The Great Train Trip Continues... aka, I spent 12 hours travelling today

[dr4b]

So I'm writing this while sitting on a local Sanyo line train on my way towards Kyushu. I figure might as well write some while I have a chance and am comfortable -- no idea if the last two trains of this trip will be or not. This is continuing my Seishun 18 journey across Japan, where I have a ride-anywhere-in-the-country-but-only-on-local-trains pass.

The day started out in Osaka, of course -- I checked out of my hotel a little before 10am but that meant I missed the 10am train to start this trip, so I took the next available train to Himeji, getting there at 11:30. The next train I had to take was at 12:06, so basically, I threw my stuff in a locker and walked as fast as I could to the castle site -- it's about 1 kilometer from the station. Got there, got a guy to take my photo in front of the castle thingy, took a few more photos, ran back to the station, got on my 12:06 train to Aioi, where I had a literal 1-minute transfer to another train at 12:25pm towards Okayama.

Got to Okayama at like 2:30pm or so... got out of the station and got lunch at a little udon place by the station. Had tenpura and zaru-udon and it was really yummy, they even served the udon with ice on it to make sure you know it's cold. Did the usual travelling break stuff, grabbed snacks and all, and got on another train to Iwakuni.

That train took 3 and a half hours from end to end. Seriously. I got on at 14:25 and I got off the train in Iwakuni at 18:01 or so. Loooong ride. I had a few various people occupy the other seats in my 4-group (the trains all have the seats facing each other like this). The first was an old guy who wanted to practice English, but I made him talk to me in Japanese instead. The second was an old couple talking in the most ridiculous inaka accent EVER. They were only on for a few stops. Then for a while there was this godawful young couple who were pretty much almost making out right in front of me, I'm surprised they were so... I dunno, but they switched seats to the 4-seats across from me at some big station, were immediately taken up by 2 other people, and it didn't look like they were being quite so cuddly in front of the others. Whatever. They were replaced by 3 women who didn't know each other and so it was a nice long quiet ride from there on in, until I had the 4-seats to myself for the last hour or so into Iwakuni. I took off my shoes and put my feet up on the seat and just admired the landscape.

Japanese "countryside" is freaking gorgeous, seriously, especially when you have mountains on one side and the sea on the other side. I don't know why people talk down living in the inaka so much except that perhaps it's boring -- maybe they can't deal with seeing such beautiful scenery every day.

Got off the train in Iwakuni, went to get dinner. Except Iwakuni, despite being a hub for the Sanyo line and a shinkansen stop, turns out to be a small town where EVERYTHING closes at 6pm, apparently. I found a McDonald's that was open until 7pm. It was on the 7th floor of a department store in the food court, and a group of teenagers were like "look! there's a gaijin over there!" "seriously?" "holy crap!" They were all sitting in the hallway outside the restroom when I went over there, and I quietly mimicked the "maji de?!?!" girl. They all shut up. Gah, Japanese teenage girls suck enough when they're not ridiculous hicks.

Whatever. Anyway, I got on this current train in Iwakuni at 18:45 and I'm going to get off of it in a little while, at 21:50pm. Then two train switches to get into Kyushu from Shimonoseki, and I'll hopefully find Christina, and... the third day of the Seishun 18 Plan will have come to an end.

Honestly, it's really relaxing to do this trip for the most part. I've been spending most of the time just sitting on a train staring out the window and zoning out. Once the sun went down it got a lot less interesting to stare out the window, but other than that... I suppose if I wasn't sitting down it wouldn't be quite as nice, but I guess part of the whole point of taking local trains in the countryside is that they're fairly empty.

And watching the scenery has reminded me a LOT of the times I used to roadtrip down to California with my friends, actually. I think the train goes about the same speed as a car on the highway, so things are going at about the same speed by me... similar nature and occasional city sprawl, with the occasional pit stops for food and bathrooms. This makes me really think that I've GOT to do the train to Sapporo sometime.

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So anyway, now I am posting this from Christina's apartment. She has wireless! And a laundry machine, and the Oshirikajirimushi song.

I think I am making her stay up too late though, so I should stop doing that. Or something.