Travelling

I'm currently at the airport in Nagoya. Well, not at the airport, I'm in a hotel very close to the airport (on the same island. Central Japan International Airport [CENTRAIR for short] is built on a man-made island), but that's beside the point.

I'm going home for Christmas! And my longest trip home (3 weeks) since I moved to Japan. Every year it seems to get longer by about a week, hahahaha.

Anyway, I decided to avoid the stress of same-day commuting to the airport and stayed in a hotel last night. Flight leaves in about 5 hours. And in true Jen-travel style, getting here was a huge pain, hahahahahhaha

Let me explain. We got a LOT of snow in Takayama over the weekend. The whole region got a lot of snow, I'd say. I was in Toyama Friday night for an end-of-the-year party for work and we basically drove through a blizzard out and back. Safety-first! Is not always the motto here, haha.

It continued snowing all weekend, to the point that they closed part of the highway between Takayama and Nagoya. I was planning to take the bus. But they closed the highway. Snowing all weekend, and apparently they didn't have ample warning to get the plows out. Although, as with most things in Japan, I only understoond about half of what I heard so there was probably more of a reason than that. At least I like to tell my self there was, anyway.

So I had to take the train. Which costs about twice as much as the bus and takes just as long. D'oh! But at least it doesn't depend on roads being open and it never gets stuck in traffic...

So I get to Nagoya and then I have to get out to the airport, where my hotel is. This is not my first time doing this; I've flown out of this airport several times. Most recently when I went to Korea in September. So I was fairly sure I knew what I was doing when I hauled my enormous bag down the steps to the Meitetsu subway line, bought my ticket, and went down to the tracks. On the "airport" side.

And then proceeded to get on the wrong train. oops.

It seems this line splits at a stop called 太田川 (Odagawa), and I was on the line that doesn't go to the airport. And I didn't realize this until I'd been going the wrong way for about 20 minutes. I got nervous, checked the map, and realized I was going the wrong way. I checked with the conductor, who gave me an OMG you dummy look and told me I'd have to get off at the next stop. Nice of the people on the train to say something right? I mean, with that huge bag and the fact that I'm a foreigner I'm sure it was pretty obvious I was supposed to be going to the airport... but I digress.

I get off, haul that bag (25 kg) up and over the rail line, and down to the other side where the station master informed me I'd have to go BACK about 20 minutes to the Odagawa station and change there. Noooooooooooooooooo! It was already 1030pm by this point. And although Nagoya isn't anywhere near as cold as Takayama, it still gets pretty chilly at night. Wah.

And then, in typical Jen-travel fashion, I met a really cool guy who could speak English! He asked me where I was going and said he would help me get off at the right station to change trains. He was on his way home in Nagoya.

Turns out he started using English about 30 years ago on a trip to India. He loves mountain climbing, and he spent several months there backpacking. And then he went back again. He's climbed mountains all over Japan, including Fuji, IN DECEMBER. "Yes, it's very dangerous. But very beautiful!" He told me ^^

He's been all over Asia, and once to New Zealand, and he studied for 2 years at a university in Thailand. Where he met his wife. They have 2 children, a daughter and a son, both grown now. The family makes yearly trips back to Thailand to visit her family, although he doesn't always have time to join them. He did, however, make sure to tell me the best places to visit :) He speaks fluent Thai, and his wife can (now) speak Japanese very well. He said it took them having children for her to really try to learn it, since she didn't want to be the only mother at the kindergarten who couldn't understand anything, haha

By the time I got to the stop where I had to change, I had learned so many interesting things about this man. Except his name.

What is it about travelling and meeting strangers that makes people open up so much? Maybe it's the fleeting nature of the encounter, knowing you will never see this person again. So it's ok to tell them things I bet even his co-workers don't know (or maybe have never asked). At any rate, my embarrassing mistake at Nagoya station, which I had been cursing as I got off that first train, hauled my luggage up and over the tracks, and down the other side, that mistake turned into a wonderful opportunity to meet someone I would have otherwise never encountered.

Merry Christmas everybody!