Category Archives: Adventure

Day 9 – 06.04: Youtube Hanami Party 2014 – The Aftermath

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The following morning me and Jess took our stuff, checked out of the hotel and started moving back to the park to get her car back from the parking lot – now that got to become an adventure in itself.

Sights from the hotel
Didn’t notice this last night when we got out of the train

Upon arriving to Shibuya station (渋谷駅), we started wandering towards the park, but ended going the wrong way for ten minutes. We decided to opt for a taxi instead, and eventually got to the place.

Everything was going pretty good until we got the exit out of the NHK parking lot – we noticed that the bill was 12,800 円 or so. Jess could not afford that, and wouldn’t let me give her the money she needed. So we decided to ask the man overseeing the exit. As neither of us could understand or speak Japanese very well, getting to some kind of understanding took over an hour.

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Day 8 – 05.04: Youtube Hanami Party 2014

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I was horrified to notice that the clock was 9:30 already when I woke up; I clearly wouldn’t have the time to take a visit to the castle site if I wanted to reach the Youtube Hanami Party. So I got my stuff, checked out and rushed to the station to get to a shinkansen headed for Tokyo (東京).

Oh yeah, I still couldn’t figure out the toilet.

The train ride lasted for hours. I slept most of the way through, and whenever I was awake, I was looking at the great views and trying to think how I was going to actually get to Yoyogi Park (代々木公園) – the place the party was taking place in. At the end of the ride I had my plan ready and departed for the Yamanote line (山手線).

The train to Shibuya (渋谷) was crowded, but nowhere near as crowded as a lot of people would let you believe. Then again, it wasn’t rush hour when I got there. I eventually reached the station in Shibuya (渋谷) and started walking towards my destination.

I walked in the massive crowds and noticed that the data signal had gotten absolutely dreadful – it kept disconnecting every few seconds after it finally found a signal. After some time of walking, I got to the park entrance, passing the NHK studio park.

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Day 6 – 03.04: Rain or Train?

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I woke up at around 8:30 or so, barely in time to get some breakfast and throw my clothes in to the coin laundry before that. I clothed up and started getting things done.

The coin laundry thing confused me a little bit, never having used anything like or anything, and to top it off, it’s in Japanese. And of course, my Japanese wasn’t quite up to it, so I asked the lady at the desk to oversee my actions – I ended up just throwing my stuff in to the thing and going to eat breakfast.

Because I didn’t want to look like I don’t know what I’m doing – I really should stop to ask someone when I really don’t know something – I just went ahead and took what was plainly out there: some fish, sausage and some pan bread. There was apparently rice and soup, but it was too late to go back (no it wasn’t). I took some water from the desk after it all, and went to check my domain registration.

The domain had been registered proper, and my account was ready… almost – there had been some issues with the registration that the support team would work on. I left it at that and got my laundry to the dryer.

When the drying was done, I checked out of the hotel and had a choice ahead of me: take the train to Nasushiobara (那須塩原) or walk in the rain. I am sure you already know what I chose.

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Day 5 – 02.04: They climbed. Oh yes, they did.

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The new day dawned and I woke up at some point, seeing the Freeman’s Mind episode that I attempted to watch before I went to sleep still playing, looping for some reason. I got up and started fiddling with my computer, mainly writing the diary entry for the previous day – alcohol, for some peculiar reason, had stopped me from working on it the night prior.

Brendan was suffering from a hangover, so what would be better than going to the Mt. Tsukuba (筑波山) – special for it’s twin peaks, Nantai (男体山) and Nyotai (女体山) – eh? So we left for the mountain.

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Day 3 – 31.03: Are all coastal towns mazes?

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Taking the 6:57 train out of Kazusa-Kameyama (上総亀山) felt weird, it felt like it had been ages since I last took a train, even though it had just been less than twelve hours since I came in with one. This feeling passed soon enough as I started passing out again. Before I left, I took some pictures of the surroundings.

Even though I enjoyed my time, this was just the best sight of the morning.
A man picking his tree’s crops early in the morning.
Just a picture of the mountains looming over the roof of the buildings.
Just a picture of the mountains looming over the roof of the buildings.
A pretty bush next to the rails.
The distance from Tokyo.
A pretty bush next to the rails.
The final look at the town before the train left.

I reached my final destination after an hour’s time, at around 8, and started to look for a place that sells breakfast. Me, of course, being a dummy, I didn’t stop to ask for anyone, and so I wandered around – taking pictures of things such as temples, fish and turtles – and eventually returning to the station and going to the other, eastern exit. It took me ages, and I travelled at least 4 kilometres, but I found a McDonalds – seemingly the only place that serves breakfast (that I could find, at any rate).

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Day 2 – 30.03: An (expected) unexpected adventure begins

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Note: This entry was written by a very, very tired person and the text content hasn’t really been edited since. Also, it is written a bit differently from the norm.

I 100% expected that this would happen, but I never expected for it to be quite like this.

So, I had always planned to go to the end of the train track in the middle of Chiba (千葉), to Kazusa-Kameyama (上総亀山) – a town in the middle of the mountains without a proper station house and definitely no one speaking English. So I did.

The story starts with me waking up and taking a shower – no issues there. But then I needed to go to the toilet… Kohoku (湖北) had one of those UFO toilets that a lot of Westerners are in awe of. Anyway, I went on an sat upon it, noticing that it was just not made for a man this wide – the control panel was half hidden behind my thigh.

After getting used to it, I tried to showering option – the thing that sprays water on your bum or, well, your front – and I, unsurprisingly, was feeling a little bit uncomfortable with warm water spraying from the toilet bowl on to my bum. Needless to say, I didn’t test the front one (I still have time to do that, though). With my business done, I gathered my stuff and then left the hotel.

I walked around the town, taking a couple of pictures while at it, and eventually found myself at the railway station.

Having gotten to the station just brought a horrifying realization to my mind: How in the hell am I going to get to my destination? I mean, I know that the JR East lines reach to Kazusa-Kameyama (上総亀山), but I just don’t know which ones I have to take. So I started staring in to my phone, trying to Wikipedia the crap out of the towns and lines that connect to each other. I, after some half an hour of investigating, found out which lines I need to use in order to get to Chiba (千葉) the easiest – but how did it REALLY go?

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