04-08-06
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The walk back from the onsen was really something. It was already dark before I left and I was actually just thinking of sleeping outside near this graveyard that I passed on the way there. "Graveyard" has such a bad image but to me it just looked like a temple or shrine anyways so- it was nothing like a graveyard in the US. A lone gaijin walking down a mountain street at night in the pitch black is a freaking psycho, so I tried to stay off the road the best I could, also due to the fact that I didn't want to get hit by a car.
The dirt road that I ended up taking was along the river that went back to civilization- I knew if I just stayed on that I would somehow find the station. I also figured that asking people was pretty much out of the question when a lady walking her two dogs saw me and literally started running in the opposite direction! lol. I can't lie, I might even have done the same thing if I was in her position.
I was a little worried if I could actually do the outdoor thing or not, I mean, it was 7pm and I wasn't tired at all so I decided to try and find the station in the pitch black of night, on foot... If it was a bust I could always come back to the cemetery. After walking about what seemed like two hours or so, I came to the fourth light which on my shitty little map was somewhere near the station. I came across an emergency shelter , like a hospital almost, I heard some people inside and the door wasn't locked so I went in- all I needed was a map with my current position and that of the station's.
There wasn't one, and I started getting kinda worried and I couldn't get the courage to go upstairs to where the voices of were coming from (def. just 2 old ladies chatting by themselves)- cause I mean the place was DEAD. Resident Evil style. I would have scared the living shit out of them, so I just decided to move on and what do you know, as I left on the same street in front of the shelter was a guide map and it had the station on it, I was actually close! (Thank God) So, I went just around the corner to the JR station.
Now actually, just to clarify, when I say station I mean just a little turn style under a tiny roof, enough so you dont get rained on, and like one wood bench inside. 駅前(Ekimae) No such thing- dirctly across the street was residential housing, no NOVA, no Shirokiya, Warawara, etc. いいなあと思う時は度々あった. So the only people in sight were the taxi drivers waiting for the next train to come, which was in 45 minutes, yea. 45 minutes! haha, I'm so used to trains coming every FIVE minutes, like they run in Tokyo. But, it was real nice cause there was no one there except us guys and once I started talking to them they were super friendly.
I first asked of course if there were cheap places to stay around this area, to which they replied "haha, no." So, ok that may have been a little obvious but still. Then they say, "伊予西条(Saijyo) is the last stop on the train, and if you go there 駅前とかで色んなビジネスがあんだよ. Ok, so I ended up going out that way and trying to find a cheap place to stay. On the way I struck up a convo with this highschool kid on the train, he said he was into K-1 and he had been in some amateur matches and stuff, kinda looked like it too, still young though. But we had a lot to talk about nonetheless.
He was young so I figured he would know- I asked him if he knew of any (Manga Kisa) or anything like that, that I was looking for a cheap place to stay. He said that the Manga Kisa and Karaoke Booths around here aren't open 24 hours! あっそッshock! I thought that was the whole thing about those joints, now I knew I was really in the 田舎(Inaka). Then he confirmed that yes there were definitly business hotels in front of the Saijyo station. Said bye to him and then got off the train without paying or even being asked to- oh, no wait- I was, forgot... So the business hotels were all like 50 bucks or so, I was hoping for something cheaper than that of course but I didn't have much time anymore. There was a pretty big Book Off type place so I went in and asked the people inside. One of which was this hot little 女の子(Onna no ko). They told me of this cheap place a little ways walk from the station and even ended up drawing me a map and all. I tried going out that way but, once I got there the place was already closed. Don't ask.
Eventually, I ended up walking back to the station and staying at a pretty nice Business Hotel- Breakfast included for about 50 bucks (5000円、ちょっとしんどい). During the night I emailed 稗田先生(Hieda Sensei), I couldn't help myself. 抑えられねえ. But she was real cool, even though I mentioned how great it would be if she wa here to show me around and all this shit that I probably should not be writing to a married woman- however, she got back to me quick that night and said that, actually, her little sis is still there in like 香川(Kagawa) and to contact her, maybe she could show me around. She sent me her mail. This morning over breakfast I mailed her, but I'm not sure if I can actually meet her you know, I bet she is attractive though, I'm sure it runs in the family. The reply so far is just, "Hey nice to hear from you, if you go here you have to do this, this place is famous for this, this def.=this", type mail. Oh yeah, "and don't forget to see the Sakura!", yea thanks, they're kinda hard to miss. I gotta check out of this place before they try and charge for the next day- I also need to find out how much it is gonna be to take the train all the way over to Kagawa, Tokushima area, and then try and figure some plans out. Peace!
