Kyoto to Yokohama – The Great Taxi Tango

You know that feeling when you think you’ve planned everything perfectly? That was us leaving Kyoto. Bags packed, bullet train tickets in hand, Mount Fuji waving at us through the clouds — the whole day had that “smooth sailing ahead” vibe. Little did we know that the moment we stepped off the train in Yokohama, we were about to star in our very own travel sitcom. And the taxi driver? Well… he was the unexpected co-star.

Lost in Translation: Our Yokohama Taxi Adventure

After several lovely days in Kyoto, it was time to move again. Our next stop: Yokohama — just for one night before boarding the cruise ship. I had cleverly (or so I thought) chosen a hotel near the port, thinking it would make the morning embarkation nice and easy. What I didn’t know was that this “easy” journey was about to become a comedy of errors on wheels.

The day began promisingly enough. We hopped aboard the bullet train — always a highlight in Japan. Sleek, fast, and eerily quiet, it felt like gliding through the countryside at lightning speed. We even got a glimpse of Mount Fuji, though the top half was hiding shyly behind a layer of cloud. Still, it was an exciting moment… little did we know our next adventure would be much closer to street level.

When we arrived in Yokohama, the plan was simple: grab an Uber to the hotel. Except, we couldn’t find the Uber pick-up point. After what felt like an Olympic-level sprint back and forth across the station, we gave up and headed for the taxi rank. Easy fix, right?

We climbed into a beautiful, spotless taxi — one of those older models that looks like it’s been polished daily since 1985. We showed the driver our hotel address. He smiled, nodded, and off we went. Perfect.

Except… within 90 seconds it became abundantly clear he had absolutely no idea where we wanted to go.

Cue: Google Translate. I typed in our destination and proudly handed him the phone. He squinted at it, frowned, nodded again (unconvincingly), and then… drove in the opposite direction.

At this point, our trusty Google Maps became the real hero. I pulled it up on my phone and began our new navigation strategy: the shoulder tap system. Left shoulder tap = turn left. Right shoulder tap = turn right. Straight ahead = hold your breath and hope for the best.

We must have looked utterly ridiculous — two foreigners in the backseat wildly gesturing at a kind but confused driver who seemed determined not to use either of his two in-car navigation screens. Every now and then he’d glance at us in the rear-view mirror with a look that said, “Why are you tapping me?” while we tried to mime directions like some frantic game of international charades.

As the rain began to pour, the atmosphere inside the taxi started to match the weather — damp, tense, and slightly chaotic. The rhythmic squeak of the windscreen wipers only seemed to amplify the stress. We couldn’t make sense of the Japanese road signs, the driver couldn’t make sense of us, and poor Google Translate had completely given up trying. Each missed turn brought another round of panicked tapping, muffled groans, and polite-but-strained laughter. You could practically feel the tension bouncing around the car like static electricity.

There were several heart-stopping lane changes, a few near misses, and a rising sense that we might be touring all of Yokohama before finding our hotel. Eventually, we reached the right area — though the hotel was nowhere in sight. The rain was coming down in sheets now (because of course it was), so we paid the fare, thanked the bewildered driver, and dashed into the nearest doorway for shelter.

The driver, bless him, looked genuinely worried that we weren’t at our destination — though how he knew that when he’d never known where we were going remains one of life’s great mysteries.

Umbrellas up, nerves frazzled, and luggage in tow, we trudged around the block. We even stopped for a McDonald’s coffee to regroup — and as we sipped, we looked out the window to discover… the hotel. Right next door.

Never has checking in felt so triumphant.

And so ended our Yokohama taxi saga — soggy, stressed, and slightly hysterical, but safely at the hotel (eventually). Looking back, it’s these travel misadventures that make the best stories for Encore Endeavours. After all, if everything went perfectly, what on earth would we laugh about later?

Next stop: boarding the ship and beginning the next chapter of our Japanese adventure — hopefully with fewer hand gestures and significantly less windscreen-wiper squeaking.