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Shinkansen to Nagasaki

Nagasaki, Japan


We checked out of our horrible hostel run by the nice people and went to the train station ticket office armed with the Japanese note which had been written for us. This time we were successful and got tickets for the Shinkansen. The Shinkansen in the famous Japanese “Bullet Train”, but unfortunately our Japan Rail Pass did not cover the Nozomi, which is their fastest service, reaching 300 km/h, so we had to settle for the Hikari reaching a puny 285 km/h. The trains were very impressive and modern looking. When ours arrived it was one of the newish 700 series, also used on the Nozomi service. Inside it was very comfortable and another large step up from the Indian trains we were quickly becoming less used to. This time there were video screens presenting information about our location and speed in both Japanese and English. At last something modern enough to live up to my expectations of Japan!

The journey was very quick and it was possible to get a sense of the speed by watching everything whizzing past outside, but you wouldn't think for a moment you were travelling at high speed from how the train sounded or felt: very smooth and quiet. When we reached Fukuoka on the island of Kyushu we had to change to a standard service, but the whole journey took just over six hours, including time to change trains, for a six hundred mile journey.

We were surprised and pleased to discover the tourist information at Nagasaki station actually had an English speaker, who was able to tell us where to find internet access. We were in the position of having no accommodation organised because we hadn't been sure we could get on the train until the last minute, so we followed her directions to the manga kissa and this time made sure they understood it was only for one person, so we wouldn't be charged twice. This time it wasn't set up with booths, so Joanne just hung around behind me while I looked for local accommodation on hostels.com. After a few minutes the girl at the desk signalled for Joanne to go over and using a Yahoo! translation tool on her phone, let her know she could use the terminal next to mine for free, then put a finger to her lips and said “Shhh”. How nice! We booked the hostel and then noticed that the check-in time ended in just a few minutes. Oops!

We rushed out with carrying our big bags and tried to hurry in the direction of the hostel, but as we were leaving the building someone who had been in the lift with us asked if we needed any help. They are very nice and helpful the Japanese! We explained where we were trying to go and he said we should follow him. He walked with us for about ten minutes before leaving us at a junction with instructions to take us the rest of the way. Unfortunately I had clearly not followed what he said and the route I insisted on taking turned out to be wrong. Luckily Joanne had listened better so when we tried her route we ended up at the hostel. Which was of course closed. But there was a notice up on the door addressed to us, with a phone number to call and direction to the very near public phone box. All going better than the last place. The number didn't help though, because it just rang out. Just as we were beginning to despair and swear a lot, some people staying at the hostel arrived back and trusted us enough to let us into the reception area. Joanne spotted an envelope taped to the desk with our names on it. The envelope had our key in it, but we still didn't know the code for the outside door, so we tried ringing the number again from the call box inside. Again it rang out, but this time it coincided with the phone behind the desk ringing. Clearly somebody had forgotten to turn on call forwarding!

This was a very nice hostel and our room was gorgeous compared to the previous one, however it was nearly twice the price. Now we really needed to save money, so we decided against the rather pricey-looking restaurant some other guests recommended and had supermarket dinner yet again. Three days in Japan and we hadn't had a meal out yet, nor had we had any tea! At least, though, I had discovered some rice spirit cheap enough for us to afford it, even at the incredibly high room rates.




permalink written by  The Happy Couple on July 6, 2009 from Nagasaki, Japan
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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