Today was supposed to be a really awesome relaxing day taking photos of deer eating and of people feeding deer and of deer lying down, and deer standing up, and that one deer with that funny ear which sticks out to the side; instead, it turned out to be a really sucky relaxing day of just sitting/slouching on a train doing bugger all. That probably had something to do with a massive tree that was lying on the train tracks between me and aforementioned deer, also doing bugger all. Doing bugger all obviously meant that it wasn’t getting up off the tracks, and thus I was stuck on the train for almost three hours, while the train conductor checked his JR-issue phone and announced to everyone that we would surely be moving again soon, so please stay on the train.
As evidenced by the fact that I have exactly zero photos of deer to share, we obviously didn’t get moving again soon. We got moving again very un-soon even. Bloody trees.
So arriving in Nara in the late evening/early night, it’s bucketing down rain. How original. It’s not like Matsumoto did that too me just a few days ago or anything. Nara should try and do something creative, like have some damn sunshine or something. Anyway, I had an umbrella this time, so I thwarted its evil plan before it could even begin. Or at least, I did up until the point where I remembered the suitcase and laptop bag sticking out behind my umbrella getting rather sodden.
Cue convenience store salvation glowy-aura scene in 3…2…1…
132 yen later and I am now the proud owner of 45 large plastic bin liners. For “large” bin liners, they barely fit over my suitcase, and that’s with a bit of generous stretching and a creative use of the word “fit.” Either way, my suitcase was now merely getting damp rather than sodden, so I set off feeling like I had at least limited the potential for failure on my part, even if I hadn’t exactly succeeded in sticking it to the storm, who sat overhead growling unhappily at the fraction-of-a-millimetre thick sheet of polyethylene that thwarted his plans to make all of my clothes unwearable.
Check in went as smoothly as all the others. The room was about the same size as my room in Osaka, but made much better use of the space available. Everything was also very new, so I can only imagine they renovated recently. After that I had some takeaway curry-rice from a shop across the road – it was close, hot and tasty so I can’t complain. Following that I went back to the hotel and thought about the rest of my trip and how I was past the half way point. I then had that time that all travellers have when they realise that they’ll have to go back home and it’ll be boring and horrible and do I have to? That pretty much wraps up today, so I’ll make this post worth reading by tacking on a few tidbits that I can remember that I forgot to put in previous posts.
Matsumoto > Osaka – A chance meeting.
My trip from Matsumoto to Osaka was very easy and smooth. I had help with that at the Matsumoto end from a kind lady who made sure I got on the right train. As I got off the Shinkansen in Osaka, having changed trains twice in the interim, the same lady approached me again (it turns out she has family in Osaka) and asked me if I’d stayed in Matsumoto overnight and done a tour of the castle. I told her I had and I thanked her again for her help at Matsumoto station. She told me that she is a tour guide at the castle, and that she had been told to take a few weeks leave because they didn’t have enough work for her due to a lack of tourism thanks to all of the panic about the tsunami.
These are the stories that really make me hate the media. They profiteer from others’ misfortune and then put people out of work by blowing everything out of proportion. I’ve seen it first-hand, this lady losing her livelihood (even if only temporarily) just so some big corporation out there can make a buck from selling panic on the newsstand. She seemed genuinely glad that I had come to Japan, and thanked me for not being scared away. I guess she was glad that some of her friends still had work thanks to the small amount of money I could contribute to their economy. Now is a fantastic time to see Japan, and I’d recommend anyone with plans to come should keep them. It’s a fantastic opportunity to support the struggling tourism industry as well. Believe me, they need it.
Oh, and don’t be afraid of natural disasters; it’s rogue trees that are the problem.