Japan: Kyoto, Shimizu, and the Two-Heart-Attack Train Challenge

We don’t back down from travel challenges, but our race through Yokohama’s sprawling train station had me longing for the rocker and remote, just for a moment.

The morning started on a high note, with our entrance to Yokohama Harbor and our last

morning with the Diamond Princess (thanks Shari for the ‘view’ tip, and the detailed instructions – it helped, trust me!). We hoped to disembark by 7:30 AM at the latest, catch a taxi to Yokohama station, locate the ticket office to buy our Narita Airport Express tickets, then find the Promised Land – platform 10 – all by 8:26 AM to make our noon flight. Hey, old people can dream, right?

Our hearts sank as we waited for customs to clear and the clock ticked down. But our sinking hopes rose again when, after customs cleared, the Japanese had us outside the port, luggage and all, at the taxi stand in seven minutes. Yay for Japanese efficiency! Our driver spoke no English, but a taxi stand language translator gave him the correct instructions and we were on our way by 7:40 AM.

Once we walked down the steps into the station, I felt a bit like Alice down the rabbit hole,

only this Alice was an orange-jacketed old blonde lady loaded down with luggage, swimming in a sea of black-suited Japanese, swiftly streaming by on both sides on the way to their morning trains. With eight different directions to choose from and no good way to know which way to go, we just said ‘pick one’ more than once and followed a tunnel, going the wrong way, then the right way, lurching slowly toward our two goals.

First, we had to locate the ticket office, and then the elusive Platform 10, as the clock ticked down. After we bought our tickets, we had 24 minutes to find platform 10. Sounds like lots of time, if you’re not deep in the bowels of Yokohama Station and don’t read, write, or understand Japanese. And even though the ticket agent pointed us in the right direction initially, her directions were useless once we joined the flow of humanity on the way to their trains.

I tried using my GoogleTranslate app (as well as helpless facial expressions), but the nice people who tried to help us looked at that screen as if it was hieroglyphics. I found one universal language, though – flapping my arms to indicate ‘airplane’ – and that actually worked. So in the future, I’m going with the flapping.

I confess I gave up more than once in the train station (not like me at all) – it was just too confusing, but we both just plowed on until – voila – we slipped into our train seats as the doors were closing and the train was pulling out. If we had missed that train, we would have missed our flight. And sure, we had backup plans (rickety ones, expensive ones), but the whole thing was hard. Don’t recommend this route to other cruisers, no sir, unless you have all day to be lost down the rabbit hole of the Japanese train system.

And I neglected to mention that Padre let his ticket disappear into the zippy machine and forgot to retrieve it at the other end, so he had no ticket, which came back to haunt us later. And the famously never-late Japanese trains? Ours got us to the airport 30 minutes late – what’s with that? Since Padre had to talk his way OUT of the train station at the airport end without a ticket (which he did quite nicely), we just barely made the bag dropoff cutoff with minutes to spare.

So a two-heart attack morning, and it wasn’t even noon yet.

But obviously we made it, or I wouldn’t be writing this from seat 58H, Thai Airways flight, while sipping a diet coke on Songkran Day, part of Thai New Year’s Festival held every year April 13^th-15th. This is a time when Thais celebrate age-old traditions, including sprinkling scented water on people to honor them (or dump it on people, or shoot fire cannons at them – it has evolved, sounds like). I confess that if someone douses me today I’ll probably start laughing hysterically, out of gratitude that we made our tight connection or stress relief, take your pick.

Backing up a couple days, we’ve loved Japan so far (we return to Japan later in the trip). At our first stop, Kyoto, our tour guide Ichiro showed us some of the top sights in the former Japanese capital. Of course we had to talk about Ichiro Suzuki, our former Seattle Mariners baseball player, and he told us that their parents weren’t very creative – ‘Ichiro’ means number one son.

Our first stop, the Teneynji Temple, provided lovely vistas and garden walks, and we watched as Japanese participated in rituals to ensure good fortune. And I found cats here –

two of them, on a little girls’ toes. I said ‘nice shoes!’ and Mom smiled wide, so I knew she understood. Girls and their shoes. I did see a plump Garfield-type cat lurking under the bushes at the Port, but he slipped away too fast for me to snap his picture.

