Seishun 18 Kippu

So now that I am back at my school, I think it's time to start posting. I have been on vacation for a little over a month and have been many places. I'll be posting often about where I have been and what I have done!

To start off, as I mentioned before, I stayed with my host family for about a week, then began my long journey to Hiroshima. That turned out to be a little exciting.

Seishun 18 Kippu (Young 18 Ticket)

I traveled with that ticket there. (Not my photo). For about 100 US, for any five days I can use the JR for as much as I like. It is available for "Young 18" year old students to use it while on vacation, as it is only available in August (summer vacation) and February (winter vacation). So a trip that would have been over 250 US in trains alone turned into just 100 US.

From Arao we took the local JR commuter to Hakata station in Fukuoka. I met up with Jenny and we took the slow, local JR lines with multiple transfers. The whole time we were being chased by a nasty typhoon as well. For most of the day it was nice out. Although we painfully spent it on trains. I do mean the whole day. About 9 hours. We started at 10 am and arrived in Hiroshima at around 8.

We didn't have trouble, at first. But the train from Shimonseki to Hiroshima was delayed because of a nasty mudslide on the tracks. My nasty, I mean 72 people have currently been declared dead with many still missing and now assumed dead at this point. We passed damaged houses covered in solid masses of mud. There was so much rainfall and more to come. (Since dad would have had a heart attack at the time, I decided to keep that until I got home.)

The best part of taking the slow trains was the beautiful scenary. The shinkansen, as fast and cool as it is, goes through tunnels while the JR typically goes around mountains at low speeds. Japan is not full of robots, high tech and factories. It is filled with fields of what looks like bright green grass, but is actually rice. I don't see just grass often. Mountains are huge, covered with rows of tall green pines that looked like they were planted in perfect rows. So thick you cannot hike through. Scattered towns are huddled close together, with houses without yards, but surrounded by massive rice fields or gardens.