Lost in BART, and Everywhere Else

This afternoon I took BART back to North Berkeley from Lafayette. I should first take the train to SF, transfer at MacArthur and then another train to Richmond; and I did plan to do so. However when I got off one platform and headed for another at MacArthur, I made a mistake - instead of catching the train to Richmond, I got on the one back to Pittsburg. (And I strongly believe putting two platforms so close is a design flaw.) It was very crowded on the train, I finally found a holder and stabilized myself. I didn't realize my mistake until I got to the next station. Frustrated but amused, I got off the train and went back to MacArthur again, where I finally figured out the right platform for BART to Richmond and got home in the end.

This was not the first time that I got lost in BART. About one month ago, I took BART from Powell Street to North Berkeley, and was messed up by a misleading timetable which led me to the wrong train. I was obsessed with reading on the train, and didn't realize what was going on until Gang called me, saying I was on the wrong train. Obviously he tracked my place with "find my iPhone", and found his wife going somewhere unknown. Warned by Gang, I got off the train and returned to MacArthur where I found the right train to ride on.

BART is probably one of the most convenient transportation in the bay area, and therefore I only lost twice on it. Buses are much more confusing. When I was living in the south bay, I once saw Gang off in the Caltrain station. Later I took a bus home. Though I had studied its path carefully before making the "trip", I still got off the wrong stop, and had to walk another ten minutes back. Coincidentally Xujing has witnessed my poor sense of direction during her visit to Stanford University as well. After showing her around the campus, we took a campus shuttle to the Caltrain station. Unfortunately though I got the name of the line right, I got the direction wrong. Instead of going two stops, we had a great shuttle tour of the campus and arrived at the Caltrain station more than half an hour later.

For people like me, map is nonsense. I noticed this when I went to college in Peking University. on the first day, all my roommates had no difficulties with walking to classrooms with a map except me. Later my roommate took me to classroom everyday until I was able to do it by myself about two months later. Years ago, I once showed Xinxin around Stanford with a map during her visit, which however didn't give me a clue about the locations of several places. Anyway I guided her for quite a while but had to admit I was lost in the end. So Xinxin took the map over and showed me the way back to bus stations.

What makes google map on smart phones so precious is that it shows your real-time location on map. Ever since I had that iPhone 4, I never got lost on Princeton campus, although it took me a few months to be able to walk to Robertson Hall from GC without referring to iPhone, and I did once have a difficult time to go back to Magie because even the roads on google maps were very confusing. Another invention that I'm very grateful of is GPS navigation systems in cars. I used GPS everytime I drive, even to a Safeway which is 1 mile from my apt. The logic is that if I can't tell directions when I'm walking, there is no way for me to tell directions when I'm focusing on driving.

I had some problems in finding ways abroad when 3G on my iPhone was blocked, but luckily I was always traveling with someone who could tell directions. So far I didn't make a single emergent call for help with road guidance. So at least there is something that I can be proud of.