lost or what?

Trading bears for a volcano

Osaka to Kagoshima on the Shinkansen

Now I am in Kagoshima, I have not been here before. It is right next to an active Volcano. It is on the Southwestern tip of Kyushu, the Southwesternest most island of the main islands of Japan, there are no bears on Kyushu. I have been to Okinawa before which is significantly more Southwest, but I digress, also I do not know if Southwest should be one word or two or capitalised, but that is digression inception.

Getting here took 4 hours. It was a bullet train. This one seemed a bit different, there were unreserved carriages with 5 seats across (blocks of 3 and 2), reserved carriages that were 4 across (blocks of 2 and 2, and very brown, that is where I was), and the green car with a block of 1 and 2 makes 3 across. That might sound confusing, but usually the reserved and unreserved are the same carriage type, where as on this train, my reserved carriage was very brown.

At first my carriage filled up with a retiree group of Germans, now definitely the most common type of tour group I see, they all wore headsets, while their tour guide spoke to them, even on the train. Thankfully they got off at Himeji.

Next various fools did the thing I really despise, seat trade roulette, where someone sits in the wrong seat so they can be near someone, someone comes that has reserved that seat, they politely agree to sit in person a's seat, then person c comes, and person a lied to person b, or person a is no longer on the train, and pretty soon we are in to 5 levels of confusion across 3 languages and the train guard comes to try and sort it all out. JUST SIT IN THE SEAT IT SAYS ON YOUR TICKET. This rant applies to planes and trains.

Soon after a young Japanese couple got on, with a baby, and almost immediately a random old woman came over and offered to care for the baby, they did not know this woman, there was bowing and an explanation of the bag full of baby stuff. The young couple then immediately went to sleep while a strange old woman 3 rows away played with their baby for a couple of hours.

Then finally at Fukuoka, just when I thought the train would empty out, a company picnic group of Japanese employees boarded, with their fat boss who looked like he was having a heart attack who's wig was half falling off. Boss man proceeded to give a number of speeches to his company while standting at the front of the carriage, before finally sitting down and emptying the contents of a sandwich onto his suit. He was the only one wearing a suit in the group. While he was giving his speeches I stuck my head out into the aisle and just stared at him, disrespectfully, without blinking, for the duration of his idiocy.

Now a handful of boring pics.