Chronicles of a Jetsetter Wannabe

Spring came early for Sis (31 Dec 2007 - 1 Jan 2008)

Dinner was a horrible bento box; I'm sure it would have been delicious to the locals, but it was too foreign for our palates, and between the two of us, we only finished half of it and threw the rest away. We then topped up our tummies with more cheesecakes and sweets. After several hours of gentle rocking, we gradually got drowsy and retired to our bunk beds early (i.e. 11+ pm, as compared to 1+ am in Tokyo). Unfortunately, as just I was drifting off, I had an encounter of the third kind, and was jolted awake just before midnight. I stayed alert listening for sounds, but all I heard were "Happy new year!" from people in the corridor. After ascertaining all was well again, I managed to drift off again. Throughout the night, we were awoken by the train jerking occasionally along the tracks and once it stalled for a particularly long while. Sis and I speculated that the disruption was due to heavy snow.

Breakfast was served in the dining carriage. We should have opted for the western set instead of the Japanese set, as the latter had fish again. I told Sis then that the fish I ate on the Twilight Express was more than the amount I'd consumed in the last 20 years. Back in our cabin after breakfast, there came an announcement over the PA system that the train was delayed by 3 hours and would reach Kyoto at 3 in the afternoon. With so much time and nothing to do, we soon fell asleep again, to "make up for the lost sleep in Tokyo", as Sis joked.

The interesting part of the ride only came while we were washing our hair in the nearby sink (and trying to prevent our heads from ramming into the tap whenever the train jerked violently). Sis's eye candy came in to "play cards with us" but instead started to hit on Sis. :p

"Do you have boyfriend?" he asked very directly. Through our conversation with him in a mixture of English and Japanese, we found out that he knew a bit of Japanese Sign Language, was currently studying social work in a college and would be working in an elder care home after graduation. He was in Hakodate and Sapporo the same evenings that we were there! What a coincidence! After securing a tour in Osaka the evening that we would be there, Sis had to subtly chase him out on the pretext of packing our luggage for disembarkation at Kyoto Station.

However he couldn't stay away, and came by again to chat with us before we left. A round of photo-taking led to a manic frenzy when we realised the train had stopped at Kyoto Station and we were galvanised into action, grabbing our heavy bags and bumping our ways out of the narrow corridor. Luckily Haru (yes, that's his name and it means Spring, hence the title of this post) was there to help cart the bags onto the platform. As we waved bye to him from the platform, we were panting both from relief and from exhaustion. It was then time to make use of the remaining daylight to reach Hotel Matsui and to head to Kiyomizu-dera (Kiyomizu temple).

posted by Addy @ 5:53 PM