Day 32 Japan
So this is it. My last day in Japan. This morning I fly to Sakaiminato then get on a ferry to Russia.
Up early to get everything ready and packed. My bag has a delightful amount of room in it with the sleeping bag and a couple of shirts missing. I'm expecting it to be even more roomy soon when I need to take my jacket out and actually wear it.
They have these fancy checkout computers at the hotel which are there to enable you to self-checkout. You put your room keycard in and it checks to see if you have any outstanding bills then let's you check out. I got the bill for my international call. $20 AUD for less than 5 minutes on the phone to Australia ... crazy!
The train station was kind of annoying. I walked towards the map point that google maps gave me and there was an entrance there but the bloody entrance took me to a tunnel that led me back along exactly in the same route I'd just been walking above ground. Japan's underground malls and walkways are a fantastic thing but it sure makes for a lot of walking sometimes.
The Tokyo Haneda airport is nice enough but pretty boring. Certainly not as nice as the Sapporo airport.
The train I got from the airport to Sakaiminato city was interesting when it arrived. It was painted with some sort of cartoon characters which I didn't recognise.
Apparently one of the draw cards of Sakaiminato is that it has an artist living there who does painting, sculptures and carvings of "demons" and they are put up all over the city. The demons are some sort of Japanese superstition that supposedly come when people do bad things and so they are actually embraced because they teach people the value of self restraint and being good people ... something like that. The main street has something like 100 sculptures lining it which all these Korean tourists were having a great time taking photos of. I think I saw one guy running along taking a photo of each and every one. Would hate to sit through that guy's holiday slideshow when he gets home.
The town itself was pretty small. A harbour town that lives on cruise ships and container ships I think so it probably gets really busy one or two days a week then very quiet the rest of the time.
I basically just walked down the main street looking for somewhere to have lunch (but all the restaurants were full with other tourists) then walked along the port and just generally walked a big grid pattern playing ingress and looking for a supermarket so I could buy some supplies for the next couple of days on the boat. Japanese fruits and vegetables have been really expensive so I was quite excited to find some broccoli, green beans and mushrooms for a really good price which I could either snack on or throw into my cup noodles. I also picked up my last lot of sushi from Japan at the market and had that for lunch.
Shopping done I went and ate my lunch by the sea and watched some old guys fish for a while. They were pulling in fish pretty regularly which was fun to watch.
Eventually it was time to jump on the shuttle bus to the ferry terminal so I jumped on that and joined a couple of hundred other people collecting their tickets then waiting for boarding to commence.
The ship is run by a Korean company called DBS and the boat is called the Eastern Dream. I imagine in its day it was a pretty fancy cruise ship in this area but that was probably 15 or 20 years ago and it's just looking really tired now. I'm in an 8 bed dorm on the room is pretty huge. My berth is good ... a nice size and an inner spring mattress which is really comfortable.
The dorm is full. There are 2 Russians (Andre and Andre), a Japanese guy, a couple of Korean guys and an American. About half the dorm speaks English so I've got people to talk to. I ended up spending a fair bit of time with Farooq the American guy but spent a bit of time talking to the Japanese guy as well though I never got his name.
Farooq and I had dinner together in the dining room which was pretty average. Korean style food but in a very average buffet setting. It was filling but not inspired.
After dinner I went outside and watched the scenery for a while (darkness, waves against the side of the boat and seagulls) then had a few drinks. Ended up chatting with the Russian guys for a while then some Canadians until I had drunk almost a full bottle of whiskey and stumbled into bed at some unknown time. Not my finest hour but I didn't make a fool of myself apparently which is good. And I was just telling someone that I don't drink as much as it looks like I do. I guess I put the lie to that.
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