It only took us five months, but we finally took an overnight trip away from Kyoto. Why did it take us so long? First of all, we wanted to get a little bit better at Japanese before we started traveling around. Second, in the cold of winter, the last thing we wanted to do was go out. Third, it is incredibly expensive to travel within Japan and we finally figured out a cheaper way to go. Last of all, we unexpectedly had a three day weekend (my Monday students cancelled because of a national holiday in honor of the spring equinox). So, we were off!
Travel within Japan is expensive. Of course, being a highly developed country means that hotels and ryokans (Japanese inns) are pricey. But the most expensive part of travel in Japan is the rail tickets. I am extremely jealous of people who come to Japan as tourists because they can do something we, as foreign residents, can’t: buy extraordinarily discounted seven day rail passes. As a foreign tourist, one can buy passes for seven consecutive days of unlimited travel, including bullet trains, for around $300. If this sounds like a lot, consider this: for us to take the shinkansen (bullet train) from Kyoto to Tokyo costs $150 each way! I think folks back home tend to think we zoom over to Tokyo for weekends since it’s only 3 hours by shinkansen, but at those prices, for Jim and I to go to Tokyo would cost $600. That’s a pricey weekend trip.
[How about renting a car? It turns out that even if you own a car, it is incredibly expensive to drive because not only is gas very expensive, but nearly every road is a toll road incurring costs of $1 per kilometer. This is a great incentive for people to take trains since if the entire population of Japan were to travel by car, the roads would be impassably jammed. So, happily for the environment, most people in Japan travel by train, the train system is extensive and, like the Japanese, nearly always on time. I just learned from a student today that this year the Japanese govt has discounted the tolls on the weekends to encourage people to travel and therefore stimulate the economy. I wish they would stimulate the economy through trains!]
We have wanted to go to Hiroshima because of its historical significance (site of the first atomic bomb attack by the US in WWII). Also, we felt that, as Americans, it was our duty to visit. Shinkansen tickets are about $100 each way to Hiroshima which is why we were excited to learn about a pass called the seishun ju hachi kippu (18 year old ticket). This ticket, available to folks even if they’re not 18, is valid during school holidays (1 March-10 April) and allows five days of travel (not consecutive) for just over $100. The catch: these passes are only valid for slow trains. As one of my students described, they are for people with more time than money: 18 year olds and us.
We loaded up on books and snacks and headed out at 7:30am on Saturday morning to begin our long train journey. On the way, we stopped at Himeji castle, aka the Castle of the White Egret, Japan’s most popular castle and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was impressive and so different, with its towers and gables, from the European variety of castles. It did have a lot of stairs and we felt like we needed to get “I survived” shirts since we had to wait in throngs of people both inside and outside the castle and could only move as fast as the line did through the entire six-floor journey. Furthermore, upon reaching the top floor I managed to whack my head on one of the low clearances above the stairs and the sound was so loud that the woman behind me exclaimed, “Dijoubou?” (Are you okay?) Fortunately I am pretty hard headed but I did worry that I might have damaged the castle…
We were pretty impressed by the large numbers of older people touring the castle since it was riddled with steep steps and lacked elevators. We imagined that a similar tourist attraction in the US might have warning signs with numbers of steps and health advisories posted. Ah, so refreshing to be in a non-litigious and non-overweight country!!
It was a beautiful day and appropriately there were bento sellers all around the large park outside the castle grounds. (Bento are scrumptious Japanese boxed lunches containing fish or chicken/pork cutlet, rice and some variety of veggies and pickles.) We ate our bento lunch in the park and then headed back to the train station. I have to mention this next part because it astounds me. After eating our lunches we couldn’t find a trash can anywhere. We walked and walked, searching for a recycling container or trash bin but could find nothing. There were many other people eating bento lunches, ice cream and other foods from vendors in the park and no doubt they were accumulating trash, too. But we saw not a drop of it on the ground. In the West, there are garbage cans everywhere but still people throw their trash mere meters away from a bin because—well, I don’t really know why—maybe walking a few extra feet is too much trouble? Anyway, we had to carry our bento box trash for about 10 blocks before we reached a trash can. (This situation is common in Japan. It is often difficult to find a trash can in Kyoto, but nonetheless, very little trash finds its way to the streets.)
After lots of train changes from one local train to another, pausing at every little station along the way, we finally pulled in to Hiroshima station at about 9pm. It was a long day but we enjoyed riding the slow trains since they gave us a chance to see the countryside. (The bullet train must whip by so fast you hardly see the scenery.) Of course, I learned that my enjoyment of the train is inversely proportional to how crowded it is. When people are crammed in, I can’t wait to get off no matter how brief the trip. On the other hand, when there are few people, I can stretch out, read a book and settle in to the rhythm of the rails.
All was well until we reached Hiroshima and began to look for hotels. This trip was last minute but why in the world we hadn’t made a reservation at a hotel is something to ponder. I guess we like to be spur of moment and assume that we’ll find something, but what we didn’t take into account is that there is a huge amount of tourism within Japan (by Japanese) and when things get crowded, they get CROWDED. So, at 9p on a Saturday night of a three day weekend (and in the rain), we ventured out into downtown Hiroshima in search of a hotel. After stopping at three or four hotels in our guide book and finding them all booked, we were given a list of hotels and Jim began the daunting task of speaking on the phone in a language you barely speak. He did a commendable job, but after calling twenty hotels and finding not one room available, we were getting worried that we might be sleeping at the train station. Finally, he called a hotel a bit out of town, near the shrine we were planning to visit in the morning and, wahoo, they had a room!! It was about twice what we were planning to pay, but under the circumstances, we agreed that beggars couldn’t be choosers.
We hiked back to the station and got on yet another train, then had a 15 minute walk in very blustery conditions before we finally dragged up to the hotel at midnight. The hotel seemed pretty fancy and when the woman completed our check-in and showed us the bill we gulped. Apparently Jim had misunderstood the guy on the phone (he was speaking Japanese after all) and the price the man quoted was for one person, not two. Ahh! But what could we do? It was midnight and we had no other options.
To be honest, this was not my shining moment of the trip and Jim had to put up with a bit of a temper tantrum from me. We had endured 8 hours of local trains in order to save money only to blow it all on a ridiculously expensive hotel room. To make matters worse, we hardly got to enjoy it since we checked in after midnight! We did try to make the most of the extravagance and got up as early as we could to take a hot bath in the hotel’s sento (which was quite luxurious) followed by a Japanese breakfast. (Believe it or not, the traditional Japanese breakfast is a big meal with rice, miso soup, fish, pickled vegetables, etc.) The hotel did also have some breads, juice, and coffee, too, for the Western palate.
Fortunately, the following night we secured a room in a Comfort Hotel (the same Comfort Inn chain as in the US) for 1/3 of the price. The room was smaller and there was no communal fancy bath, but the breakfast was more suited to Western tastes and big, so next time, we’ll definitely opt for the budget hotel!
Lesson learned: when in Japan, slow trains are okay but always make hotel reservations in advance.
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