Mysterious Moments

Ten hours on a train....

I missed at least three transfers and in my rough attempt to save money, spent a whole day riding the rails. A day... which could have been an hour, if I had taken the shinkansen. That's something so inconceivable to our country. The sheishun ju hachi kippu - a cheap ticket in japan, is awesome, if you don't care where you're going and have all the time in the world. Which I sort of do. But I decided where I wanted to get to... and therein lay the problem. Eventually it got too late with all the mistakes I made and I bought another ticket for an express train and arrived exhausted after missing my trains three times and so on. I was also rather hungry, not getting to eat a proper meal at all.

So i decided to reward myself. I'm in Beppu. Hotspring town! I bought lots of food, decided to stay three days and went immediately to a all night onsen about two blocks away. After enjoying the delicious warm waters of the onsen, I ventured into the late night to find that it was snowing. Beautiful large flakes swirling through the night. I wandered back to my hostel through streets that looked more like they belonged in Europe than in Japan, singing winter songs.

Beautiful end to a hard day.