Taking the train to Nagasaki

In the capsule hotel, I set my alarm for 6:30am and then, I woke up at 6.am. (Love the jetlag!) I left before Lochman was awake (the Parisian I met at Tokyo Hostel), though we gave our goodbyes and good lucks the night before.

I walked to the subway station and made my way back to Ueno. I wanted to get there by 7:15-ish, to reserve my tickets to Nagasaki. I wasn’t sure it was going to be open, since I’m used to how it is in the States with offices usually opening at 8am. But, it was open and busy! Through some broken English, Japanese, and pantomime, I got my tickets: train leaving Tokyo Station at 8:33.

Since I was at Ueno, and not Tokyo Station, I went and got on the JR train to Tokyo Station, via the Yamanote line. As I was getting in line for the train, I noticed there were more people than I had noticed before. It began to dawn on me that I was hitting the beginning of rush hour. “Oh shit,” I thought. If I got packed into the train, there was no way I was getting out. Thankfully, I wasn’t packed into the train and was able to get out just fine.

I waited in the waiting area, near the entrance to the shinkansen lines (shinkansen are the fast trains here), until I saw that my train had appeared on the “soon to depart” board.  I got up there and went to a food kiosk that was open on the platform, bought a sandwich and a bottle of Georgia coffee.

While waiting, after getting food and drink, I saw a battalion of older women dressed in pink uniforms appear near the gates of the train that had just pulled in. After all the passengers disembarked, they all almost-ran in and starting cleaning. I have never seen cleaners move that fast before: sweeping, cleaning, emptying ashtrays, quick vacuum here and there, and cleaning the windows. When the train arrived, there was about 15 minutes until departure. When they were done, there were 5 minutes to spare for boarding, which was plenty of time for all of the passengers to board. Besides myself, I saw two other gaijin (non-Japanese, foreigner) waiting for the train.

We pulled from the platform on time, the train moving gingerly, and gradually coming up to about half-speed. First stop was not too far. The part I heard about Tokyo and didn’t understand is that the urban sprawl is HUGE. For about an hour (maybe longer), there was no break in “city”. Municipalities changed, I’m sure, but there was just city.  After that, the density was less and I started seeing fields. Soon after seeing fields, we passed by the life-sized replica of a Gundum! It was about five stories tall and seeing it, I could imagine many of those walking through an urban area or in fields. Sadly (thankfully?), the whole thing was made out of plastic and wasn’t operational.

The train pulled into Osaka about 11:39 and everyone got off (since it was end of the line).  I went to the shinkansen platform to head to Hakata, got a bento lunch, and we pulled away from the platform on time at 11:59. A stop or two down, a new passenger boarded and sat next to me, clutching a porn magazine. At the next stop, he moved across the aisle and I’m not sure why. The next stop after that, he had to move back because the ticket holder of the next seat showed up. Two stops after that, the passenger next to me got off and so did the ticket holder of the seat he moved to.

The train arrived at Hakata on time, at 2:39pm(yes, trains are always on time here) and I walked to the next train. The next train was not a shinkansen, but it was fairly nice: wooden floors, black leather seats, it was like a modified version of Californian fusion Japanese design, where the lines were more elegant than experimental (not that experimental design is bad). The train pulled away, on time, at 3:01.

While we were moving from the platform, I found out one reason why there was no shinkansen traversing the islands: the tracks are stable, but not smooth enough for high-speed travel. The other reason, I think, is that the train moves up and over mountains, so I guess the older slower trains have better torque.

Halfway through the trip, the tracks ran very near the coast and wow the Sea of Japan (sorry everyone from S. Korea!) is beautiful! Even though it was raining.

We pulled into the station at 4:55 and I hadn’t realized it, because while the shinkansen had some messages in English, the slow train didn’t and I was doing my best to follow and understand it and missed the last message. So when I saw everyone getting off I asked an attendant if we were at Nagasaki (“Nagasaki desuka?”) and we were. Whoops!

When I had walked through the station gate, out into Nagasaki, I realized my phone was gone. I was gone maybe 5 minutes and when I got to the “Lost and Found” they already had my phone! I really like the efficiency of JR Rail!

I had gotten turned around and didn’t know where to go (getting lost in this country is VERY easy for me, it happens DAILY), so I went to the information booth and found a nice woman who spoke enough English to help me and she told me to take the tram to a certain stop then walk a couple of minutes to get to the hostel. Funny part: when the stop came I think I pissed off the driver because I didn’t have my money ready and held up the train for a couple of minutes. When the machine gave me change when it shouldn’t have, he just firmly waved me out (I didn’t even pick up the change). I’m sure it won’t be the last time something like that happens!

After getting drenched walking for a bit, even though I was using an umbrella, I made it to the hostel, got checked in, and unpacked and started settling for the night.

Compared to the day before, this day was easy. Yeah, I had to travel, but at least I didn’t have a hang over.