I woke up fairly early in the morning, at 06:45, to the sound of the alarm I had set, but I didn’t get up. The next alarm, this time from my laptop, brought about Catastrophe (by MuryokuP) at 7:30; I finally got up and started planning.
At first I was planning to go to the islands to the north, but that plan was soon crushed as I realised that I had missed the earliest trip there, and the next one would be coming in too late for my schedule – had I not procrastinated the night prior, I would have known this.
I then started looking at train schedules through a mountain route, through Tottori station (鳥取駅), Kinosakionsen station (城崎温泉駅) and Fukuchiyama station (福知山駅) before reaching Kyoto (京都); to my disappointment, I would have to leave pretty much immediately should I want to use the route I wanted to and reach Kyoto (京都) before too late. Disappointed in not having any time to see anything in the much awaited Matsue (松江), I walked to the station.
During my ride to Tottori (鳥取市) I somewhat forgave myself after thinking of how I had actually experienced the amazing train ride the previous day. Regardless, the train arrived at the station soon enough, and I had an hour to kill, so I decided to get some breakfast.
I walked out of the station and went to the Mos Burger situated right next to the station. The burger was expensive, greasy and the fries were quite ‘meh’, but the set was still okay. After having finished my meal, I went ahead and returned to the station to wait for my next train.
When boarding the train, I sat down with another foreigner – a Frenchman. His name was Raphael and he worked in Luxemburg. He said he was a web developer, and that he had got in to a dumb incident where he had injured his foot, so he could not bicycle around Japan as much as he had intended – the next time when I come to Japan, I need to focus on some certain part of the country, rent a bicycle and just wander around.
We talked about various things, such as employment and travelling, throughout the two hour trip to Kinosakionsen station (城崎温泉駅). As we arrived, my train was there, just about to leave. We exchanged farewells, making a handshake at the doorway of the train. I hope he had a good time at one of the onsens.
The sights from the train were similar to what I had experienced the day prior; I was very pleased with the route I chose. This time I attempted to take more pictures, but they just can’t do justice to what I saw.
Once I arrived to Fukuchiyama (福知山), I was met with a situation identical to the one at the previous station; I my train was just about to leave. I rushed, got in, and enjoyed my final train towards Kyoto (京都). The sights still remained similar until we got closer to our destination. When the train finally arrived to Kyoto station (京都駅), I started to look for a place to eat at.
I found a nice little place right by the piers, so I ate there. They didn’t have the regular ordering system that I had gotten used to; they instead had ticket machines outside of their store (which I eventually found to be very common). I paid for my food, got the ticket and handed it in inside. The food was relatively cheap and it was very good. When I was done eating, I decided to go to the Japanese style guest house I had reserved just before arriving: Backpackers Tour Club.
On my way there I saw a bunch of western style bars with Guinness adverts on them – of course, there were dozens of foreigners in them. I wandered around with my GPS as my guide and I eventually found myself at the right place.
The front of the guest house was quite tiny, but inside it got a lot more roomy. I was greeted by a Japanese man. He guided me through the rules, some of the best places to visit and then he gave me a tour of the place.
The place was quite more spacious than I thought. It had a living room larger than my room back in Ireland, an ok size (whatever that means) kitchen, bathroom, three toilets, a zen garden and then the quarters. My room was 102, and in there were four capsule beds – when I had read that they were capsule beds, I had expected something much smaller – and lockers for each. I thanked the man for the tour and started looking at the guide book with all of the information on things.
I looked through it and found an interesting tidbit: back in the day, the houses were taxed based on the length of their fronts. After having gone through it, I decided to throw my things in to the locker and head out to do something.
To see most of the sights, I should take the bus 206; so I started heading to the closest stop. On my way there I saw a huge temple, but I ignored it for now. When the bus arrived, I got in.
After the bus had moved along for a while, I started to realise that it had been a waste of time to do this; I can’t take pictures of anything since it’ll be dark before I reach anything. So I decided to wait and let the bus reach the place I started from. This took approximately one hour and forty minutes.
The bus now gone and me on the street, I felt a little bit dumb and frustrated – so I decided to go and get myself a beer and some dinner at the bar near the place I was staying at.
The bar had only a couple of people in there, enjoying their drinks and chatting away. I got to a table and ordered myself some food and a Guinness. Surprisingly, the Guinness tasted very good, however, that could be because I hadn’t had one in a month or so. I ate my food and drank my drink and decided to head back to the guest house procrastinate, plan and write.
I confirmed my route and arrival times for the following day, watched some videos and got some writing done before I went to bed.
This is where the nineteenth day ended.
Withdrew: 0,000 円
Spent: 6,600 円
Remaining cash: 25,377 円
Didn’t count the money due to not wanting to bother people.
Breakdown:
Mos Burger – 0,820 円
Lunch – 0,970 円
Backpackers Tour Club – 2,980 円
Sports bar – 1,830 円 (950 円 to Guinness)