Speaking of pictures, besides the shoes I really liked these photo

cats, because they remind me how photo-crazy the Japanese are – Ichiro must have posed our group of six in front of views at least 10 times. The two other couples with us – Krystie and John, and Helen and Jim, all from Australia – were tuckered out from all the forced posing, just like us.

I never saw someone just take a picture of the thing – the

temple, the garden – no, someone always had to be posed in the shot (and then there were those loathsome selfie sticks – aargh!). What’s that about? To prove they were here? I’ve got my ticket stubs for that. So some other purpose at work here, a cultural norm that doesn’t fit with the quiet, self-effacing Japanese persona we witnessed in other situations.

We did take some lovely photos of Japanese women in the garden, dressed up as geishas. There were lots of female Japanese tourists, dressed up as geishas, everywhere we went – obviously, it’s a thing here.

Let’s just say having your picture taken in front of, next to, on top of, or under anything that might be important seems to be a really, really big deal in Japan. And while the temples and shrines were absolutely beautiful, be forewarned that you’ll have to navigate all the picture takers during your visit, unless you come in winter, considered the best time (albeit chillier) to visit the top Kyoto sites.

We both loved the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest, despite the crowds. The forest has been growing on this hillside for hundreds of years, and despite all the photo snappers, we found it peaceful and serene. I like this photo where all the little humans are dwarfed by the forest above; Nature has a way of doing that, despite our sense of self importance sometimes, doesn’t it?

Then we had lots of fun at the Sushi Conveyor-belt Restaurant – what a hoot. I particularly liked the way that, after you ordered, four sushi plates would zoom down the belt and screech to a halt, Jetsons-style, right above your booth. And very tasty. Padre and I had a ‘clueless foreigners’ moment when we went to the bathroom there, though. No idea which sign was for girls, which for boys. Had to wait until a guy came out of the blue side. So blue for boys, red for girls. Need to remember that (I miss the little skirts…).

After lunch, we braved the crowds to see the Golden Pavilion, and my best photo of it is

from the back side – but it was lovely. And I’d love to come

back to the Fushimi Inari Shrine, our final stop, to trek all the way to the top of the mountain. Red gates line the trail all the way to the summit, and I can just imagine how peaceful it must be higher up. The Inari – or fox – is considered good luck, and schoolchildren leave fox tokens with wishes for good fortune on them at the bottom of the mountain.

After that, we returned to the port to set sail for Shimizu the next day. We didn’t plan any tours for Shimizu, knowing we had to pack (not to mention prepare for the daunting train day), but we loved this small port city. And Mt. Fuji was out! We shopped

and sat in the sunshine at an outdoor café, and Padre drooled over all the sailboats docked right out front. No more family boats, Padre, unless they have the words Princess, Celebration, or Caribbean in their name, ok? (a boat = hole you pour money into).

And one of my fave photos of the last few days – Grandma found a huge Pokemon, for my Pokemon-loving grandsons! And I tried out the Pokemon vending machine too – there are vending machines for everything in Japan.

So now we’re flying to Bangkok, to join a two-week land tour of Northern Thailand. It’s very hot in Bangkok, we hear, so we’ll see if we melt. We made wonderful new friends on our three-week cruise, and wish we could take them along with us to Thailand. Padre’s favorite dessert, the Ted Special (named after our dinner companion, Ted), probably won’t be available where we’re headed. Or double desserts, like our other table companion, Ken taught us to brazenly order (His wife Kim, a retired teacher, and I hit it off, of course. Why wouldn’t we?).

Remember that Padre loves old geezers? Well, Ted was geezerdom personified, and Padre just loved him – he had so much fun getting Ted to crack a smile (and his lovely wife Doreen, both well into their eighties).

So on to the next leg, dodging the sprinkles and water cannons as best we can. In the high heat, I reckon, a blast from a water cannon might be just the thing.