Tsukuba Center Bicycle Parking
Before I begin fair warning. I'm angry about this and I'm venting, so if cursing and venting about stuff bothers you, you should bail now.That said, fuck Tsukuba Center and their automated bicycle parking lots.
Why do I hate them so much? Well it's complicated and I will explain.
It all starts a week ago. I was bicycling around Tsukuba and I wanted to stop at Tsukuba Center and look around the shops. I found a bicycle parking lot and decided to be brave and try it out. I never tried them before because I was worried about getting my damned bicycle stuck in the fucking automated system and not being able to get it out.
I was right to worry about that.
But I was being brave at the moment, and the signs said free 2 hours, so I put my bicycle in the unit and walked over to the machine to understand what to do.
The buttons are all in Japanese but there is some translation in english. I can also translate with my phone and I attempted to. There was implication that I should get a receipt when locking up my bike, but I couldn't manage to get the machine to do it.
Eventually I just gave up. It had locked my bike up already so I decided to figure it out when I got back.
So I went and looked around Tsukuba Center and came back half an hour later.
When I came back I went to the machine again. I went to the machine closest to where I had placed my bicycle. I read the instructions. I entered the number for my bicycle slot. I pressed the proper button. And... nothing. Tried repeatedly. Translated all the instructions. Just didn't work.
There are many of these machines about. I looked around to see if I was using the right machine. Seemed so. Just wouldn't work.
I spotted a 16 year old kid who had just locked his bike up so I decided to try my luck asking him for help. I asked if he spoke english. He said yes a little and I explained I didn't understand how to get my bike back.
I gestured him to follow me and showed him where my bicycle was and pointed at the machine and explained it didn't work to release my bicycle.
His response? That that is the wrong machine. The machine for that section is one 3 times further away than the one I was standing at. I went to the machine he gestured at, and sure enough that machine worked and released my bike.
I have to say, what the fuck? That's insane and fucking stupid. There are numbering on all of the spots. At the very least the numbers should not overlap with other slots nearby, and there needs to be some clear way to know which damned machine you are supposed to use, or just let you use any of the closest machines.
At the very fucking least, don't put a bike locking slot 10 feet from a fucking bicycle slot parking machine that doesn't work with that slot that makes no damned sense.
So anyway. I at least was able to get my fucking bike back, and for free at that.
That whole event was frustrating, but the end result wasn't so bad. My conclusion was "Okay so I need to understand it is confusing which machine to use, but now I now I can actually park my bicycle at Tsukuba Center for up to 2 hours for free!"
Only... that's fucking wrong.
Enter today. There are many bicycle parking areas at Tsukuba Center all scattered around. They all looking fucking identical. The machines work the same way. They all say 150 yen per 24-hours to park.
There are signs that say 2 hours parking is free.
So I went and parked my bicycle in one of the areas at Tsukuba Center today. I walked around for about 20 minutes and came back to my bicycle. I went to get my bicycle out. Not free. 150 yen.
Apparently only some of the fucking bicycle parking things are free for 2 hours. Not all of them. Despite that they all look the same. Despite that they all charge 150 yen per day.
The trouble? I don't bike around with any cash on me. Payment wise I only carry my Wise Mastercard in case I want to buy something somewhere.
The bicycle parking machines do have a credit card slot, so I try it with my Wise card. Doesn't fucking work. Of course it doesn't work.
I've used this card at hundreds of different places around Japan. It works everywhere. Besides this damned bicycle machine, I don't recall a single fucking other place that took credit cards where it didn't work. But of course it doesn't work for this stupid machine.
So I'm standing there wondering wtf to do next. Tsukuba Center is several miles from my house in Tsukuba, and I could theoretically walk home and come back later with cash. Only... I really don't want to walk for miles when I have a perfectly good bicycle to use.
I do have my phone on me, and supposedly you can withdrawal money with Wise card from ATMs. So I decide to go try my Wise card in an ATM. I find an ATM. A 7bank ATM. It refuses to work with my Wise card. Why? Who knos.
So I find a different ATM. One in a Lawson. I try that with my Wise card. Same deal. Doesn't work.
I'm getting very damned frustrated at this point. The bicycle parking where my bike is stuck is directly next to Hotel Nikko, so I decide to go to the reception at the hotel and see if they have any ideas. My theory is there should be someone there who can speak english, so perhaps they can help somehow.
I go in there and try to explain to the person at reception in english. I can translate with my phone, but I try english first because surely someone at Hotel Nikko speaks english. Well she doesn't, but a supervisor is standing nearby and offers to try to help.
I explain my situation, that my bicycle is stuck in the parking, and that it doesn't take my card, and that I tried 2 ATMs, 7bank and Lawson, and those don't work with my card either.
