A trip to Arima onsen, but not really (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach
Photos for day 2..
This morning I set out to visit the Arima onsen village. I was very much looking forward to starting this trip with a quiet day, soaking in nice, hot water.
The trip started out well, with me exploring the way along Higashi Umeda (see before) and Shin-Osaka. The latter is also where I learned not to leave out "unimportant" parts of a station name, like "Shin". In this case I was supposed to take the Shinkansen (bullet train), to Shin-Kobe. What I -did- get onto, was the local train from Shin-Osaka to wherever, which goes nowhere near Shin-Kobe (though it passes through Kobe station).
A video clip, taken on the train.
One of the things that struck me while travelling by train is the huge diversity one sees in Japan's buildings. They really are a very diverse mix of architectural styles and ages. You'll see temples, both ancient and modern. You'll see buildings from the 40s, 60s, 80s and 2000s. You'll see brick, concrete, glass, wood and even sheet metal. You'll see western buildings, functional buildings, pretty buildings and sometimes just plain godawful buildings. There's absolutely no discernible "standard" for the housing around here (Osaka/Kobe district).
Anywho... Instead of going to Arima the quick way, I took an hour or two to explore the Akashi local park. It's pretty damn big and sports not only their local castle, but also stadia for both baseball and track&field.; Seeing how the weather was lovely, there were quite a few people there enjoying a leisurely stroll.
From there on, I travelled back to Kobe in order to take the subway to Arima. I stopped to grab lunch at Kobe, but made a bad mistake as well. Nowhere during the day did I take a half hour's rest to eat and rest. This would come back to bite me big-time later on.
At Shinkaichi station I learnt that two people can work out the buying of a subway ticket, even if they speak no common language. Case in point: me and the attendant at Shinkaichi station. I only speak english and can ask basic questions in Japanese (Arima Onsen no densha wa doko desu-ka?), while the kind fellow speaks next to no English (Ticket, there *point*). He helped me out with the ticketmachine and wrote down the amount of money I had to drop in. Yay teamwork! And: yay friendly railway attendants!
Japan fscking rules when it comes to friendliness and customer service! /o/
By the time I got to Arima, it was already too late to drop in at one of the communal onsen. I was also starting to feel bad, so I decided to turn back. And that's about when the trouble started. I was -very- low on energy, after not eating well for two days and only sleeping two hours, so I felt awful. I had to get out of the train at least three times, because I was ready to puke. Somewhere between Arimaguchi and Tanigami I figured out I was having a panic attack, so I just allowed myself to fall asleep. After that things became a bit better again, especially so when I stocked up on chocolate at Shin-Kobe. Hooray for instant sugars ^_^
As I mentioned earlier, I got fscking lost at Higashi-Umeda (forty fscking minutes to transfer between trains!), so I was well beat when I finally got home. Did I mention that I managed to get lost in the 500 meters between our station and our apartment? I ought to be ashamed :)
A dinner and a bath later I'm starting to feel a lot better. In the end I managed to sleep a solid seven to eight hours, so I'm feeling a lot better now. I didn't even wake up when my roomy came home around midnight!
Posted in: arima onsen , japan rail , lost , sick , train