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Published: September 14th 2013
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Travelling in Japan is a precise art. If you are late by 1 minute you miss your ride. THAT CAN BE UNHEALTHY.
We awoke at 630AM to leave to go to Sado Island. We had to take a series of 8 separate rides to get to our destination.
Subway, Bullet train , Bullet Train, Taxi, Jet Boat, Bus, Bus, Taxi
We hopped on the subway to start our trip. 6 subway stops later we are onto our next leg from the JR station (Bullet Train) We actually have to take 2 of these trains. Before we embarked we bought 2 Bento Boxes (lunch boxes) which consists of many different snacks. A little of each flavor.
Once on the train we settled in to our next destination, Tokyo. 3 hours later we arrived and promptly switched trains to Niigata where we would take a taxi. This bullet train was actually a double decker, if you can believe that!
We arrived in Niigata 2 hours later and ran to the taxi stand. We had 30 minutes to make it to the ferry. We made it with minutes to spare, however the ferry turned out to be a jetfoil
type boat. Small enough to rock you to sleep or make you sick to your stomach. The wife decided to stay on shore until the last minute. I elected to get on right away. Of course we got separated for the trip because I was made to put on my seatbelt right away, so I could not getup. The wife was nowhere to be seen. We were separated.
She was fuming when we got off saying how could I leave her. No explanation was allowed.
This is where the next leg of our journey starts to get interesting: One thing I know is that as you get further away from the urbain areas the less people speak or understand english. Of course my internet hubs battery died and I could not use my translator. So we asked how to buy tickets and where to get our bus. Through a series of hand gestures and a good intentioned person we were lead to our bus stop with 5 minutes to spare. Whew. Next bus would have been 40 minutes later. You see, we still had almost two hours by bus left to travel.
Oops they only ask you
to pay once you are about to leave the bus. They only take 1000 Yen bills or less. We had 2000 Yen Bills. This turned out to be interesting. We managed to get change thankfully, but we neglected to ask the driver once we got off the bus, where we should get the next bus. All of a sudden the bus is gone and we are in the middle of a small suburban town with only an old man walking about. No english, sign language and hope he can read. He CAN read! We had seven minutes to figure it out and as it turns out we had to cross the street to pick up a bus and go back the other way for abit. Just as we crossed, the bus showed up.
Now we had another hour and 15mins to our next stop. It was getting dark......
When we arrived at the bus depot we saw a Taxi to our relief. Our next ride! Ahhhhhhhh... No driver for the taxi! Again what do we do? We approached a guy who just drove up and he did not speak the lingo (English) so through a series of hand
gestures he offered to phone the Ryokan and we were able to get someone to come and pick us up.
Once we arrived, 15mins later we were treated to an exquisite supper with many dishes, all small portions and very tasty. Time to snooze ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
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武ちゃん
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Country Hospitality
The Ryokan looks very inviting. Peaceful and nice. The good thing about rural Japan (en-na-ka) is that you just need to show where you want to go. Eventually someone will take you there :D Enjoy! Wish I was there with you guys....