Nagoya city break

Foreword

It is snowing in Estonia. The majestic powder snow is laying its white blanket over the grey landscape and covering the dog shit in the city parks. I’m planning another adventure in Asia in the upcoming months. I have bought the flight tickets from Tallinn to Cebu in the Philippines. Rest of the tickets I have not purchased just yet, because the second half of my journey is still too raw and the dates and exact destinations are still open. Actually I was in the Philippines in November, but this time I need to do some 1:1-s with each team member and make sure Blendit thrives. 

Beside work I’m planning to visit again the island of Negros. Last time I stayed a couple days in Dumaguete. I’m planning to have a propper tour around Negros this time. Both neighbouring Cebu and Negros islands are stretched long and mountainous islands. There are many beautiful places to discover. But it could be that we will change plans and go to Leyte or Mindanao instead. 

There is also a chance that I will go to Japan for the very first time. For the most part the Japanese people are similar to Estonians in their nature - very reserved, keeping distance, afraid of others perhaps even, but deep down very warm people, but surely not showing it off or out in any means. Eunice has some work related tasks in Tokyo, Nagayo and in Okinawa. I will be plus one in this case. She also will be my tour guide and introduce me to the distant and rather exclusive culture. She has been living in Japan and therefore she knows and feels a bit and she wants me to see it all. I might not go to Okinawa, because that is a far away island and I might not have anything to do there. But let’s see. This leg is wide opened.

The 3rd leg of the journey could be India. I tried to be in Rishikesh on March 8th and witness the Holi festival. Holi is one of the biggest Hindu festivals that celebrates the beginning of spring and is world famous because of the throwing of colours to each-other. I was keen to capture this amazing site where thousands of people are painted with colours and airborne paint falls to somebody. But this time I again can’t make it to India by that time. The plan is to take a flight to New Delhi with Eunice and then start our motorbike adventure from Rishikesh all the way down to Tamil Nadu. However this plan is still very raw.

All in all it is a very promising adventure ahead. Again, I will reset my prejudices and eagerness of comparing the seen phenomenons with my experiences in Estonia or wider in Europe. Very often this approach is pointless and leaves me encapsulated and leaves out extraordinary experiences. I will write the diary in phone notes again and publish it in my blog. I hope you will enjoy the adventure and dare to dream about or even better doing something similar yourself.

Diary

Th03/09

The plane landed at Manila airport at 1AM after one hour of flight. passengers took the bus first and through a series of staircases we ended up at the immigration. I needed to show my visa extension stamped paper. Without that I would be declared as an illegal immigrant. I walked to the security check and then to the quiet shopping area. There was only one eating place open. With my remaining pesos I ordered a tuna sandwich and a beer. After I was pouring the San Miguel Pilsen into a Stella Artois glass, my beer started to taste like a Belgium beer, like Leffe. Later more places started to open. I went to the restroom and changed my shirt and jeans. I walked to my gate where I saw a mass of Filipos going to work in the factories in the Nagoya area, similar factories to Toyota. I tried to sleep on the steel bench while waiting for boarding. 

We went on board the A321neo at 7AM and at 7:30AM we took off from Manila. Bye-bye Philippines. The flight was uneventful. I was able to change my seat to the emergency exit simply by asking a lovely flight attendant: is the flight fully booked and may I ask you to check if there are any emergency seats available. The initial seat on the ticket was again 14C and I guess the lady at the check-in assumed by booking me the same seat on the Japanese flight would give the asked comfort, but the aeroplane was different. No problem. Later they announced my name and it turned out I had ordered a pre-ordered meal. That was weird, because I was the only person eating. Did I stumbled and clicked on ordering a meal onboard while I was booking the flight or was it included when I selected the more expensive package with check-in luggage. Actually I still don't know and it doesn't matter. I ate my chicken and rice meal in front of people like the Sun King, Louis XII of France. 

I tried to sleep and I probably managed to get a few minutes of nap. But it was more difficult with these seats which can't be reclined. At noon we landed at the Nagoya airport. The airport is located on the man made island near the coastline. I was able to walk by my long legs quickly and get to the Covid checkpoint first. There were about 10 people showing QR-code signs and showing me the direction. I needed to show my Covid QR-code and then also some Visit Japan QR-codes that I got after completing the online forms last week. I walked to the immigration. The lady in the booth did the regular procedures and then she asked a supervisor. We walked to nearby booth and I needed to wait. I guess they tried to figure out about Estonia and the passport. I was sitting, waiting and writing diary about 10 minutes. I got back my passport and I walked to the arrivals hall.

My first target was to get a SIM-card and mobile internet. I came to a booth selling Mobile services. There I needed to scan the QR-code and purchase 4000JPY ~ 27€ package for 8 days, 3GB per day. I paid online using my credit card. But the lady was not able to get the service running. Eventually I gave up, she tried hassle in my phone and tried to call to service provider. Hopeless. Besides, there was a long queue waiting. I walked a bit further to the railway station. I spotted another wifi-service booth and the lady randomly said that I should have automatic network selection and not Softbank as it was instructed. I got LTE service, not 5G, but at least internet. I thanked her.

