On August 14th, the plan was to leave Kyoto for Fukuoka, a city on the southern island of Japan. Caelan was visiting a friend there and we were all going to join them for a few days. It was supposed to be a beautiful area with beautiful beaches and we were hoping to relax for a few days on the beach.
Ken wrote down the train schedule and all the cities we needed to make transfers in for the ride from Kyoto to Fukuoka, so we hopped on our first train and started our journey. Little did we know that there are actually 2 Fukuoka’s in Japan, one 6 hours north of Kyoto and another 12 hours south of Kyoto. We wanted the Fukuoka south of Kyoto, but got on the train for the Fukuoka north of Kyoto thinking we would be there in 6 hours. Luckily Ken realized we were going in the wrong direction and we got off the train. We went to a ticket booth to try to revise our plan, which was now going to take 12 hours instead of 6, plus the additional time of reversing our mistake of going north instead of south.
We had two options as follows: take the normal train for more than 12 hours and pay $20 (CAN), OR take the fast, Shinkansen, train for 3 hours and pay $130 (CAN). Ken wanted to see Caelan so he bought a Shinkansen ticket, and Steph, Fieke and I decided to go the slow, more economical, route. At this point it was already around 3pm. We said goodbye to Ken and us 3 girls set off on our journey. We stopped at a convenience store and stocked up on sushi and beer for our trip.
The plan was to take the train to Hiroshima, stay at a hostel and then continue in the morning. We called a few hostels and hotels and they were all full. We decided to go anyway and find one when we get there.
We arrived in Hiroshima a bit before 11pm and set off walking with our huge (and heavy) backpacks to find a hotel. We tried about 4 hotels and they were all full. The receptionist at the last hotel told us we wouldn’t find a hotel here because there was a huge festival (bonfire he said, we think maybe he meant fireworks) going on and all the hotels in the area were full. We decided to stop looking and we hopped back on a train headed for the city of Iwakuni, hoping to find a hotel in a smaller city with no festival going on.
We arrived around midnight in Iwakuni and set off again to find a hotel. We were turned down by at least 4 hotels again, and one hotel receptionist actually escorted us out of the front doors of their hotel. We had a feeling that not all the hotels were full in this small city, and we were really frustrated that no one would give us a room. The only logical explanation was that they didn’t want foreigners. Ken and Caelan had told us stories about them being turned down at hair salons and other places because they were foreign.
We must have looked pretty desperate by the time we walked into the Iwakuni Plaza Hotel, because the receptionist, after looking all three of us up and down, told us he had 3 single rooms for us!! And breakfast was included!! This was the happiest moment of our day!
We all slept very well that night!
We left the hotel at 8am the next morning to continue the rest of our journey to Fukuoka. After 4 trains we finally arrived in Fukuoka at 2pm. We had just spent more than 12 hours on trains in the past 24 hours.
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