On My Way To Tokyo!!

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My first impressions of Japan were nothing but positive. The first thing I noticed was the cleanliness of Hakata- at least the section of the city I saw. The bus driver was very helpful in showing me how to make change with the fancy yen fare machine even though we could not communicate with spoken words. Wow, another surprise, everyone drives on the other side of the street- one more thing to be cautious about when crossing the street. I successfully board the shinkansen bullet train which takes me to Osaka (or halfway to Tokyo- my first destination). Wow, how impressive- being the transportation engineer that I am and having studied about the world's best high speed rail system in Japan in my graduate coursework- I have to admit this train left quite an impression on me. The Japan city lights seemed to fly by as the train glided along at more than 300 km/hr and the large comfortable seats left me feeling a bit more at ease after a long day of traveling.

Since there was no train to Tokyo that night I had a stopover in Osaka and had quite an adventure finding a place to stay for the night. After looking for a hostel in the rainy, wet streets of Japan for an hour or so, I finally found the place I planned to crash for the night. "We are all full" I heard over the door intercom system. My first option fell through and I had to stop off at a restaurant and ask for directions to another place to stay. Wow, I was really surprised by the kindness of the Japanese people. I entered a restaurant to ask for directions and in between taking people's food orders, the worker was drawing me maps to a cheap hotel he recommended. After communicating a bit through nonverbal gestures and facial expressions, I was on my way to find a place to sleep.

Then came the rain! It started to pour like crazy and I decided to wait a bit until the storm passed before finding my place to sleep for the night. I suddenly felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around and it is the restaurant worker holding a very valuable gift. He held the big umbrella in his hands and had a big grin on his face as if he was genuinely pleased to help me keep dry from the noisy storm. What a nice gesture- I was finally able to begin my trek through the rain and found the hotel within about 30 minutes. Much to my surprise, the hotel was the same price as the hostel I originally planned on crashing at. Additionally, they also offered an unbelievable buffet breakfast of various Japanese seafood dishes, vegetables and rice. Wow, what a great start to my journey in Japan and now I was all set to board the shinkansen that morning to Tokyo.

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Photos

Emporer
This is as close as you are allowed to get to Japanese royalty.

Shinkansen Bullet Train
Zooming around Japan at over 300km/hr