Kyoto/Hiroshima: Day 22

I didn’t take any pictures today. There wasn’t any particular reason why, I just didn’t feel the need to.

Anyway, today we got up, packed and then had Yashi hold our stuff while we went to ship our Dad’s gift home. After we got back from the post office we had some breakfast and then headed out the door. It was kind of sad to leave Yashi and Kyoto, but we had to some time.

We had our first train mishap on the way to Kyoto station. You see, on some of the trains you have a ridiculously short amount of time to get your stuff together and get off the train. This train’s amount of time was probably about 20 seconds. When it stopped at our stop Erin and I hurried off, and once we stepped off I realized that I didn’t have my backpack. Frantic, I turned around right as the train doors closed and watched my bag roll away. I was freaking out a little bit but went to talk to one of the people in the office at the station. He spoke a little English so I was able to fill in the gaps where I didn’t know the Japanese. Either way, he understood what happened and made a few calls while I described the bag to him. He called the next station and told them to look for the bag. Then he told us to wait a few minutes until they called back. We waited for about 15 minutes, and then heard the phone rang. I walked over the window and when he hung up he told me they had the backpack and would send it back on another train to the station we were at and it would be about a 20 minute wait. I thanked the man profusely and sat down with Erin. I guess that is one of the things that makes Japan great. If you leave something on a train people won’t mess with it, and if you notify the people in charge they will sort things out for you and send it back your way. Either way, I counted myself lucky.

We headed to Kyoto station and when we got there I suggested we go and get reserved seats for our train. Reserved seats are kind of like the business class of train seats and cost a bit more money, but our pass covers them so why not? Anyway, we got out seats and waited for our train. When it came we boarded and were greeted by really awesome, comfortable seats with lots of room. I love reserved seats.

We had to transfer in Osaka for our train to Hiroshima. It turns out that Osaka is abut a 20 minute shinkansen ride from Osaka and about an hour on a local train. Good to know, I guess.

When we got to Hiroshima we had to take a tram to our hostel. That's right, an electric tram. Hiroshima has an entire system of them, which is pretty cool. This hostel definitely won the “best directions” award too, because we found it without problems. We checked in and found out that we had good, fast, somewhat reliable wireless, which was exciting.

Note: I am on a train right now, the Kamome limited express, and it is super nice. I will talk more about it later. Anyway, I just thought it was funny that a couple seats in front of me these two men have gotten drunk while on the train and are being pretty hilarious. end note

For dinner we tried our favorite Japanese food that happened to be native to Hiroshima. Okonomiyaki, which is grilled noodles, cabbage, cheese, egg and some other stuff on a crepe. It is kind of like a big, tasty pancake thing. The place we ate at was awesome and cheap. It was a small restaurant run by a brother and sister, the brother was the cook and the sister was the waitress. They were really nice and the food was great.

After dinner we went back to the hostel to relax. I blogged and was finally able to post some stuff since we had good internet and I guess Erin worked on her pictures but I am not sure. We eventually went to bed.