Burried in Research Material
My adventure continues as I dig for more and more information on Takahashi and Okayama... without stumbling upon any spoilers, haha... I like surprises... well, unless the place is like a landfill, then maybe I'd start to think I got a raw deal. But anyway, a lot of my sources say the area is absolutely goregous, so I don't think I have much to worry about.
I know that Takahashi has a railroad line running through it, but most of the online maps I've found were written in Kanji. After taking some advice from Fedora, I looked up the JR wiki page and found some leads to where I needed to be. He said I was probably in JR Central territory, but actually Osaka-Kyoto-Kobe Metro marks the start of the JR West territory. I'm a little puzzled though because it looks like the actual line (Hakubi Line) that I'll be dependant on is run by two different companies, and even so, it doesn't go all the way into Okayama City (I'll have to transfer onto the Saiyo Main Line at Kurashiki Station). Luckily though, it does seem to have a lot of the Northern Regions covered, so any day I'm feeling adventurous, I can hop on the train and see a lot of the mountains with little effort.
Hakubi Line = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakubi_Line
But anyway, back to Takahashi itself. The community has 4 stations... one "main" station and three little platform stops. The main station doesn't look like anything impressive, but I guess I shouldn't be too shocked... it's not like the MBTA stations that run into Boston are anything special either. The main station is called... you ready for this?.... "Bitchu-Takahashi Station". LOL, WUT?? Can someone translate that for me, please??? Hahaha... bitchu.
Oh, and looking at this map confirms my suspicions. When I pinpoint "takahashi okayama" on google-maps, it sets the pin in some desolate mountain area about 3 miles West of a bigger, tightly packed town. I made the asumption that maybe it since it was an internation map that the marker was just off and they really meant to pin that bigger town. Looking up the train map and seeing where the train stations are, I'm 99% sure now that my assumption is correct. Also... it seems that a lot of the schools are right around the train stations, too... so if everything goes well, I may be able to commute everywhere afterall. Based on how small the town looks from above anyway, I'm hoping I can just bike or walk to work each day... weather permitting.
I have a bunch of websites saved on my workplace computer, so I need to put them someplace more readily available.. like LJ:
http://www.pref.okayama.jp/kikaku/kokusai/momo/e/gaiyou/gaiyou.html - Okayama "fact sheet"... has a generic map of the whole Western Japan Region
http://www.travelpost.com/AS/Japan/Okayama/Okayama/map/7059238 - probably the best map of the area I've found so far
http://www.japan-guide.com/list/e1106.html - not much info, but meh, it's there... mostly Shinkansen info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitch%C5%AB-Takahashi_Station - the main station in Takahashi... heh heh heh... bitch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okayama_Electric_Tramway - kick ass!!! Okayama City has a tramway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JR_West - still trying to figure this network out... I'm sure I'll need it at some point
For reference comparison... Okayama is about twice the size of Rhode Island... which is good since you can get from one side of RI to the other in about an hour.
I'm a little worried about some of my co-workers. My friend John was placed in "Fukuoka-ken" about a day or two before I was called, but he was never given any real information. He wanted a rural assignment, so I guess the branch office in Fukuoka was just trying to round up a few rural volunteers before actually assigning cities. Well, John told me today that it seems like the company lost a lot of contract bids on Kyushu Island, so a lot of people are being "reassigned." I feel awful for John and the others because I know Kyushu is a nice area and tough to get placements in. Of course, not to be selfish, but I really hope this doesn't happen to me. Yeah, it would be nice to move closer to Tokyo, but I've kinda fallen head-over-heels in love with Takahashi and Okayama already. i would be extremely disappointed to be put someplace else now.
Spoke to Dad today... Wednesday we're gonna look over maps and through his military hotel guidebook to figure out trip details for his visit. Kelly's gonna come visit either during Christmastime or summer vacation. Who knows when/if Mom will ever come. She's been very "anti-foreign-culture" lately, but when I told her that I may be gone for 3 years, she kinda gave that "oh, maybe I'll bite the bullet" look. Knowing that I'll be near the beach might be incentive enough for her.
Photos and videos from the Fourth of July festivities are underway. Tomorrow... bank to buy yen and then overtime shift in the afternoon!