Paid In Full

I knew it was coming - today, it finally happened.

I've finally paid my stupidity tax.

As I mentioned this morning, I had to rush to catch the Shinkansen to Osaka - but not before I jotted down the details of how to get to the hostel I was staying at. I made my train in plenty of time and arrived in Osaka at 1.30pm.

The directions were quite easy, I just had one subway ride to make and I was at the doorstep. I made it in around 2pm and checked in.

After going up to the room, I soon found out that the advertisement for this place had been a bit colourful in its description. Instead of Internet access in every room, instead there were three free computers in the lobby. Not that big a deal, but still a bit annoying.

Anyway, I unrolled the bed and laid down for a while - and promptly fell asleep. The last few days had been pretty huge and I'd been running around a lot, so it's not that big a surprise really. When I woke up, it was around 7pm so I figured it was probably time to get out and see some of this new city.

I wandered down to the lobby and hopped onto one of the free computers, then brought up the website for the place I was staying. This was the point I started to realise something fishy was going on: the picture on the website didn't look like the place I was in. Puzzled, I got up and walked outside... and saw that the place I was supposed to be staying at was actually next door!

Suddenly, it all clicked. I rushed inside and tried to explain to the guy at reception what had happened. It took a bit of time as he only knew a tiny amount of english and I knew no japanese, but eventually I conveyed the message that I had checked in to the wrong place and I'd like to check out right away.

I suppose I should explain what happened: you see, all I had written down was the name of the place, so as I started walking up the street I was looking for any sign that had that name on it - which is what I found. Unfortunately, the place I went into was the new building which, as it turns out, is a completely separate entity to the other place. Basically, all I'm saying is that it was an easy mistake to make!

I wasn't expecting a refund and I didn't get one, which was fair enough. All up, this little misadventure cost me 2500 yen - roughly AU$25.

So that's my story. I've paid my stupidity tax for this trip - luckily it wasn't a lot this time.