More Japan blogging! tldr; traveling by high speed rail in Japan, Manjiro in popular culture. I departed Kochi yesterday morning around 10 and made it into Sendai by 7 PM. The cool thing about being a foreign citizen from the US visiting Japan, as many of you know, is that youre eligible for a Japan Rail pass. This is essentially a piece of folded cardboard that gets you on most of Japans railways for free. I put that in quotes because you do need to buy the rail pass before you leave for Japan. On past trips, I got the 7 day pass, but this time since Im going all over the place I opted for the 14 day which was about $450. That sounds like a lot, but the best value of the JR pass is that it gets you onto any high speed Shinkansen line for free. The Shinkansen, for a normal person, costs as much as a cheap plane ticket (around $100 one way) so for most people its a luxury to be able to jet around the country on Shinkansen all the time. Most of my Japanese friends end up taking highway buses or overnight buses if they have to go as far as I did yesterday. Because of the pass I was able to get from Kochi to Sendai (extreme south to extreme north of Japan) in 9 hours. The pass doesnt let you use certain special Shinkansen types, otherwise my trip would have been a lot shorter. I ended up going 2 hours from Kochi to Okayama (hopping off point from the main island of Honshu), then an hour up to Osaka, 3 hours to Tokyo, and another 2 hours to Sendai. With layovers, it kind of felt like I had been on a super long plane ride by the end. I was so ready to get off the train. But it sure beats taking the night bus. For those who have never traveled on Shinkansen before, its pretty luxurious compared to air travel, not to mention the sad excuses that we have for cross-country trains in America. One thing I found really surprising was that the Shinkansen is now nonsmoking. You used to have to pick a smoking or nonsmoking car, and I once got stuck in a smoking car and felt like I was going to die, as Im severley allergic to cigarette smoke. This time, every single train was nonsmoking, although every few train cars had a little room next to the bathroom for smokers in desperate need. The train stations are nonsmoking too, now. Japan, times are a-changing. I did feel pretty bad for the smokers crammed into the tiny smoking room at Kochi station, though. They looked very unhappy. I got into Sendai at around 7, was picked up by my aunt and uncle and cousin, and we went out for soba. I havent seen them in a few years, and my cousin apparently hit puberty in the meantime, got super tall with a deep voice, and is now studying overseas in Switzerland. Fancy. His sister, my other cousin, came to visit Harvard and MIT last year and she apparently is going to apply for MIT for college. I hope she gets in because then I get to see her more. Both my cousins in Japan are 10+ years younger than me, so Im more used to thinking of them as kids. I talked to my aunt a little bit about why I was in Kochi (they were like wtf Kochi?!?) and asked her if she knew about Manjiro. Turns out that she knows him as John Manjiro, and didnt recognize his Japanese name (Nakahama Manjiro). Apparently most Japanese people just call him John, too, which is amusing to me and kind of cements his status as the first Japanese-American. He was born in Japan, but moved away and when he came back he could never quite shake the American label. My cousin also mentioned that they had to read Heart of a Samurai in school, the book by Margi Preus, translated into Japanese, and write a book report. I found this amusing because, true to form for students around the world who are forced to write book reports, she couldnt remember the title of the book at first and thought it was John Manjiro and the Pirates. Also I have to mention thanks to Alisa Nakamine, I learned that theres a musical playing in Tokyo right now called John Manjiros Dream. It sounds quite amusing and has Japanese people playing Yankee whalers from 1841, so I decided I had to go see it and got tickets for this Thursday. I will give a full report. Meanwhile, enjoy this little clip of things I shot from the window of my Shinkansen yesterday from Osaka to Tokyo.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 00:25:00 +0000
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