confirmation but she still replied to me in Japanese… Then, I signed two credit card slips but she gave me three while circling on one of them with red pen and explaining what it referred to… I totally had no idea what’s going on, but meanwhile I knew we’re about to lose the train. So we grabbed the tickets and left.

順利找到月台上了車，沒幾分鐘車子就開了，還頗有驚魂未定的感覺…坐定了以後，我把剛剛發生的事情回想了一遍，然後把簽單拿出來看，怎麼看就是看不懂，上面的數字加起來也不是三的倍數，越看越奇怪…我免不了有點抱怨了，不過聽在娘耳裡也頗不舒服，竟然可以從這件事情開始牽托到其他事情，而我只是在抱怨「不要拿日文資料給我然後要我用英文做事」…坐在前面的嫂子聽著我和老媽雞同鴨講的對話，想笑也不敢笑出來…
We arrived the platform and got onto the train few minutes before it departed. I was feeling lucky. After we sat down and relaxed a bit, I tried to think over what has happened and took out the credit card slips… the more I looked at them the more I was confused. I couldn’t understand what it meant and the numbers adding together was not multiple of three. I couldn’t help complaining but mom wasn’t too happy about my complaints. So she started to complain as well and the “topics” got further and further, while I was only saying that “don’t give me Japanese info and ask me to do things in English”… My sister-in-law was sitting in front of us hearing all the conversation. Later she told me that she’s about to burst out laughing but at that very moment she knew she couldn’t…