The Story of the Lost Backpack

Here's the part of Sunday that I didn't recount in the last post because it's a story in and of itself. On Sunday morning, we were rushing to get to Grandma's house. Maki wanted to get there on the early side but it turned out to be one of those mornings that got out of control. The boys got up late, it was more effort to get the boys all dressed up, yada, yada.

We rushed to the metro, quickly changed trains in Shibuya, got on the Meguro line and quickly walked to Grandma's house. When we got there, I turned to Maki and said, "I need the backpack, MJ needs a diaper change." And that's when we realized that we had left the backpack on the train.

You can only imagine how I felt. I had seen Maki hoist the backpack up to the baggage shelf on the local train to Meguro. And I even remember saying to myself, "we have to remember to grab the backpack when we get off." And then of course, we forgot the backpack.

The backpack had absolutely everything of importance to me, to us, inside: our passports, my wallet, my credit cards, my iPad 3, my iPhone 4S. Ugh. I could not even believe this had just happened.

Maki quickly told Hiroko what had happened and she called the station. For some strange reason, we knew which train we had gotten on (the Meguro train at 10:20am). The station manager promised to stop the train and check the cars. He also said they clean out the trains at the end of the line. If they found the backpack, they would call us. I was freaking out but Hiroko just patted me on the shoulder and said, "Don't worry, this is Japan." What did that mean?

The ceremony started, no call. I walked outside with MJ when he got fussy and chatty, no call. As we walked around the neighborhood, I thought about what it would take to replace the passports, my ID and credit cards. Forget the electronic devices; you can always replace those. Ugh. My heart sank a hundred times.

We went to lunch, nothing. Hiroko called and the station manager said they had found nothing while searching the train.

As lunch was ending, Maki's dad told us to report the loss to the police at Shibuya station and to prepare to go to the embassy in the morning, our last day in Japan. He said he and Maki's mom would watch the kids.

We got on the train and I finally, truly realized what a "Hail Mary" is. I held hands with CJ and we prayed to Mary on the train. We prayed dozens of Hail Marys.

We changed trains at Shibuya, which is this giant station, a huge hub where lots of people change trains, and where we were directed to report the loss. We went to the Lost and Found window. Maki told the man that we had previously called, he gave the man our names and a description of the backpack. To our giant, immense surprise, the man said they had the backpack and our passports were inside.  He gave us a piece of paper that had our tracking number on it, and told us to travel to the end of the line and check with the Lost and Found. He told us it would take 40 minutes on the Express train, there was one coming in 10 minutes and to show the ticket attendant the piece of paper so we wouldn't have to pay the fare. Amazing, utterly amazing.

So we got on the train, traveled to the end of the line, got out and found the Lost and Found. The attendant went in back and appeared a few minutes later with my backpack. Everything, absolutely everything was inside: our passports, my wallet, every credit card, every last dollar and yen, my iPad 3 and my iPhone 4S. Everything had come back.

As relief washed over me and Maki (the boys were largely oblivious, thank goodness), CJ asked for some sweets. Yes, I told him, you can have whatever you want. So we bought some yummy-looking desserts and settled down to wait for the train.

By the time we got back to Shinjuku, it was nearing dinnertime. MJ had napped a little bit on the train, so at least he wasn't cranky. We called Alex and Christine. They had had a wonderful day wandering around Harajuku to see where the young hipsters hang out. We met them at Shinjuku station and had dinner at an unagi don (eel and rice) restaurant at the Keio mall.

 Here's a photo of my yummy unagi don.

 Here's the whole group, minus me, coz I'm taking the photo.

On the way back from dinner, Christine and I peeled off to get back massages. I was one big knot from the day and I needed some relaxation time. A back massage was just what I needed.

This story reminded me, once again, what a special place Japan is. Hiroko had absolutely confidence that we would find the backpack, it was just a matter of time. Everyhing in the backpack came back; there was not a single item taken. And there was a system at the metro for cataloging and tracking lost items. Amazing.