Day 26 : Lost Suica Card

The title spoils it so I can't build up any tension, but I lost my Suica card today that I use for tapping on and off the train. Technically, it's not really needed since I could always just use my phone or buy tickets at the station, but I like having the card to use. Plus I had over ¥4,000 left on it. (edit: Android phones actually can't use the digital transit cards unless the phones were purchased in Japan for some reason)

So what happened was that I was planning to go to Shinjuku to visit some musuem. In a turn of events, I had decided to wear jeans for the first time on the trip since it was colder than normal. I've been wearing jogger shorts with zip-up pockets normally. I'm actually unsure whether or not that actually played a factor, but I definitely blamed that aftwards haha

Anyway, when I was transferring lines in Ginza, I realized my Suica card wasn't in my wallet. After checking all of my pockets and my backpack, I realized I didn't have it anymore. I think it was more stressful this way since I had to talk to one of the employees working at the ticket gates that I lost my card while on the train in order to even get out of the gates. She gave me a paper explaining what to do for lost and found items and then a ticket to let me leave.

I think that the ticket was actually only valid at Ginza specifically but I decided to go back to the original station to see if I had dropped my card when I had used the vending machine. After getting there, I realized my card was not by the vending machine (which makes sense since it had been over 30 minutes) and my ticket didn't let me through the gate.

After having a hard time explaining to another ticket gate employee at a new station, I was able to get out of the platform area. I decided to check the station office to see if my card had been turned it but it had not. I also was a little panicky the whole time and I don't really know why since there were basically no real consequences, even if I wasn't able to get it replaced.

The lost and found paperwork basically explained that you should check the original station you thought you lost your item and then the entire metro lost and found the next day. I figured if it was going to take a day either way, I should just cancel my metro card and get it replaced. Luckily, I had a registered card so that was possible. If you lose an unregistered card (or a tourist-only Welcome Suica), you won't be able to replace it and you'll be out of luck.

I found out I had to go to a JR East Station to replace my Suica, but I didn't know if just any would do. I walked to the cloest one and it turned out that it had to be a station with a dedicated ticket office (Midori no Madoguchi at JR Stations). As an aside, there are some pretty big station complexes out there, even just small stations with a few platforms

I had walked to the station above and entered the Bakuroyokoyama station basically at entrance A4 but it wasn't a JR station so I had to walk inside to Bakurocho station, which is interconnected via tunnels (Higashi-Nihombashi is also linked via pedestrian tunnels). I basically walked from A4 to C5 looking for a ticket office, that's almost a kilometer just walking inside these 'small' stations! Luckily, I was able to take an express train to Tokyo Station which did have a ticket office.

The office was a bit busy, mostly with people booking Shinkansen trips, but it only took roughly 30 minutes to get to the front of the line and explain my problem. The employee told me I could retrieve my replacement the new day at any Midiro no Madoguchi at a JR Station and it would cost ¥1,020 which is basically the same as buying a new card (I guess the ¥20 is for the manual work they have to do when you lose it lol). Luckily, I actually had a picture of the card's number so they were able to quickly verify all the info lined up with my passport and what was in their system. They basically just give you a voucher to redeem the next day and send you on your way.

It had only been 2 hours since I had left my lodging but I was already exhausted. I knew I couldn't do literally nothing today so I decided to walk back to my place from the station at least, even if I wasn't going to go to Shinjuku.

I saw a cool bear statue just outside the station at the Marunouchi Oazo mall, and decided to pop in for a bit. I was surprised to see that there was an event, Marunouchi BOOKCON 2024, going on inside. They even had a stamp rally! I didn't do it because the stamps were just letters spelling out "oazo", so they really should have had some cute mascot character stamps or something instead to entice me.

I can't read Japanese so I wasn't particuarly interested in the event, but I did stick around for a bit to look around at the shops and look at the view from near the top.

I stopped at a few more malls on the way back but the only thing I ended up buying were there specialty sweet potato snacks. They're basically fried sweet potatos that are candied. They were alright!