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Sep. 22nd, 2009 10:08 pmI was planning on waiting until our return to write up our trip properly with pictures and everything, but this is just too funny, so I want to share now.
We had a hotel room reservation in Hiroshima on Sunday night, but because of Silver Week, the whole city was booked for Monday. After reviewing our options, and not liking the net cafe or karaoke room ideas, Emily though we might as well take another night bus. Also, it would save us time and money by combining travel and lodgings!
While looking at train schedules and maps, she thought that instead of taking a bus from Hiroshima to Fukuoka, then backtracking to get to Beppu, which is where we wanted to go, we could bus to Kokura and hop on a train to Beppu. See? More time and money saved! I thought this was a great idea, so got our bus tickets a week ago.
Last night saw us board the bus in Hiroshima, and after 6 hours of little sleep for Emily and not that much more for me, the driver announced that the next stop would be Kokura. We blearily got to our feet and got off the bus. We looked around.
Crickets chirped. A lone crane flew overhead in the weak dawn light. The surrounding mountains loomed dark through the morning mist and the rice fields were silent.
"..." We looked at each other.
A large spider crawled out from under the bench in the bus shelter and sat there, beside my backpack.
"This is Kokura... right?"
We could see signs of civilization in the distance, so we headed in that direction, carefully avoiding the small green frog carcasses that littered the road. We walked for a while, into what indeed seemed to be a reasonably-sized town, but there was still no train station in sight.
"There has got to be an eki somewhere around here, right?!"
I told Emily the story about how Bashy Boy and Tango Chick found out that there are two places in Japan called Shimoda, practically on opposite sides of Honshu from each other. We laughed.
Still no train station.
Finally, we stopped at a 7-11 and I asked the guy at the counter how far away the nearest station was.
"You mean a monorail station? It's right along this road, you can't miss it."
"Is there a train station?"
"Yes, but... it's about 20 minutes away on foot."
The lady standing by me at the counter had been smiling at me, either at my foreign-ness or my silly questions about train stations, but she and the cashier kindly explained that we could get the monorail to Kokura Station. Turned out to be 7 or 8 stops away, and it also turns out that Kokura proper is quite big, and we had no trouble reaching Beppu before lunch time, after a nice nap aboard the Sonic No. 5.
So that was our day's little adventure, and I'm glad we were both in good enough spirits as it happened to see the humour in the situation and laugh like loons about it. So now you know that when the ticket says "小倉南インター", it means "little bus shelter between the highway and the rice fields."
We had a hotel room reservation in Hiroshima on Sunday night, but because of Silver Week, the whole city was booked for Monday. After reviewing our options, and not liking the net cafe or karaoke room ideas, Emily though we might as well take another night bus. Also, it would save us time and money by combining travel and lodgings!
While looking at train schedules and maps, she thought that instead of taking a bus from Hiroshima to Fukuoka, then backtracking to get to Beppu, which is where we wanted to go, we could bus to Kokura and hop on a train to Beppu. See? More time and money saved! I thought this was a great idea, so got our bus tickets a week ago.
Last night saw us board the bus in Hiroshima, and after 6 hours of little sleep for Emily and not that much more for me, the driver announced that the next stop would be Kokura. We blearily got to our feet and got off the bus. We looked around.
Crickets chirped. A lone crane flew overhead in the weak dawn light. The surrounding mountains loomed dark through the morning mist and the rice fields were silent.
"..." We looked at each other.
A large spider crawled out from under the bench in the bus shelter and sat there, beside my backpack.
"This is Kokura... right?"
We could see signs of civilization in the distance, so we headed in that direction, carefully avoiding the small green frog carcasses that littered the road. We walked for a while, into what indeed seemed to be a reasonably-sized town, but there was still no train station in sight.
"There has got to be an eki somewhere around here, right?!"
I told Emily the story about how Bashy Boy and Tango Chick found out that there are two places in Japan called Shimoda, practically on opposite sides of Honshu from each other. We laughed.
Still no train station.
Finally, we stopped at a 7-11 and I asked the guy at the counter how far away the nearest station was.
"You mean a monorail station? It's right along this road, you can't miss it."
"Is there a train station?"
"Yes, but... it's about 20 minutes away on foot."
The lady standing by me at the counter had been smiling at me, either at my foreign-ness or my silly questions about train stations, but she and the cashier kindly explained that we could get the monorail to Kokura Station. Turned out to be 7 or 8 stops away, and it also turns out that Kokura proper is quite big, and we had no trouble reaching Beppu before lunch time, after a nice nap aboard the Sonic No. 5.
So that was our day's little adventure, and I'm glad we were both in good enough spirits as it happened to see the humour in the situation and laugh like loons about it. So now you know that when the ticket says "小倉南インター", it means "little bus shelter between the highway and the rice fields."