I got my ticket and rushed to the red train and soon after the train was starting to drive. The British family also made it. It was a one hour train ride from the artificial airport island to downtown. I followed the train progress on my Google map. People on the train were already quite telling. I promised to myself before the Japanese leg, that I will reset my prejudice and my thoughts about Japan and its people. I wanted to leave a possibility that I too would fall in love with Japan. There is definitely something appealing. At one stop there were college boys rushing in and they were noisy. In my previous knowledge there should come somebody older and do them aggressively hush-hush to keep them quiet for the sake of everybody else on the train. But not really. Train was not too crowded and I was able to sit the entire trip.

I stepped out of the train and soon I was overwhelmed with where to go. It was a spider net with all the corridors and stairs going somewhere. Soon I figured out which way to go in order to walk to the street. I stepped out of the terminal and I was like a little ant shadowed by high buildings around me. I had a call with Mirjam and showed her around. I showed her how girls are dressing here. Some of them are wearing the same trendy fluffy pants as in Europe, some are wearing enormous platform shoes, boots or sneakers or god knows what these monster footwear are. Some wear mushroom hats and supersized shirts. Basically no different from Europe. But then I also saw the ladies wearing traditional attire, the geisha-like kimono, a backpack-like bump beneath the clothes and white socks and sandals type of shoes. Mirjam was very excited because she also saw some anime characters hanging in the girls' bags. For her Japan is a must go destination. I walked further and navigated closer to my hotel, which was 2KM from the train station. I saw many office people wearing black suits. I made a stop halfway in Shimozono park. There were already some trees in blossom, but not yet cherry trees. One could say it was a Japanese garden, I'm not an expert though. It was definitely giving off the Japanesere vibe with its running water and little falls covering the noise created by the traffic in the middle of the city. I sat there and rested a bit, because actually I had heavy bags to carry. I continued walking on the smaller roads.

Many of the cosy food places - the ones with the sliding wooden door and hanging flags above the door - were still closed. I reached the Koko Hotel Sakae and did the check in. Eunice had booked and paid for that hotel in advance. I got a room on the 5th floor. I took a hot bath first and soon walked back to the narrow street area nearby. I walked into one restaurant and ordered ramen and a few beers. I needed to work and digitally sign two rental contracts, for both of my flats in Tallinn which would be rented out. 

There again people were able to speak very little English, but I didn't mind. I'm not a native English speaker either and perhaps or despite we were able to communicate and have even fun. Around me there were young boys and girls and also older gentlemen in suits. All obsessed with good food. I slowly started to get it. Like Eunice said about the stay in Japan: she would never be stingy on food and that is because food was so good. I paid 1930JPY ~ 13€ and left the coins as a tip for the waitress. I walked around the block and saw that gradually it started to get darker and the thousands of adverts on the street got brighter. In this area there were many clubs and some must be kinky clubs too, because I saw already some girls wearing cat costumes standing at the door. I walked to Tully's café and ordered a few coffees and a cake. I wrote a diary and continued reading Jobs’ book. Eunice was onboarding the plane in Okinawa and soon we would be able to be together again. After all, she was supposed to be my local tour guide in Nagoya. At 8PM I walked back to the hotel.

As we both were starving we headed out and happened to be in the middle of Nagoya nightlife. We walked to a restaurant where we ordered among many other dishes and drinks a pot of hot sake. Well, it tasted like a hot wine, perhaps glög without herbs and spices. Eunice acted as my tour guide for Japan. She ordered all the food and explained. Our bill was 4576JPY ~ 31€, no tip. Tipping is considered semi-rude and people don't give and accept tipping in Japan. I tried and the result was a lot of confusion. The waiter was very surprised when I said please keep the change. I didn't try tipping after that.

We went back to the street. It was drizzling and we saw men standing and from time to time somebody came by and again went away. Eunice bet these guys were pimps for host ladies. We walked a bit and we saw rabbit uniform ladies at the door of the night club. We dropped into one agency. The lady in charge who said her name is Barbie, introduced the world of hostesses and adult entertainment. It turned out that all the girls' pictures on the wall are for half or one hour hosting with the price 5000 - 8000JPY ~ 34-54€. A client can't touch the girl, can only treat her as a drinking buddy and pay also for the drinks and foods. Amazingly it is all legit and even included VAT. There was also a VIP pricing which also contained some touches, but still no sex as such. Besides, this entertainment is strictly allowed to Japanese citizens and not to foreigners. I looked closer at the photos of the girls and asked Barbie whether these photos had been photoshopped. She replied yes, most of them got bigger eyes and boobs. This was the kinky sub-culture, perhaps very much a men centred theme. We saw some ladies rushing in to prepare themselves for the meetups. Very intriguing. Well, this kinky stuff was one of the features I wanted to see and discover. We walked back on the streets of Sakae back to the hotel and soon went to bed.

