For those not following the planning of this trip, there are 2 key elements to it: Hiroshima Peace Ceremony and the Mt. Fuji Climb.  Today, I began my long journey from Tokyo to Hiroshima.

The day started well enough, I got to sleep in till about 8am. Had time to take inventory and understand what I had.  Initially I had planned to take my suitcase and leave my hiking pack.  However, given that there would be a stop in Osaka to visit Mari-chan, I decided against this for ease of use.  Thus, I left my suitcase at the Marriott and proceeded to Osaka.

It was at this point where things began not going as planned.  The train I had intended to take, Hikari at 1010 from Shinagawa was full.  This is the first time in all of my visit I have ever run into this problem.  I ended up taking the Hikari 469 at 1110 instead.

This delayed me by one hour, thus I arrived in Osaka at 200pm instead of 100pm as was intended. Not a huge difference.  I just love the Shinkansen, it’s the epitome of efficiency for the Japanese.  3hrs, that’s all it takes to get from the largest city in Japan to the 3rd largest; and not on the outskirts either like you get with an airport, but right in the city center.  See, the Tokkaido Shinkansen doesn’t run all the way to southern portion of the island, most trains stop in Osaka where the Sanyo Shinkansen takes over, so there is always a transfer at Osaka when going this far south.  Knowing thus, I arranged for Mari-chan to meet me for lunch; it was very good to see her again.

It doesn’t matter to me how strong you think you are, you take a trip like this and you do get lonely.  It really means a lot to me to have friends and people to chat with when I am there, I don’t like the great isolation and loneliness that tends to accompany these trips at all.

I had a great time with Mari at lunch, she is just so cool and nice.  Her English is much improved from last year, which is good cause my Japanese has fallen off, again .  It is just so hard to keep it up when you don’t use it at all back home.  Unfortunately, I missed my connecting train to Hiroshima after parting ways with Mari.  There is nothing worse, in my mind, then making a stupid mistake and then having to try to explain it to someone who doesn’t speak your language.  Thankfully, after three tries it dawned on me: I have a Rail Pass, I can just buy another ticket.  Did that and jumped on the Sakura train bound for Kagoshima, but stopping at Hiroshima.

Another reason I love Japan; they get mass transit.  Maybe its because Americans are so fond of their cars that most of our mass transit equipment is about 20yrs old where as the Japanese are constantly investing in it and, they are just cleaner as a society then America.  This is what my seat looked like on the train.

Among the decisions I made in planning for this trip I made sure the hotels I choose where close to my arrival point as possible or were hotels I knew the location of beforehand (Marriott).  With Hiroshima, I picked the new Sheraton (it just opened two months ago I am told), literally right outside Hiroshima station.

I really lucked out here, this is literally one of the nicest hotels I have ever been to, and I have been to quite a few hotels.  Definitely the most modern of the any hotel I have ever stayed at and with an incredible view of the city.

Oddly enough, despite the fact that I booked this room through Travelocity, hence why I could afford it, Sheraton was somehow able to use my Starwood frequent stayer account.  Not really a problem except that they decided to use the American Express associated with the Starwood account for co-incidentals and any extra charges (Internet).  Again not a problem until you realize, as I did, the Amex card associated with Starwood belongs to RCM Technologies and no reason I should get them in trouble.

Perhaps the coolest thing about the room has this:

Basically, its quite interesting how the hotel saves money, no lights in the room will allow themselves to be turned in, unless there is a reason.  That means, I cannot leave the room and leave lights on.  really neat, compliments the room quite nicely.

I have to say at this point, I am starting to really understand why using a travel agent is so critical.  Don’t get me wrong, I love what I have done and all the help I am getting but, if not for a couple solid decisions, the tune of this trip could be very different.  Today was difficult, Ill say it, if I had taken the suitcase rather then the hiking pack, I don’t think I would’ve gotten out of Shinagawa, let alone all the way to Hiroshima.

Its also incredibly lonely.  I am so thankful that I have friends like Mari and Mami to hang out with me because it really sucks doing all of this traveling alone.  You cant even enjoy a ribbing when you cant set the alarm clock in your room cause you cant read the button labels.

Anyway, as I sign off for the night, I leave with the view of Hiroshima from my hotel room, looks like the local baseball team is still in action.

By the way, it has been so hot here.  Was over a 100 in Osaka, God only knows how warm it is in Hiroshima, its farther south.  Also, it seems we had a typhoon just miss hitting the island directly, but that we did feel the effects of, so that explained the intense and sporadic rain today.

