Day 7: The wrong train, translation mishaps, and ALOT of Takoyaki and beers

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Hello world,

We had a little bit of sleep in today, which was nice… but then it was all hands on deck to get the apartment squared away and pack everything for the trip down to Osaka! because we are staying in airbnb places, we did not want our hosts (even though we had never seen them, feeling that we had treated their apartment with disrespect, we made sure we stripped the beds, vacuumed and had all the dishes we had used, washed and put back... possibly making light work for the cleaner, we didn't care, our goal is to be respectful and kind on our adventure and try to leave the places we stay in as close to possible similar conditions).

We showered, packed and Brad headed down to the local laundry mat to dry some sheets, we than had a weird breakfast of leftover foods with a Smirnof double black to wash it down (because we couldn’t bring ourselves to leave it). With backpacks stuffed to the brim and bellies full of weird things (eggs, tomatoes, capsicums, milk, and vodka) we headed back to Sumiyoshi station for one last time. Because the packs were so heavy we decided to catch the bus the several hundred metres down the road, however, neither of us were paying much attention and missed the usual stop. Luckily we went to the next one and there was an entry to the same train station that we were going to enter anyway (fffhhpppewwww). We were feeling the pressure because our train left Tokyo station at 11:10am and we knew from previous experience, that the Japanese train system is run so efficiently that if we were one second late, we would have missed it.

We made the necessary train hops and arrived at Tokyo station at approximately 10:42am. Weaving our way past the locals with heavy packs was difficult to say the least. We were unsure what platform the train would leave from and could not seem to figure anything out ourselves using the signs or maps on the station walls. Brad went and asked what appeared to be a station guard for assistance, he told us to go straight and up, which we did. I saw a sign that lead to a platform that said "shin-Osaka", it now being 10:50am we were both beginning to panic. I asked the ticket lady “Osaka?” she said “yes” so I thought we had found the right platform (number 14) we found our car (13) and proceeded to our seats (12 A and B). Once the train took off at 11:00am on the dot, we knew something was wrong, Brad let out an “Oh crap” he then found a train guard who informed us that we had in fact gotten on the wrong train and would need to get off at the next station to transfer to our correct train. With bags and packs back on we got off the wrong train at Yokohama station, we waited approximately 10 minutes (bought 4 large can beers, as we noticed this was the done thing on the previous train) and got on the correct train. Our train (a N700 model) only making 3 stops Nagoya, Kyoto and Osaka as apposed to the previous wrong train we got on, which was all stops between Tokyo and Osaka.

We settled into our seats cracked two beers and opened our prepacked sandwiches (ham, lettuce, cheese and kewpie mayonnaise) that I had made the night before. I opened the laptop and continued to work on yesterday’s blog entry and started todays. One annoying thing about Japan is the lack of Wi-Fi or the price of portable Wi-Fi devices especially when queueing seems to be the national past time. Everyone is starring down into mobiles or Ipad screens while we are just staring at the walls. It is also considered rude to speak on your mobile phone on trains and they must be switched to silent, which is really nice.

The bullet train is very comfortable with ample legroom, even for a big guy like Brad. It is also an excellent way to quickly see the beautiful countryside (see previous posts about the speed of the bullet trains). From what we can see from our train seat the Nagoya area appears to be a very flat farming area, surrounded by a high mountain ridge. The skyscrapers of Tokyo have been transformed into actual freestanding houses, which are mansions in comparison. There appears to be a lot more industrial factories and buildings mixed with rice fields. Another fantastic thing about the bullet train is you can feel it speed up… it seems to slow down in town area’s or when it will be coming in for a stop but when it opens up, it is exhilarating. There is a heap of information about the bullet trains out there for those that want to know, but the fact of the matter is, it is super FAST. It only takes about 2.5 to 3 hours with stops to get from Tokyo station to shin –Osaka station with an average speed of 300km/hr. zoooooooooom and it feels so smooth and is pretty quiet. So lets say hypothetically we had a direct bullet train from Newcastle NSW to Sydney Central, it would take approximately less than half and hour to get to Sydney… lets just stop, and think how amazing that would be. So now lets stay with this fantasy, if we had a bullet train from Newcastle to Brisbane that would only take us (with no stops) approximately, 2 and 1/2 to 3 hours, damn... i wish we had them.

