Day One

So I arrived in Tokyo, went through a whirlwind training session for three days, 9 hours straight everyday, and pretty much never saw Tokyo. We did go to one of the karaoke bars though one of the nights, then tried to get a taxi to take us to a club. There were about 8 of us foreigners and an entire army line of about 30 taxis, so no problem right?? WRONG! No taxis wanted to take us. I could not believe it, no one wanted anything to do with us. There were about 15 taxis in front of the hotel and another 15 parked across the block from us. After trying about 5 on our side of the block, we went to the other side and tried to talk to some of the taxis. One of the foreigners had been in Japan for a year and spoke decent Japanese so there were no communication problems, but it just so happens that there is some level of discrimination of foreigners that:s allowed.
Japanese people were getting in and out of taxis all night long while we tried several tactics to try to get into a taxi. We went around the block split into different groups then tried to see if that would work. We split guys and girls. We tried changing locations. Some taxi driver:s wouldn’t even roll down their windows to talk to us. The taxis line up together and follow each other like ducks. So if you don:t catch the right taxi at the front of the line, you have to walk to the front of the line and ask that taxi driver to take you somewhere: otherwise it:s not fair to the other taxi drivers if you don’t get the taxi at the front of the line. In Japan,, its all about fairness and equality.
We were SO frustrated and confused. After about an hour of trying, we ended up where we began, at the hotel with the other foreigners that had tried and lost. We all ended up talking , drinking and hanging out in the front of the hotel, about 30 foreigners. We gained comfort and strength in number and decided to start a revolution. Then we went to sleep.