I'm on the Hikari shinkansen (bullet train) to Tokyo right now from Kyoto. It's really nice, and just so easy- the system works so well here, it's amazing. I'll get back to that in a minute, but before I forget, you need to know that Sanyo, the electronics brand, has a giant, giant (presumably office) building shaped like a portable stereo- the kind that is shaped like a smile with the corners chopped off- in rural Japan. I don't know why, it was weird. We also keep passing these random buildings; thin and fairly tall, at a guess maybe 40 stories, but they're in rural Japan (I don't think there's much proper countryside left in Japan).
Back to the amazing train system though. I hate trains. I really do. They're slow and confining and usually late and full of weirdos. Everyone told me "Oh, that's just American trains- they're not like that in Europe. You'll love the trains there." They were wrong. European trains are almost as bad as American trains (not quite as bad as Amtrak, which I really think must be the worst in the world). They're sometimes late, usually slow and confining and full of extraordinarily rude, smelly weirdos who tended to be rather anti-American (in a way I didn't find in Europe in general). I'd bought a very expensive rail pass that was supposed to allow me to basically hop on and hop off trains throughout Europe. In reality this was almost never the case. The majority of trains required a reservation or an extra fee or your first born child. It was crap. The only time I actually enjoyed it was on one trip through the Tuscan countryside, which really was quite nice, as much as I generally dislike the "country" as well. I've spoken to couple of other people (Aussies, a Kiwi) who agreed with my general opinion of the European rail pass from their own experiences, so while I may have a bit of extra vitriol, it's not just me.
So I was a bit hesitant to buy a rail pass for Japan; it was also very expensive (actually pretty close to the same price as the European one,) but I wanted to travel pretty much all over the country and I'd heard good things about it, so I bought it in Korea (one of the only two problems with it is that, like the European one, you have to buy it outside the country/ E.U.) The only other problem, if you can even call it that is that you can't take the Nozomi bullet trains, which are the very fastest, like super bullet, trains. This sounds like it would be a big pain in the butt and take up a lot of extra time, but in reality, it's almost nothing because the other bullet trains are so fast that the difference is almost negligible for the distances traveled. For example, the Kyoto-Tokyo bullet train I'm on will take about161 minutes, covering 513.6 km, or 319.1 miles. If I were on a Nozomi train, it would take 137 or 141 minutes. The only other way this would be a problem would be if most trains were Nozomi, but they're not. There seem to be more other shinkansen than Nozomi.
Additionally, if the great pass weren't enough, the stations are clean and usually have clear signs posted in English as well as Japanese. There are no extra fees, unless you wanted a sleeper train (which there aren't many of anyway) and you just show the pass and walk through the gates, onto any train you want. You actually can just hop on and off. The trains are clean, with decent seats and reasonably spacious and I've never had trouble finding a non-reserved seat. They're always on time, and it's simple to just walk on and off. Also, when I say they're always on time, I mean that they are ALWAYS on time. If they're not, it is a BFD that has to be taken care of right away and might end up on the evening news. I met a Kiwi snowboard instructor named Andrew who said that he was on one train that somehow was 45 minutes late and people were freaking out but that when they did arrive at the station, the train employees were ready with everything and reimbursed people and helped them get to their next trains, which they made sure were available. So even when they do screw up (extraordinarily rare, as he said, people were freaking out because it was so weird that they didn't even know what was going on- imagine not understanding a train being late- it's like a dream), they fix it immediately and take care of it as a serious problem.
To explain also, just how on time they are, I should tell you how I know if my stop is coming up at any given time. If we're pulling into a station at 11:53, and my train was supposed to arrive at my stop at 11:56, I know that it's not the right stop. Seriously. Though, of course, they also have station signs in English, and a LED display inside the train in Japanese and English that says the station name.
Furthermore, the people are just normal people, not weirdos. And they have a simple website to look up timetables. It's in English and tells you everything you need to know; basically how to get to anywhere in Japan from anywhere else. You can specify what options you'd like, so I just click off Nozomi, and go with the first option that comes up. It's great, and easy.
One thing some people might think to complain about would be "But I like to look at the scenery and on a train like that, you'd be going too fast to see it." This is ridiculous. You cans still see the scenery, and it's lovely, you just don't have to see the same exact scenery for twenty minutes. In fact, it's pretty much how I like my nature: separated from me by a pane of glass, looking pretty, as I quickly pass by.
