Day 14 – 11.04: Trains trains trains

I woke up some fifteen minutes before our arrival at the Aomori station (青森駅). My body ached, but I still had gotten some rest somehow. The clock was around 5:40 when I stepped out of the train.

Having gotten out of the train, I started looking at the other cars, noticing that there was a more “luxurious” sleeping car with actual beds in it. I laughed a bit as I saw this, followed by some moaning due to my aching body. I moved on to plan my next move.

While planning, I noticed that the previous train going to Akita (秋田市) had gone just five minutes ago, and the next one would be going in three hours. “Screw that” I thought, and took the next train to a town that would be on the way there, to Hirosaki (弘前).

Hirosaki (弘前) is known for it’s apples and it’s castle with it’s cherry blossoms and all, but I knew that I wouldn’t be seeing the cherry trees blossom this far north; it would take a few more weeks before they start blooming. After a train ride full of passing out, I finally found myself at my destination.

I checked out the timetables and noticed that it would still be three hours or so before a train to Akita (秋田駅) would leave, so I decided to go check the castle park (秋田城公園). But before that, I had some breakfast in the cold, unheated train station.

Having walked for some fifteen minutes, I was met with some rain that escalated to snow soon enough. It has been a while since I’ve seen snowing in early to mid April. The raining was minor enough for me to ignore it. While walking I also noticed a lot of middle to high school kids going to their respective schools. This made me realise that I hadn’t really walked around this early in a any of my destinations before – no, the second day doesn’t count. I kept on moving till I found the castle entrance.

I got in to the park and had a look around me. Due to most of the things in the park not blooming yet, it wasn’t all that interesting. I took some pictures of the turrets of the castle and the castle itself, but a lot of the pictures remain not taken due to the fact that the innermost area needs a ticket to get in, and no one would be getting in before 9:00 – a bit too late for me. I then started looking for a place to have breakfast in proper; would you be surprised if I told you that it was McDonalds?

After breakfast, I headed back to the station to reserve a ticket for the train I was taking to Akita (秋田駅). It took some twenty minutes after the reservation for the train to arrive. The train ride was the usual.

When I eventually got to Akita (秋田駅), I noticed that a train to Niigata (新潟駅) was leaving in the next ten minutes. I decided to take that train. This unfortunately meant that I could not give Akita (秋田県) the love that it surely deserved. The train ride featured some amazing sights on the ocean to the west and to the mountains in the east – whenever I was awake, anyway.

A view from a coastal train in Akita prefecture.

A view from a coastal train in Akita prefecture.

In Niigata (新潟市) I reserved myself a hotel room and started heading towards it, my phone dying on the way there. After a little bit of being confused on the location of the hotel, I found my way to Hotel Tokyu.

Once there, I got in to check in – and this is where everything started going downhill, figuratively. After looking for a few minutes, the receptionist could not find my reservation at all. I told him that I would look for the reservation on my phone after I recharge it a little bit. When the phone was recharged up to 3%, I went to show him the reservation; it still couldn’t be found, so he just made me a new one instead. I paid my dues and went to my room.

The room itself was nice and spacious with a large table to put my laptop on. I went ahead and plugged It in to the hotel network and found myself disliking this place even more – the connection kept cutting out ridiculously often and they had blocked uploading, so I couldn’t even work on the blog. Unmotivated, I just went and got myself some dinner before going to shower and bed.

This is where the fourteenth day ended.

 

Withdrew: 0,000

Spent: 7,027

Remaining cash: 31,445

Missing 2 . Seriously?

Breakdown:

McDonalds – 0,504

Lunch bento – 0,950

Train cola – 0,140

Konbini supper – 0,933

Hotel Tokyu – 4,500

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