Category Archives: Travel

Day 10 – 07.04: Back to Business

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I woke up on the sofa of the TV room in the morning, my neck stiff as all hell. After stretching for a bit, I started trying to get up. Jess put on some dog videos and things of that nature on the computer; this went on for several hours. After all this, breakfast was had, and Jess took me to the Chogo station (長後駅).

Once at the station, farewells were said and I started going towards Fujisawa (藤沢駅) so that I can get to Tokyo station (東京駅). From there, I will finally take the shinkansen towards Morioka (盛岡市), in Iwate prefecture (岩手県).

The train ride to Fujisawa (藤沢駅) was pleasant enough, but after it had stopped and I got to the transfer gate, I noticed that this had not been a JR train – it was an Odakyu one. I explained the mishap to the ticket officer at the gate, and he kindly pointed me to pay the amount I owed at the closest ticket machine. I paid my dues and got in to my train to Tokyo (東京) in time.

The train rides to Tokyo (東京) were a little bit crowded, so I had to stand. I, of course, started getting sleepy pretty much the second I got in to the train, but unfortunately no sleep could be had. A painful hour of standing in the train later, I got to my final stop to wait for the Tohoku super express train (東北新幹線).

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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.

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 7 – 04.04: Sendai

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Once again I woke up to Freeman’s Mind running on the screen of my laptop. The clock was starting to get closer to 9, so I decided to get dressed and go for some of the “healthy breakfast” that had been advertised in the elevators of the hotel.

I got down to the first floor and picked up some gravy covered meatballs, some salad, pan bread and orange juice. Doesn’t seem particularly healthy, but I digress. After having eaten, I went back to my room to prepare my stuff, do some of the missed daily repetitions in Mnemosyne and watch some videos before leaving.

It wasn’t raining today, so I decided to start going towards the snow capped mountains that I saw the day prior – something that I had completely forgotten to mention in the previous entry. They looked amazing from what little I saw of them in the shinkansen, so I wanted to get a clearer view of them.

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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 4 – 01.04: “Wait, you’ve never drunk sake?”

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Though I was well rested, my shoulders were still aching badly, but I had to keep moving. I gave myself some time to actually wake up, after which I started to plan a little bit.

During all this planning I contacted Brendan, a friend of mine who had come to work in Japan just a week before I came in to the country. We went through the details on his availability and all that good stuff. When finished, I took my stuff and went downstairs to pay for my stay before my departure for Shimotsuma (下妻).

I got downstairs with all of my stuff, exchanging greetings with my lovely innkeeper, and asking how much the whole thing costed. If there is one thing that I can manage in Japanese, it’s asking how much something is. So at least I didn’t screw that up. I paid my dues with a 10000 yen note, and was surprised when the innkeeper came back with green tea, strawberries and the change I was owed. All of it was for me. I like this place.

Before leaving, there was some conversation – or rather, the woman trying to explain things, but me not understanding most of what she said – and then she decided to show me the ocean.

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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.

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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Day 1 – 28.03 – 29.03: Because time zones

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Well, things started off quite interestingly. I ordered a taxi from VIP Taxi, as usual, and waited outside for some ten minutes, the weight of my backpack and laptop bag starting to make me regret my decision to go wait outside so early. Eventually he arrived.

The guy I got was a young-ish Irish man, looking a startlingly similar to someone I knew from work. He took my stuff to the trunk, and we were off.

During the drive to the airport, there was the usual chatter with the driver – where are you from; where are you going; etc… – but after having expressed an interest in living in Japan, he brought up the radiation from Dai-Ichi, and then moved on to talk about Chernobyl, after which he went on to say that the Russians are the scum of the Earth. Oooooookay…

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