Okay, I think I've rhapsodized about the fantastic train system for long enough, except to say that why the hell don't trains work exactly like this everywhere???
We passed a really cool spirally building in Nagoya- I should've taken a picture of it, it was really neat. What I'm really looking forward to though, is passing Mount Fuji. I considered actually stopping there, but then I read that climbing it is actually serious, not like a nice hike, and there's snow on the ground there still. So, I'm going to take a pretty picture from the train as we pass.
Just passed it- it was really cool to see, especially since we'd passed something that said Mt. Fuji Station and I was getting really upset at the thought I might have missed it, but I didn't- it was really neat.
Also, please note here that I made this train with one minute to spare, which makes the score: Laura: 2, Trains: 1.
After this, I caught another Hikari to Sendai, from which point I got a local express train to Hiraizumi, a small town with an interesting shrine, Chuson-ji, and a youth hostel that was exactly in my budget range (cheap) and close to Kitakami, the town nearby famous for its cherry blossoms.
Hiraizumi is not just small, but a tiny town. And even though it was only around 5 p.m., it was empty. Empty. I saw one cab, four people walking (outside of the train station), and maybe ten cars. It was quiet, almost scarily so. I walked over to the area the hostel was supposed to be in, couldn't find it, and asked a local mother and daughter. They understood me and tried to help, but they didn't know either. The shrine was closed so I couldn't ask there but I found a tiny little bakery and tried to ask the woman at the counter. She walked away but brought back her daughter, who spoke English fairly well. I told her the name of the hostel and gave her my guide book and she went back with her mother, and father who came out too, to try to figure it out. They looked for several minutes, made a phone call and told me that it was closed. They told me the name of two other hotels nearby that they thought might be cheap and I thanked them for their significant effort which I very much appreciated.
I walked over to closest of the two, after taking the above picture of the shrine and reading some random plaques. On the way, the mother-daughter couple I'd first asked for help, drove by and offered me a lift to my hotel. It was only a block away so I declined, though I would've felt perfectly safe, but thanked them also for their consideration. I found the inn without too much trouble but when I went inside, no one was there. I started to feel uneasy and wondered if I'd accidentally just broken in to someone's house, after yelling "Konichiwa!?" (Hello!?) several times. But most personal homes don't have exit signs or rows of identical slippers lined up at the inside steps so I knew I was in the right place. I stayed there for about ten minutes considering waiting or just sleeping on the couch in the hall, but it was kind of weird, and I didn't know how expensive it might be when they came, so I decided to get back on a train.
I went up to Morioka and, fairly tired by all that train travel, even though I'd just been sitting all day, walked into the first hotel I saw, Morioka Hotel, about a three minute walk from the station. Had I seen the sign outside listing the prices, I never would've even walked in, and when the man at reception told me the cost for a single, $50, I started to walk away. He stopped me and bargaining on a calculator as one does in countries where you don't speak the language, showed me $45. I said no thank you, not even trying to bargain, but just because I couldn't afford to spend that much. He asked me if I was looking for a single and I said yes, to which he asked if I wanted a small one. I said that yes, a very small room was fine and he showed me $40 on the calculator. Now it was worth considering, as most hostels in Japan cost about $30 anyway. I was willing to pay $35, but bargained him down to $33, just $3 more than a dorm bed with shared showers, for a single room with a western bed and clean sheets, fast wifi, and my own tiny bathroom. It even included a disposible razor, toothbrush and super mini toothpaste, tea, and shampoo and soap from the dispenser in the shower which I used to fill up my bottles with.
Starving, I went into the second restaurant I saw and looked a menu with several options I wanted; crab, shrimp, "lobster," tongue- a specialty from Sendai, clams fried in butter- a Morioka specialty and...whale bacon. Seriously. I didn't try it, not so much due to ecological concerns as the fact that there was just too much other stuff I wanted to eat. I ended up getting a small crab pizza, which was really yummy, and two pieces of "lobster" that I think were just prawns in tempura, but still tasted good, and a Kirin beer. I bought a donut for dessert and went to bed after a cup of tea in my room.
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