She asks if I tried the post office. I ask if she means JP Post. She says yes. I didn't realize there is one of them at Tsukuba Center. She explains where it is and I thank her and head there to try my luck.
You see... I have a JP Post bank account. I did not though bring my JP Post bank card, but I do have the app for it on my phone. And I've read you can login to the ATM using the app. Plus I could try to Wise card there.
So I walk 2 blocks over to the JP Post. It's already too late in the day the park with people is closed but there is the ATM. I futz with my phone and the app and the ATM to try to figure out how to get money out using the app on my phone. The ATM itself lets you switch it to English. So I do so.
I select that I want to withdrawal money. Eventually it gives me an option to login with my phone. So I tap it. Then I have to go figure out how to actually do the phone part as the ATM just shows me a big QR code.
I open the app. The app, of course, is only in Japanese, because reasons. Because why would they want anyone who doesn't speak Japanese to use their bank... So anyway I eventually figure out by translating screenshots what to do in the app to get to the thing to scan the QR code to login to the ATM.
I do it.
It doesn't not just log me in. Oh no. Of course it doesn't. It just bounces me to yet another fucking app, which wants me to register using my JP Post bank account information in order to use that. I obviously don't fucking carry my JP Post bank account information with my as I have the app.
So there is no way for my to register my information in the login to the ATM app in order to do so. So shit out of luck there.
So I try my Wise card in the ATM at JP Post.
It gives me two options to withdrawal money. MasterCard Debit and Mastercard. Wise is a debit card so I select the Debit one. And... failure. Just gives me a generic error and doesn't work of course. Why would it work? ...
So I try the other option. Different error. Still error.
At this point I just gave up. Wise card seems effectively fucking useless for getting money from an ATM in Japan, and JP Post app while it could work if I had set it up before, is a massive pain.
I will also mention that I have a Docomo D Card Debit card, and the app for that on my phone. In theory there is some way to pay for things using my phone with that. Possibly even it could be used with an ATM. Only that whole process is even more confusing. I did fiddle with the app for a bit to see if I could figure any of that out. I could not.
Finally it occurs to me that I'm standing next to Nova Hall, which is a rental hall that has things like music performances. My wife is a piano teacher. It so happens the piano teaching company she works for is holding recitals for studying there at the same time, so in theory my wife is in the building right next to me while I'm stuck in this predicament.
I text her but she doesn't respond.
So I think to myself "maybe I can go in there and find her?" I think this because yesterday she was there and checking people in to the event, so I think that maybe she is at the entrace somewhere.
I go into Nova Hall. There is a sign for the recitals. Going in looks blocked though. There are reception people behind a glass wall. I try to communicate with them. None of them speak English, which is to be expected. So I translate my situation and that I'm trying to reach my wife, who is a teacher with the recital going on. I was asking them if I could go in there.
This was probably stupid of me, because I wasn't dressed for a piano recital. I was dressed for a bike ride. But, well, what can I do?
They basically don't want to let me in there; no surprise. But they ask her name. I tell them. They tell me to wait a bit they will call someone.
So I wait there, and they do something, and out comes my wife with... her boss.
The boss was polite and said hello. And I was able to get 200 yen from my wife to free my bicycle from the infernally stupid bicycle machine. Unfortunately I may have accidentally interfered in some way with my wife's piano recital people. I wasn't trying to interrupt them so I wasn't trying to be a problem, but in Japan there are various unspoken rules and I can only imagine how many of them I accidentally broke in my desperate attempt to get $1 from my wife so that I could avoid walking several miles.
So that's my story. I hate the bicycle parking station things at Tsukuba Center.
And there's another reason why I hate them. Throughout all of Tsukuba the only places that ever require you to lock up your bike are train stations. Literally every single fucking grocery store in Tsukuba except for the damned ones at train stations, you can just leave your bike there without paying.
But Tsukuba Center? Omg. Can't have you leaving your bike anywhere. You have to lock it up. Which, you know, would be fine, if all of the damned machines made sense and worked reasonably, which they absolutely fucking don't.
So word of warning? Should you ever be using a bicycle in Tsukuba and are at Tsukuba Center?
- Realize that it is confusing which bicycle machine goes with which slots
- Pay attention and know that only SOME of the fucking things are free for 2 hours. Use those. The ones by the art museum I know are free for 2 hours.
- If you do decide to stay long enough to pay, or use one that isn't free for 2 hours, have cash on you, because good luck ever getting the fucking things to work with your credit card. Also, make sure you have 1000 yen bills or coins, because unlike every fucking drink machine in all of Japan, you can't use bills over 1000 yen with these stupid bicycle machine things.
The end. This completes my rant about the bicycle parking at Tsukuba Center.