Day 13. Train ride to Aomori

Day 13. Train ride to Aomori.

(No pictures...yet. If I find any, I'll add them).


As I had booked the extra night in Shibuya on a whim at the desk, and not via a website, I didn't get the free breakfast included in the price of the accommodation, so I went looking for some sushi. I couldn't find any open so early so I just got a breakfast sandwich and coffee combo from Doutor down the road. I have to be honest, the coffee was pretty bad and the sandwich was just passable, but the staff were friendly and efficient and I got a nice view of the people walking along the street below from the upstairs window seat.
Checkout from the hotel was 11 so I had some time to figure out how I was supposed to get to Aomori. I had already checked online for the best route to get there on my JR pass. Now I just needed to make sure I didn't miss any of the trains.
After breakfast I headed back to the hotel to fetch my bags and check out. There wasn't really anything else I could do in the time before the train departed, so I caught the Yamanote Line train to Tokyo station where the Shinkansen to Aomori departed from. While on my way, I checked the JR line map I had with me and noticed that the Shinkansen passed through Ueno. I thought I would be smart and save some time by getting off at Ueno instead of Tokyo and then catching an earlier train from Ueno. When I stopped at Ueno, it was lucky that I enquired about the platform for the Aomori train as the officer mentioned the cars were all reserved seating only. The train was about to leave and I would have been able to get to it if I had run (which I was thinking about doing) but I would never have been able to organise the reserve seat and still make that train. The next train after would be another 45minutes, and it would be the train I would have caught in Tokyo. I used the extra waiting time to look around other parts of the Ueno station, and noted how much had changed since I had last been there. A plethora of restaurants had opened up and the areas that were under construction last time had now been completed and housed food stores and other shops.
When I got to the platform, there were still a couple of minutes to wait so I bought a (terrible) onigiri rice ball from a platform food store and a Detective Conan manga. I still had some bakery goods from Hokuo in my bag so I didn't need to buy much else other than a hot chocolate from the vending machine. The brand of hot chocolate was called Van Houten and I laughed thinking about Millhouse from the Simpsons. In all seriousness though, it was a pretty good drink and a nice break from the terrible canned coffee and sports drinks.
Finally the train arrived and I boarded to what appeared to be an empty carriage. I didn't quite get why it was reserved seating if so many seats were empty, but I didn't think more of it. I settled in for the 4+ hour train ride and cracked open my manga and tried to decipher the story from the pictures because I couldn't read Japanese.
We made 6 or 7 stops along the way and picked up some more passengers. It was when the carriage filled up that I realised by it was reserved seating. I was luckly the two business men who say next to me were so sleepy as they either slept or were vey quiet and kept to themselved the whole trip.
The view out the window was quite nice at times and as we got further and further north there was more pronounced snowfall over the ground. Since my SLR was right at the bottom of my bag, I didn't get it out.
I'm not too sure but I also had the feeling that we didn't pick up or drop off as many people at the stations closest to the Fukushima area. I'm guessing this area is still showing the after effects of the Tsunami.
It was about 3:30pm when I arrived in Shin Aomori station, and transferred to the local train to get to Aomori City. As soon as I stepped off the train, I was hit with a face full of cold. It has also just started to get dark. There was also a long wait at the station and it wasn't until about 3:50 that I arrived at Aomori station. The walk to the main terminal was also really really long. The platforms all branch off a main overhead walkway which spans the entire width of the lines. My platform had been right on the end.
When I exited the station I pulled out the directions I had written down and proceeded to get lost almost immediately. Most signs were in Japanese except for an english map at the station, but this didn't seem to have the street I was looking for.
I showed the ticket officer a picture of the address on my phone in Japanese, but they couldn't work out where it was (I realised later that the address wasn't of the hotel, but was of the head office of the booking agency, even though the hotel address was in english below it.), mostly due to language difficulties.
I wasn't too hungry at that point as I had eaten some pastries on the train, so I decided to walk along some of the streets to see if I could spot any of the landmarks mentioned in the online directions. I was able to locate a couple of large department stores and hotels, but I still couldn't find the street or the hotel. It didn't help that the image of the front of the hotel on the website was tiny and blurry. I couldn't tell if it was 3 stories tall or 20 stories tall.
I walked down a back alley and found a local outside another hotel and asked if he knew of the street. I was probably pronouncing it wrong but he caught a portion of the name and pointed me to the next street down. I thought I was onto a winner but this just left me even more lost. I had been walking around for ages and it was already 5:30pm and quite dark. Pretty soon I wouldn't be able to see much so I decided to enter the next brightly lit store that might contain some english speaking staff and ask them for directions.
