Beppu/Matsuyama: Day 28

Even though we spent almost 7 hours on trains, today was a lot of fun. We got up and out of Beppu pretty quickly because we had to make an 11:22 train and our checkout time was at 11, so not a lot happened there this morning except for packing, eating, and leaving. I did drink a liter of apple juice though, that was kind of fun. Anyway, we went to the train station and I worked my Japanese speaking magic and got tickets for our entire trip, reserved seats and all. We had to take three trains to get to Matsuyama. The first was from Beppu to Kokura, which was 70 minutes with a 23-minute layover. Next was from Kokura to Okoyama, which was 90 minutes and an hour layover. Last was from Okoyama to Matsuyama, which was just shy of three hours. Long trip, right?

Well, for this trip my sister had cooked up a little scheme to make our ride a little more comfortable. Erin and I both had noticed that when you get tickets with a rail pass they one, don’t check your pass that much or type in a number or anything, and two, don’t check your actual tickets at the gate, all you have to do is flash your pass. So we, picking up on this figured that there could be a way to work the system. I had thought about it a little bit but Erin had apparently worked out a little scheme, which we put in action today.

We had already booked side-by-side seats (a row) for all three rides. Since we knew that there was no way for them to know if we had already gotten tickets once, Erin figured that once we got to our first stop, Kokura, we could book a second set of tickets for the same two remaining trains as the first. When she suggested this I was a little reluctant because of my moral values and such, but I said “what the heck”, so we tried it. I got her pass and we went to the ticket office. Once again I talked to the lady and worked my magic, she printed us another two sets of tickets and we were off. I said “we’re so bad… now I am a train pirate too”, and laughed a little bit.

Our next two rides were nice and roomy. I finished watching all of the Gundam 00 I had and then listened to music for a while. When we were at Okoyama station there was a nice waiting room where we hung out. It had wireless but only if you were with certain cellular subscribers or something, or at least that is what the lady explained to me, so no internets for us. The 3-hour ride to Matsuyama actually was very pleasant. For the first two hours I watched Paprika (awesome movie, though somewhat trippy) and then listened to music as the scenery went by. I also ate lunch.

Our train had nice seats and wood floors, I love Japanese trains.

It also had fancy curtains.

My lunch, mmmmm peanut whip.

While I was watching movies, and then scenery I flipped the seat in front of me around, since there was no one in it, and enjoyed the leg rest and being able to stretch out.

My area.
The train wasn’t crowded at all for some reason; there was no one within five rows of me, which was nice. I bet if there had been there would have been at least one Japanese guy that got drunk for his train ride.

I took some pictures of the rice paddies for you guys to see. I really enjoyed the scenery as it went past and since I had a huge window I got to see a lot of it. The light when the sun is starting to go down is really beautiful too, so I enjoyed that as well.



When we got to Matsuyama we had to take a tram to our hostel, or to near it, anyway. Our hostel is right by Dougo Onsen, which is the oldest hot spring in Japan. The complex was built in the 1300s. I might have to indulge, I haven’t decided yet. Here are literally, word for word, the directions our hostel gave us.

“Take tram to Dougo Station. Walk 8 minutes to Hostel.”

They didn’t even give us a direction, they just said walk. After trying to figure it out for a minute or two I gave up and decided to call them. It turns out that the hostel was all the way up this hill, which I didn’t mind but Erin sincerely disliked. Luckily for us, as we were walking an old lady passed us in her car, stopped and then offered us a ride up the hill. That is why I love Japan the most. The people are amazing. I was really impressed by her kindness.

We checked into our hostel and then headed up to our room. It has a ladder but that is about the extent of its coolness. I will take a picture of the ladder later so you can understand better. The building itself is cool, I like how it is set up, but the staff isn’t that nice. There is also a curfew and it is in the middle of nowhere. Another grip is that this is supposed to be a youth hostel but the only people we have seen are these two creepy old Japanese men. One of them talked to me while I was sitting in the common room surfing the web (no internet in our rooms, grrr). He was really awkward and creepy. He asked me if I wanted to smoke with him at some point… the whole conversation was weird. But at least I got to practice speaking Japanese. It was funny, at one point I apologized for how bad my Japanese was but apparently said my long-winded apology really well. He said something like “but if you can speak like that, and so normally, your Japanese is good”. I will take it as a compliment I guess. He was still creepy though. He really freaked Erin out.

After we escaped the creepy guy, Erin and I went down the hill looking for dinner. We couldn’t really find anything but saw this crazy koo-koo clock thing that goes off every hour and is really huge. When we passed it there were about 25 or so old Japanese onsen goers in their matching Yukata watching it. We wandered into the shopping arcade and finally ended up choosing to get stuff from the Lawson (convenience store) for dinner. It was cheap, yummy food, so no complaints here. While we were eating we noticed that there was a foot soaking onsen fountain thing. Erin and I used it and there were these two young Japanese mothers with their kids sitting next to us. They were really fun and talked to us a lot. Their kids were also really cute. At one point one of the moms stood their little girl (probably 2 years old) on my leg and was like “say hello to oniisan (big brother but is also used in different ways so I am not sure exactly how to translate it here, I will ask someone more knowledgeable and correct this later)”. I waved and played along but I wasn’t really sure how to react. The other mother apologized but I said that it was okay. One funny thing that happened was that they kept trying to talk to Erin. Actually 90% of people try to talk to Erin and she doesn’t understand a word of Japanese, so I always end up answering for her, but most of the time they still speak to Erin. It is weird, oh well.

We hung out with the mothers and with our feet in the bath for a while. They kept doing funny things with their kids so it was entertaining. Eventually I said “bye, it was nice to meet you” and Erin and I left. The kids were kind of sad to see us leave and waved a lot, it was really cute.

Things like that and when I spoke to the creepy guy make me kind of realize that maybe I know a little more Japanese than I let on, and that maybe I am being too humble with how much Japanese I know. But maybe not, I am not that confident in my skill but somehow I am able to communicate with people in a relatively normal way, most of the time. And when I don’t understand somebody or don’t know how to explain something, I can generally work around it. I guess that is good. One thing Erin said makes sense when it comes to languages you learn in school. The told me tonight that “in school you are always focused on what is next and what you need to learn, so you don’t really realize what you have learned until you put it to use”. She really is right; I am realizing how much Japanese I really have learned over the past year. It makes me happy and motivates me to study Japanese more. I guess I have to thank Tony Sensei (my first year Japanese teacher) for everything I have learned. And no, this isn’t a suck up thing, I don’t even know if he reads this or if I am going to have him as a teacher again. But he really did do an amazing job teaching Japanese and I think he prepared us (or some of us) even more than he realized. I feel like having him as a teacher definitely got me motivated to learn Japanese and go to Japan, he was really enthusiastic about the language and culture that he loved, so I guess some of that passed to me. I guess that is what teachers are really supposed to do; the good ones don’t just pass on knowledge, but they also pass on their passion for the subject. At least, that is what happened to me in my Japanese class, so I guess I will count myself lucky. /end thoughts on my Japanese learning experience.

We wandered back to the hostel at about 10 and then called our parents. They like us to keep in touch and it is good to hear from them and to know that everything is going well at home… After that I surfed the web until I got kicked out of the lounge because apparently it closes at midnight (gripe gripe). Oh well, I guess everywhere you stay doesn’t have to be awesome.

Time for sleep, I have to get up early to get breakfast at 7, so I need some sleep. We are going Castle exploring tomorrow too… yay!