Unlike last year, my vacation to Japan started a bit earlier this year, August 3rd thanks to my parents taking my brothers and I to Comerica Park in Detroit, MI for a Tiger game.  This is the third time I have been to the park.  It was  a lot of fun hanging out with everyone, even though we got absolutely soaked

Anyway, I knew that going to this game presented a risk cause sleep would be hard to come by during the course of my trip; I have never slept well on planes.  Thankfully I got about 5hrs ahead of the trip.

The first part of the journey was from Detroit to Toronto via my first ever “turbo-prop” plane ride.

I will say this, these planes are LOUD!!! And it seems like the positioning of the emergency exit is not the smartest location, as I told the flight attendant “there is a giant whirling propeller outside the exit!!”.  Anyway, aside from a bit of nervousness, the trip was uneventful.  We arrived in Toronto in good time.

While waiting for the plane I had a great chance to meet a Serbian immigrant by the name of Pete. He was on his to the “former Yugoslovoia” which is now 10 different countries.  Beautiful area, the Balkands, but a lot of fighting and politics over the past 20yrs has heavily divided it. Thankfully, I had been paying attention to the news of late and we had a good conversation about American foreign policy and the fate of  Slobodan Milošević who is being tried for war crimes.

It is at this point of the trip that things began to slide south.  First, Air Canada, I love your plane and Toronto is a wonderful airport but, DO NOT DELAY A 12hr FLIGHT FOR 2HRS BECAUSE YOU CANT GET THE TV SYSTEM WORKING!!!  Especially after we board a flight already delayed 2hrs.

I am not joking, this problem delayed our departure from Toronto by 2.5hrs!!! It totally destroyed any chance I had of hanging out with Mami in Fussa for the festival.  Though, perhaps it was a blessing in disguise.  The delay allowed me to avoid rush-hour and forced me to actually go to bed 🙂

The flight to Tokyo was smooth and uneventful, if not a bit longer then I remember. Unfortunately, my goal of working on my Windows Phone 7 app was dismissed because MPNS (Microsoft Push Notification Service) requires Internet even if you are using a local service reference.

Upon landing in Narita, I was amazed at how well the experience last year prepared me for things.  Last year, because of a mix-up in arrivals, it took the better part of 4hrs to get through Customs and Immigration, this year, about 30m total.  After that I exchanged my money, when down and got my Rail pass.  Bit of a snag here, I had to delay the start of the pass for one day to ensure I could cover the Shinkansen from Osaka to Tokyo on the 11th.

But again, this might have been a blessing in disguise. Because the reliance on JR trains was removed for the night, I was able to take the Skyliner line from Narita to Ueno. 

Ueno, is much farther north then Tokyo and I had made it a point to limit my travel due to the three bags I was carrying. So, as I rode I knew I would have a tough go of it, working down the Yamanote to Tokyo, and then Maronouchi and Hibiya subway lines.  But I caught a break.  The Hibiya line connects to Ueno!!

Once I learned this, and having studied the Tokyo subway maps in detail prior to departure, I jumped at the chance.  It was some extra walking at Ueno station, but instead of changing trains and going through “The Maw” I was able to circumvent the whole process and get there quite fast.

And as I came up to street level from Higashi-Ginza, my photographic memory immediately kicked on, and I recognized EXACTLY where I was and I knew where the hotel was in relation.  At this point, my body was beginning to really complain.  I did sleep, somewhat, on the plane, but certainly not comfortably. I made it to the hotel and up to my room and was greeted with awesomeness: being a Platinum Marriott member (still) I am always treated like royalty at Marriott hotels, especially the really nice ones.

After arriving, I immediately took inventory and reorganized things for tomorrow’s trip to Hiroshima.  Only had a couple things explode, but I knew they might so they were isolated from everything else.  Spent the remainder of the evening playing with my Trophy tinkering with the settings to make the phone work properly.

At present, I am debating, internally, if a prepaid cell might be a better choice for right now.  With voice calls costing $2/min and sending txt messages not all that much cheaper, it very well might be the best option, even if it is unexpected.  Unfortunately, my Japanese language skills are not quite good enough to where I would be comfortable buying a cell phone here.  In my experience, while many Japanese can speak English, they don’t speak it well and certainly the people in the small shops don’t speak it with enough confidence to where I would be willing to buy a cell.

This matter will be worked on today.  Tomorrow’s entry will show me meeting my friend Mari in Osaka as I make my way to the Hiroshima Sheraton.