Japan Trip Day 2: Not Every Plan Will Be Followed
In the last post, I mentined how I had an early train to catch. Do you think I caught it? No? Of course not, I overslept several hours.
Changed plans
In the common room, just as I was about to leave, I started chatting with two others, who hadn't checked in yet. Since check-in was many hours away, we ended up heading towards the shibuya scramble. Now, I wish I could describe it more thoroughly, but it was entierly disorganized and off-the-cuff. After walking arond a lot, being lost a lot, we ended up in yoyogi park looking for a shrine, that we only found after deciding to something else, due to walking close to 10 km already. It was a nice spontanious outing, but I was so occupied with interacting with them that I didn't take any pictures. Amongst all of this we had lunch, where I had a rather ordinary looking bowl of curry rice. Except for the size, I rudely enough could only finish half of it. It was in a Touristy area of Tokyo, so hopefully they understand. As a side-dish, there was a bowl of miso soup. A first sip tasted somewhat of instant ramen and wasn't all that bad. A second, bigger sip was much more powerful and almost threw up on reflex, like when you try to eat something you really shouldn't. I guess that's a hint that I should try to avoid miso from now on.
First proper hotel!
With my previous plan in shambles, I started heading for the hotel I'd be spending the night at. Having no idea where I was, I used Hyperdia without looking at a map. It involved a transfer marked as a 4 minute walk. It took me 40 minutes to find the station I'd continue to, only to ride the train for a few minutes.
At this point, I just wanted to sleep, so I headed for the Shinkansen gate and boarded a train without even reserving a seat. It was a lot of people, but I did get a seat. Although a kid later had to sit next to the sweaty (but not that stinky!) foreigner.
Getting off at Takasaki, I head for the hotel, right by the station. Except the lobby was on the 10th floor reachable from a specific set of elevators reachable from an unmanned lobby reachable from the other side of the building from where the big sign was. The signs leading there was all in Japanese, the lady behind the reception counter didn't really speak any english, and all information inside the room except for the aircon instructions where in Japanese only. I guess Takasaki isn't a major foreign tourist destination. This is a theme that prevailed, but simple japanese and english words with a minimal amount of grammar was enough to get things done without too much holdup.
After checking in, I took a quick shower (and did two days on laundry at the same time) and crashed in bed.
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