The final leg: Train travel at it’s best
When you reserve your seat on the bullet train or an express route, you settle into your seat for the ride and that’s where you’ll be. You could luck out with some talkative neighbors, or enjoy the trip by yourself, but your fate is always sealed from the start. I’ve found the ju-hachi kippu provides more interaction with locals by simple odds. With this ticket you end up getting on and off a lot of trains, increasing your chance of meeting some nice folks.
Yesterday was an amazing day on trains. Maybe it was the outgoing westerners, my big pack that screams “traveler”, or simple dumb luck, but I enjoyed a steady stream of conversations the entire trip back to Tokyo.
On my way to Nagoya an old man asked if he could practice his English. At 70, his mastery of the language was great for the ten years he’d been studying since retirement. During our chat the young woman sitting next to me kept looking over as if eavesdropping. When we all got off in Nagoya I caught up with her and asked if she spoke English. She didn’t, but we began chatting about the old man’s exceptional English and, presto, I had landed my next person to talk to for the next leg of the journey to Hamamatsu.
From Hamamatsu to Shizuoka I found a hostel owner from Kyoto who was traveling with his daughter. He had studied in New York and every so often a slight Brooklyn accent shone through. We got to talking about all the nationalities he’s met running the hostel and before we knew it he’d overshot his stop. I felt kind of bad.
As I neared Tokyo a young girl with a roller suitcase sat beside me. I asked her if she’d heard the train arrival time announced on the speaker.
“No, I also missed it,” she said in perfect English. “You are also traveling with seishun ju-hachi kippu, yes?”
“Yes. I started in Shimonoseki after arriving from Korea.”
“Oh yes,” she said with surprise. “You know because I’m Korean!”
Her name was Youn Jeong, 20, and she had been touring Japan for three weeks solo. From looking through her stamp book it appeared she had left no stone unturned. There was a cute energy about her and a naive sparkle in her eye.
“Why are you traveling alone?” I asked.
“Well you see my family and me have different holidays, and I am a strong addiction to travel.” There was a terse frankness in her voice that added character to everything she said, like she was letting me in on a secret that obviously everyone knew but me.
The timing was perfect. Having just come from Korea I had a laundry list of questions to ask, and we had plenty of time to get through them all.
When we pulled into Tokyo station at 11:30 I had been sitting on a train 9 hours, but it had gone by so fast. We bid our farewells and parted. There would be no camping in Tokyo and all my friends in town weren’t answering, so I decided to make the final push home and see how far I get.
Tags: Capitals tour of Asia, Japan on the cheap
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