Reference:
駅前- Station front, of course since Japanese transportation is built around trains the stations are, as you can imagine, ridiculous, especially in Tokyo. A lot are now connected to Department stores so that you have to walk through like the food court area just to get out of the station, it's crazy. Zurui.
いいなあと思う時は度々あった- Which I thought was actually really kinda nice.
伊予西条- Most likely the biggest station/town in the Ehime prefecture of Shikoku. Pics.
駅前とかで色んなビジネスがあんだよ- If front of the station there are a bunch of business hotels. So basically a business hotel is just like a normal hotel but not quite as nice, they dont really do anything for you, there is no real reception/travel type help desk etc. and usually it includes nothing. I had to pay like 3 extra bucks for the morning breakfast that I thought was included.
あっそッ- Oh, no shit.
田舎- Backwoods, the country.
Book Off- Book off is a store that is only in Japan to my knowledge but it's really awesome, just a huge used book store, usually specializing in like manga, comics, and music and things. You can usually get the books you are looking for for about a buck or two. Funny side note: there also exists a "Hard Off" but I have only found one of these once, they are pretty hard to find, but badass. They have all types of hardware and software for super cheap, also like junk parts and broken fixable things. Mainly game systems, ex: thats where I got my Jpn Sega Saturn for like 20 dollars. A steal.
女の子- A girl.
5000円、ちょっとしんどい- 50 bucks, kinda hurts.
稗田先生- Hieda Mie. My japanese teacher from school in Shinjuku, Tokyo. She grew up in Shikoku and then moved to Osaka for College, where she met her husband got pregnant and then had a shotgun wedding. She eventually moved to Tokyo and started teaching at KCP where I was at school. We had the same class for like 8 months I think. I don't think it was a coincidence. lol, I dunno, Anyways, she quit the semester that I graduated and said that she may be moving back to Osaka for awhile. We often talked about how Tokyo kinda sucked, or at least it was really crazy and fast paced... we would stay after class and talk a lot, I guess I know so much cause she would tell me all this personal stuff about herself, anyways, needless to say she is really really cool and I had kinda a crush on her. Oh yea, she's 25, but married and has a kid and all, so I of course never really said anything about it. She hooked me up with her sisters e-mail- who is 23.
抑えられねえ- I couldn 't help it
香川- Kagawa. The northern prefecture of Shikoku. The highlighted area in this map.
..
The walk back from the onsen was really something. It was already dark before I left and I was actually just thinking of sleeping outside near this graveyard that I passed on the way there. "Graveyard" has such a bad image but to me it just looked like a temple or shrine anyways so- it was nothing like a graveyard in the US. A lone gaijin walking down a mountain street at night in the pitch black is a freaking psycho, so I tried to stay off the road the best I could, also due to the fact that I didn't want to get hit by a car.
The dirt road that I ended up taking was along the river that went back to civilization- I knew if I just stayed on that I would somehow find the station. I also figured that asking people was pretty much out of the question when a lady walking her two dogs saw me and literally started running in the opposite direction! lol. I can't lie, I might even have done the same thing if I was in her position.
I was a little worried if I could actually do the outdoor thing or not, I mean, it was 7pm and I wasn't tired at all so I decided to try and find the station in the pitch black of night, on foot... If it was a bust I could always come back to the cemetery. After walking about what seemed like two hours or so, I came to the fourth light which on my shitty little map was somewhere near the station. I came across an emergency shelter , like a hospital almost, I heard some people inside and the door wasn't locked so I went in- all I needed was a map with my current position and that of the station's.
There wasn't one, and I started getting kinda worried and I couldn't get the courage to go upstairs to where the voices of were coming from (def. just 2 old ladies chatting by themselves)- cause I mean the place was DEAD. Resident Evil style. I would have scared the living shit out of them, so I just decided to move on and what do you know, as I left on the same street in front of the shelter was a guide map and it had the station on it, I was actually close! (Thank God) So, I went just around the corner to the JR station.
Now actually, just to clarify, when I say station I mean just a little turn style under a tiny roof, enough so you dont get rained on, and like one wood bench inside. 駅前(Ekimae) No such thing- dirctly across the street was residential housing, no NOVA, no Shirokiya, Warawara, etc. いいなあと思う時は度々あった. So the only people in sight were the taxi drivers waiting for the next train to come, which was in 45 minutes, yea. 45 minutes! haha, I'm so used to trains coming every FIVE minutes, like they run in Tokyo. But, it was real nice cause there was no one there except us guys and once I started talking to them they were super friendly.
