Hiroshima

Day 1:  Just when we thought we were getting this travel thing right . . . 

We had tickets for a 10 am Shinkansen train out of Tokyo, unfortunately, this week was one of the busiest travel times in Japan due to the holiday, so we were only able to get tickets for a smoking car-eww.  We were going to try to get a seat on an unreserved car, and only use the tickets if necessary (yeah, JR pass for flexability).  Even though our train left fairly late, we woke up at 5:00 anyway because the night before I laid down in bed and never got back up  . . . which meant I never packed up my bag.  This wasn’t the worst thing in the world though because I had sent a package to Shanghai the day before : ) a package full of clothing, 10 kg of clothing to be percise, which brought my baggage weight down to a respectable 50ish lbs.  Not that I could manage it well, but the thought of it didn’t keep me up at night (now to see if I ever get my clothes back . . . )

We were all packed up by 7, so we headed out to our local Lawsons (think 7-11) and picked up some breakfast.  Mmm . . . chocolate chip scone and grapefruit juice . . . so good.  Something was different though, there were no people.  Usually when we go out between 8 and 9, there are wall to wall business people, and we have to swim our way upstream to get to where we want to go.  This was, well, peaceful.  I think we came to the conclusion at the same time–let’s get going–do this thing NOW.  So we rushed back to our hotel room, stuffed our food down our throats, and checked out.  We were out by 7:30–not bad.

Problem one . . . I know there was an escalator up to the Yamanote line in the Shimbashi Station.  I took it on that first dreadful night of trying to get into Tokyo . . . I also knew that I hadn’t been able to find one back down . . . hence the suitcase dance.  Well, this was the suitcase dance–part two.  We couldn’t find the damn thing.  The escalator wasn’t there.  Maybe I was hallucinating that night and there really wasn’t an escalator, or maybe the guy at the window didn’t understand escalator mime, but there we stood, at the bottom of a rather forbidding looking staircase that was now overflowing with white work shirts.  Ahhhh . . . Denis started lugging–it was much harder going up than it was going down.  I tried, too.  It was a valiant effort–I got to the first platform, but that was all I could do.  It was suitcase dance time.  Denis went back down, I continued on up, and our suitcases stood there, thoroughly embarrassed by their owners.

Okay, so we made it onto the train we needed to take up to Tokyo Station where the BIG train waited.  Once we got to Tokyo Station though, we were at an impass . . . we didn’t really get the Shinkansen at that point.  We didn’t know any of the lines or the important stuff like that.  All I knew was that I needed the Hikari train to Osaka.  But there was no Hikari listed on the signs.  After a disgustingly long amount of time, we realized that the Hikari traveled on the Tokaido line . . . and that when we were looking at the train times, we needed  to look for the trains in red–not yellow, as our pass did not allow us to travel on them.  Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that another train, the Kodazuma (or something like that) was also listed in red.

So we hauled ass to get on the wrong train : )  We thought we were insanely luck to get a non-smoking car with the last two seats so we could fit our un-Godly large luggage behind them.  (There is onely one place on each car that can accommadate luggage of our size, and that is behine the last row of seats.)  The only reason that I realized we were on the wrong train was because Denis had gone off to make sure that we really were in a non-reserved car.  As I waited for him, I kept looking at the sign because after it went though everything in Japanese, it would repeat in English.  I kept looking for “Shin-Osaka” but it never seemed to come up . . . that is when things started to come together in my head.  We were on the wrong train.  Bah.

The train we actually wanted arrived while we were standing in line for the wrong train (seriously, Denis and I are good at messing up things like this : ) so we could have had great seats on that train, too.  We ended up with okay seats, we got the last row of a non-smoking car, but it was a three-seater, and the little old lady sitting in the aisle seat did not look like she was moving at all, so we were kind of stuck, but it was okay.  There is actually quite a bit of room between each row of seats, enough to fit normal luggage, but not un-Godly luggage.

The scenerey was beautiful . . .

This picture would make more sense if you could see the huge mountains outside of the window, but you can’t : )  I am pretty sure that they were not Mt. Fuji, as are the ones depicted in Denis’s tattoo, but they were still bigger than any of the ones in the Tri-State area.

Once we got to Osaka, we were quite hungry.  We were never able to pick up any food before the train left, and we couldn’t really get anything from the food-cart lady because little, old lady was taking up a big amount of room (she fell asleep with her tray down).  So we ened up going to this push-button place in the station.  Neither of us knew what we ordered because the pictures were so old, but turned out to be a great lunch–delicious.

How tired do I look . . . little did I know that it was only going to get worse from here.

Welcome to worse . . . The train to Hiroshima was PACKED beyond belief.  We were lucky to get seats; a lot of people ended up standing . . . unfortunately I think some of those standing people were pretty pissed at us.  Those coveted rear seats that I wrote about before, well there were none to be had.  Or only option was to take a three seater, leave the middle seat empty and place our massively, hideously large bags in front of us.  Again, the picture doesn’t do it justice . . . notice how my bag is against the chair in front of me (there was no way that person was leaning back), well it is also against the seat of my chair.  I had about our inches of space between my bag and the wall to fit my legs.  The only way I was able to make it work was by squeezing one leg sort of between my chair and the wall.  It was an interesting ride.  Thank God we caught the Hikari Rail Star instead of the regular Hikari–it saved us half an hour of pins and needles : )

So we arrived in Hiroshima . . . now what.  I knew that I was not so interested in paying 30 dollars for a cab.  Even with the most hellish bag to ever grace this Earth, my allegiance to public transportation remained strong.  I knew a street car existed and I knew it would be take me and my stupid bag (and I guess my husband and his even more stupid bag) to our hotel . . .

Day 2:  Just a little reminder that war isn’t good. WTF Bush . . . maybe he should check out Hiroshima

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

if you don’t want to watch the whole thing go to minute 2:50 (I think)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Descriptions coming . . . I have to do everything through Denis’s computer because mine refuses to get through the Great Firewall : (  I need some smarty computer kid to help me out!