The first store I came across was an Excelsior Caffe. These places are like Starbucks. They even use the same font (albeit in a different colour). The staff looked at me blankly as I spouted out English dotted with terrible Japanese. The two girls behind the counter shook their heads and I sighed and headed for the door. Just as I was about to leave, I heard a 'chotto matte' from behind. Good thing I'd watched so much anime as she was asking me to wait a second. She had gone into the back room and a few seconds later, she emerged with another girl, about 14, wearing non work clothes looking quite confused. The other staff girl was trying to tell her that I only spoke English, and then the new girl realised what was happening.
She turned to me and spoke in very broken english that she was learning it in school and would try to help me if she could. I literally sighed with relief and proceeded to show her the address and the map I had and even explained the directions. All of these were counter-productive though as some of the information contradicted the other so she finally took the name of the hotel, got out her Galaxy S3 and plugged it into the maps app. I saw that the hotel had only been about 2 minutes away from the station and the reason I couldn't find it was that way the streets bend, I had been going on the main street and around and past the entrance everytime.
With a firm palm to the face I thanked them and started walking, only to find the young girl next to me insisting she take me to the entrance personally. I'm not sure if she thought it was the polite Japanese thing to do, or if she was genuinely afraid I would get lost again. Along the way she asked about where I was from and what I was doing in Japan. She said she would like to go overseas one day but had never even considered going to Australia as it seemed so far away.
Pretty soon we arrived at the hotel entrance and I thanked her excessively for helping me find it. The hotel itself felt pretty small but it was 9 levels or so, tucked against the back of a much larger hotel behind it. Definitely inconspicuous.
There didn't appear to be anyone at the counter so I rang the bell and sat down on a seat and waited. 5 minutes passed and another person entered the hotel. He also rang the bell and yelled something out in Japanese to behind the counter. After a while an elderly lady came out and he asked for a key number. The lady handed it to him without question.
I stepped up to the counter and told her I had a booking for 2 nights. She looked in a book and found my name then proceeded to say a whole lot of Japanese I couldn't understand. I wasn't sure what to do and after a few repeats with no progress, I took out my phone and hoped there was wifi. There was! I opened up the google translate app and got her to speak into it. It seems she was just explaining the pricing and what room number I would be in. After about 10 minutes of awkard conversation translated via my phone I was all set with key in hand. I dropped my things on the room floor (which was tiny) and got out my laptop to figure out my plans for the next day.
There were a few tourist attractions dotted around the surrounding areas, but there were also a few things to do right near where I was staying. As most of the remote areas had only 1 or 2 things to see, it didn't seem worth travelling out there and then have to travel back. At most I could do one activity that required a trip outside of the city. A couple of websites had mentioned the aquarium to the north-east just near Asamushionsen station. As it was one of the only things on a train route, I decided to go there, rathen than another gondola ride or an apple orchard. It didn't occur to me that it was the middle of winter and the aquarium might be closed, but I was hungry and I wasn't thinking straight.
I jotted down my list of things to see and headed out to find some food. When I got outside it was pitch black. There was ice underfoot and I had a hard time getting back to the station, where I had last seem some places to eat. I looked at my phone. It was about 10:30pm. I hadn't realised it was so late, but I figured there might be a small change there would be a small ramen shop or something similar still open.
As I got near the station, a policeman approched me and held up his hand for me to stop. He said something in Japanes but quickly realised I had no idea what he was saying. His english wasn't too bad but he had to speak very slow as he thought about the words. I was actually pretty impressed, given what he was about to ask of me. Apparently there had been some knife attacks in the area recently, and people had been told to be careful when out and about. He asked me if I was carrying a knife and then had me empty my pockets and patted me down. He also asked for my ID. I'm pretty sure we both knew I wasn't a knife-weilding purple-shirted eye-stabber, and he asked me about Australia. He apologised for having to go through procedure but it was his duty. When I asked if he knew if there was anywhere to get food nearby, he shook his head and told me no restaurants stayed open after 10pm, and my best bet was to get something from the Lawson down the road.
I purchased a 'King Cup' instant noodle pack as it was the cheapest and biggest of the noodle cups. It also had a pretty nice picture on the outside.
Back at the hotel, I remembered reading in the guide pamphlet that there was no hot water or kettle available so the staff put out thermoses of hot water which patrons can use. I grabbed one on the way back to my room and tried to enjoy a not-quite-hot cup of quite-disgusting-but-ok-for-the-price cup of noodles. I wasn't very successful and only ate half. The other half went down the sink. On the plus side, my room no longer smelled of cigarette smoke. Now it smelled like cheap cup noodle ramen.
With dinner out of the way, I lay down to what was probably the quietest nights sleep since getting to Japan.

Coming up: what I did in Aomori.