I first asked of course if there were cheap places to stay around this area, to which they replied "haha, no." So, ok that may have been a little obvious but still. Then they say, "伊予西条(Saijyo) is the last stop on the train, and if you go there 駅前とかで色んなビジネスがあんだよ. Ok, so I ended up going out that way and trying to find a cheap place to stay. On the way I struck up a convo with this highschool kid on the train, he said he was into K-1 and he had been in some amateur matches and stuff, kinda looked like it too, still young though. But we had a lot to talk about nonetheless.
He was young so I figured he would know- I asked him if he knew of any (Manga Kisa) or anything like that, that I was looking for a cheap place to stay. He said that the Manga Kisa and Karaoke Booths around here aren't open 24 hours! あっそッshock! I thought that was the whole thing about those joints, now I knew I was really in the 田舎(Inaka). Then he confirmed that yes there were definitly business hotels in front of the Saijyo station. Said bye to him and then got off the train without paying or even being asked to- oh, no wait- I was, forgot... So the business hotels were all like 50 bucks or so, I was hoping for something cheaper than that of course but I didn't have much time anymore. There was a pretty big Book Off type place so I went in and asked the people inside. One of which was this hot little 女の子(Onna no ko). They told me of this cheap place a little ways walk from the station and even ended up drawing me a map and all. I tried going out that way but, once I got there the place was already closed. Don't ask.
Eventually, I ended up walking back to the station and staying at a pretty nice Business Hotel- Breakfast included for about 50 bucks (5000円、ちょっとしんどい). During the night I emailed 稗田先生(Hieda Sensei), I couldn't help myself. 抑えられねえ. But she was real cool, even though I mentioned how great it would be if she wa here to show me around and all this shit that I probably should not be writing to a married woman- however, she got back to me quick that night and said that, actually, her little sis is still there in like 香川(Kagawa) and to contact her, maybe she could show me around. She sent me her mail. This morning over breakfast I mailed her, but I'm not sure if I can actually meet her you know, I bet she is attractive though, I'm sure it runs in the family. The reply so far is just, "Hey nice to hear from you, if you go here you have to do this, this place is famous for this, this def.=this", type mail. Oh yeah, "and don't forget to see the Sakura!", yea thanks, they're kinda hard to miss. I gotta check out of this place before they try and charge for the next day- I also need to find out how much it is gonna be to take the train all the way over to Kagawa, Tokushima area, and then try and figure some plans out. Peace!
Reference:
駅前- Station front, of course since Japanese transportation is built around trains the stations are, as you can imagine, ridiculous, especially in Tokyo. A lot are now connected to Department stores so that you have to walk through like the food court area just to get out of the station, it's crazy. Zurui.
いいなあと思う時は度々あった- Which I thought was actually really kinda nice.
伊予西条- Most likely the biggest station/town in the Ehime prefecture of Shikoku. Pics.
駅前とかで色んなビジネスがあんだよ- If front of the station there are a bunch of business hotels. So basically a business hotel is just like a normal hotel but not quite as nice, they dont really do anything for you, there is no real reception/travel type help desk etc. and usually it includes nothing. I had to pay like 3 extra bucks for the morning breakfast that I thought was included.
あっそッ- Oh, no shit.
田舎- Backwoods, the country.
Book Off- Book off is a store that is only in Japan to my knowledge but it's really awesome, just a huge used book store, usually specializing in like manga, comics, and music and things. You can usually get the books you are looking for for about a buck or two. Funny side note: there also exists a "Hard Off" but I have only found one of these once, they are pretty hard to find, but badass. They have all types of hardware and software for super cheap, also like junk parts and broken fixable things. Mainly game systems, ex: thats where I got my Jpn Sega Saturn for like 20 dollars. A steal.
女の子- A girl.
5000円、ちょっとしんどい- 50 bucks, kinda hurts.
稗田先生- Hieda Mie. My japanese teacher from school in Shinjuku, Tokyo. She grew up in Shikoku and then moved to Osaka for College, where she met her husband got pregnant and then had a shotgun wedding. She eventually moved to Tokyo and started teaching at KCP where I was at school. We had the same class for like 8 months I think. I don't think it was a coincidence. lol, I dunno, Anyways, she quit the semester that I graduated and said that she may be moving back to Osaka for awhile. We often talked about how Tokyo kinda sucked, or at least it was really crazy and fast paced... we would stay after class and talk a lot, I guess I know so much cause she would tell me all this personal stuff about herself, anyways, needless to say she is really really cool and I had kinda a crush on her. Oh yea, she's 25, but married and has a kid and all, so I of course never really said anything about it. She hooked me up with her sisters e-mail- who is 23.
抑えられねえ- I couldn 't help it
香川- Kagawa. The northern prefecture of Shikoku. The highlighted area in this map.
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