Once we arrived at Shin-Osaka, which BTW is different from Osaka station... we need to somehow navigate our way to our next apartment that i had only seen in photos on airbnb when i had booked it. Japanese street addresses are not as simple as at home, you have either an apartment number, a house number, a street name, a suburb and a post code... in japan they have more area's... or what we think they call are "chomes" as far as i can tell, it works it way out from a train station (please do not quote me on this) but i think chome 1, 2 and 3 determines how close you are to a train station, but i could be completely wrong about this, and it may have something more todo with being close to that regions central street? we have yet to un-decipher this. Anyway, we moved between stations with little to no assistances from transit authorities, to arrive at our last station with no idea how to actually reach our accommodation.

we asked a cab driver. but he was not help, we then asked the station clerk, who pointed us the right direction but it was still very unclear, both tired, hot and reaching exhaustion carrying all our luggage on our front and backs... a nice man stopped in the street... he gave us directions to the ferry. turns out that the ferry from our apartment is only two small streets away. we took a chance, thinking this must be that right place and walked up the first street with a major apartment block on it. after referring back to a photo on my phone (for the hundredth time) we saw the gate that was the entrance to that apartment block, we then tried to ask a man that was walking up the stairs if we where in the right place, he pointed at the first door. I took a chance and tried the handle. It was open and looked as if someone was inside. I quickly shut the door and i sung out "sorrry!!!" only to realise there was no one inside. i opened the door again, and realised this was it. We knew that the apartment would not be ready for our check in at 3pm because the host had contacted me earlier that morning (when i had wifi at the first apartment) but she assured me we could leave our bags. We used the toilet and stuffed all our belongings in a corner, when the cleaner arrived. We gave the cleaner the key that we had found on the coffee table, grabbed our shoes and my hand bag and went in search of food, beer and something to kill the time.

We made our way to the free ferry, which was only a minutes walk from the apartment, and waited for the next ferry. Once we disembarked from the ferry we noticed the giant ferris wheel and proceeded down the street in search of food. Being a Sunday everything seemed to be closed until we crossed the street and found a nook in the wall Takoyaki squid ball stall. We decided to give it a whirl and for a reasonable price we stayed nearly an hour. They had deals where you could get a plate of 5 balls and a beer for around 500 JPY which is about $6 AUD.Awesome! They were so tasty that Brad had about 25 and 3 beers while I settled for the one plate of 5 and a beer. we stopped in again at a 7/11 for supplies like milk, green tea kitkats and more drinks... we waited for ferry back to the apartment, both now busting for a toilet (probably the result of the beers)... we caught the ferry were the ferris-wheel lighted up saying "Welcome to Osaka". So far our accommodation has been a little challenging, checking in (not being ready when it should have been) and the close quarters means that we are constantly in fear offending people with our noise. Japan is an interesting place, i wish at times that i had a guide or at least someone to tell me how offensive we are being, when we do certain things. it is difficult to know what is acceptable here. Right now as i type, i know that the next door neighbour is putting a load of laundry on while we are smoking and drinking on the balcony. we are on our holiday, but in staying in residential area's has its benefits and it's minuses. The benefit is, you can see the cities and life as it actually is, your experience a similar rhythm to the day. The minuses are, that you are staying in someone else's apartment and therefore you can not really treat it as it was your own, or act as you normally would. So far we have only stayed in 2 of the 6 places that we have booked. we have so much more todo and see in this country and as we travel it i hope you will keep joining us for the ride.

one week in, we still struggle with trains and packs, are still excited to be here, and look forward to Universal studio (HARRY POTTER WORLD!!!! OMG) tomorrow

Sayonara lovely people! xox Bradaline

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