If any of you know me, you know I get distracted easily, I am always thinking of too many things at the same time and well, I hate to admit it but.....I am a bit spacey. Just a bit.
So whenever our life is rather chaotic, especially during a move or when traveling, the organized side of me goes into hyper drive to survive. My main goal? Not to lose things! I'll give you an example. In the midst of settling into our new apartment I lost my bike key not once, but twice. And even worse than that, I lost it between where I park my bike and the 20 feet I have to walk to get to our front door. Sigh.
Most of the bikes in Japan have the lock build right into the frame just above the back tire. You put your key in, turn it and unlock your bike. The key stays in the lock while riding around. Since the key is in while you pedal around town, you can't have a big key chain hanging off of it. Trust me, I've tired. It obviously gets caught in the spokes and breaks off.
Back to the locked-bike-with-no-key story. Tim had to carry my bike (with the back tired locked) 10 minutes walk to the bike shop. Since I had just bought my bike, I still had the paper proving that I had registered it and owned it. We happily paid the $15 for the bike shop to cut off the lock and put on a new one. And this time he gave me several extra keys.
This unfortunately was not the case with an old bike our son was going to use while visiting us in Japan. A few days before he arrived, Tim borrowed a tool and cut off the lock because nobody knew where the key was and we didn't have the official papers on it. When we mentioned on the phone that we had the bike ready for him to use, he confessed that he had just found the lost bike key that he'd accidentally taken back to the States with him months before.
Well, back to me trying to not loose my keys. I found two things helpful: 1) putting my keys in the same place all the time and 2) having a big key chain
We've raved about our tried and true JanSport backpacks that are lifetime-of-the-backpack guaranteed (no receipt needed, just send it to them and they'll fix it or send you a new one). These rucksacks (as they are called in Japan) are great for getting us comfortably around Tokyo by foot, train or bike. I love my this pink one and now my bike key is safely clipped inside the zipped pocket. No way it is going anywhere.
For my house and office keys I love this pretty key chain I bought from Megumi which means "Grace" in Japanese. The artisans are Japanese woman affected by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. They create beautiful products with recycled kimono fabric. It was a little pricy but worth supporting these incredible woman and this wonderful ministry. This stylish key cluster goes safely in the front zipped pocket of my backpack.
So now I am set. Armed with my keys and bag, I am ready to traipse around Tokyo in style.
Now, if I can just manage not getting lost.