Fr03/10

We woke up at 7AM and slowly made ourselves ready for another adventure. We packed our bags and took only a small bag with us. Rest of the bags we left to the locker room on ground floor. We did the check out and walked across the street to Tully's café for breakfast. We bought some sandwiches and coffees. There was a man with an older gentleman approaching us. It turned out that the younger lad was a Filipino and was out with his boss. Eunice was able to speak Cebuano with him. We thanked and walked around the corner and took a subway and commuted quickly, only 2 stops, to Nagoya station. 

It took some effort to figure out where to go and what train to take. Eventually it was clear we need to take a Shinkansen as a bullet train. We ended up at the station and we bought tickets using the machine 2x2530JPY ~ 34€. Then for some reasons the gates were not let us through. Then the helping lady popped out of the nearby booth and spoke only in Japanese that we need to buy different tickets and these tickets are not refundable, in this location. Ohh, that sucked. We turned into the next machine and bought in the very similar flow the bullet train tickets by total 10,340JPY ~ 70€. There were even more expensive tickets to secure dedicated seats, but we wanted to keep the costs low and went for the risk to seek seats nearby each-other. We needed to walk from car to car and eventually we found seats. Eunice was able to sleep while I wrote my diary and worked.

This train was very fast, easily 200km/h, but as I was a passenger it was really hard to understand the speed, just not objective. One was clear - it was not mono-rail train, but train with two rails. I saw little towns, fields and mountains in the distance. I was a bit surprised to see so much countryside between the settlements, because I was pretty sure the main islands of Japan would be endless cities and towns. I was so wrong. 

At 10:40PM we arrived at Kyoto station. First we tried to get the refund of the tickets we bought and to our great surprise the railway officer took my credit card and said they will refund the money there in 3 days. Kyoto used to be the capital of Japan before Tokyo. This city is vast. First we tried to navigate to Kiyomizu-dera temple by bus. I used Google Maps for guiding, because asking locals for guidance is very often a fruitless hassle. In fact the locals don’t speak English and our limited Japanese is not enough to understand and distinguish truth from bullshit. They kind of need to give you guidance regardless whether they understand what you ask or whether they know where this location actually is located or not. Random bullshit would be just around the corner. So, we relied on maps and our sense of special awareness. We used the same transport card for the bus ride. Soon it was clear that our chosen bus was deviating away from the route that Google knew and we jumped off and continued on foot. We walked up to the tourist road.

We saw many people renting kimonos and walking in traditional Japanese costumes and wearing socks and sandals. The Buddhist temple is more than 1200 years old and mostly built using dark rustic wood. We bought the tickets and walked into the temple complex with huge terraces which were surrounded by cherry trees. The cherry trees were almost blossoming, we were able to see the tiny pink flowers, but we were just one or two weeks too soon. Soon it will be all pink around the temples. Next time we will adjust to being in Kyoto on the 3rd or 4th of March to witness the marvellous pink sight.

We took our shoes off and walked on the wooden floors of the temple and leaned back on the pillars and just closed our eyes and listened to the surrounding sounds. There was a gong and passing tourists sounds nearby, but also singing birds a bit further down. Wind was also blowing around the mountains and through the temple yards. It was easily a zen moment. We walked around and enjoyed the sunshine.

We slowly started walking back and decided not to take any chances with these random buses and instead took a taxi and drove to the other side of the city. The taxi was a classic Toyota Carina, but to my great surprise it was not manufactured in the 80s, but lately in 2013. We passed downtown and we saw the Imperial Palace park and its gates. But this time we were there only one day and therefore we needed to skip many palaces and temples. Obviously there are too many of them all together too, perhaps within one week it could be done with the reasonable phase. I suppose, because Kyoto used to be the capital city, it became more of a centre for a thousand years until 1868 and multiple temples and palaces were built around the point of power.

At 2:30PM we arrived at Kinkaku-ji temple. This golden Buddhist temple was built in 1397AD. The gold facade of the temple was shining and sparkling from the surface of the lake in front of it. That was a very beautiful and calm location despite the masses of tourists walking around it. I also noticed a bird called cormorant drying its feathers. We walked around the temple and surrounding park. At 3:30PM we started walking back. But before that we made a matcha tea stop at the edge of the temple complex and sat on the low tables with carpets. We drank the matcha tea with two hands holding the tea bowl. I have started to love matcha. Matcha is basically a grounded tea leaves. Of course for gourmands it is a very complex preparation and full of details. It was a nice tea break after a long walk.

We decided to walk all the way to the metro station, because we kind of understood these routes more than bus routes, perhaps due the fact that the metro is on rails. It was actually 2-3KM of walking and we made a break in a secondhand shop called 2nd Street. Eunice has been shopping there and has bought a lot of decent clothes from this shop chain. We decided to concentrate on a 40 litre back-bag for Eunice. The aim was to start travelling light, without check-in luggage and travelling with an onboard allowed bag. She got a nice and very light proper hiker’s back-bag with only 5000JPY ~ 34€. This bag would also fit into the measures of low-cost-carrier flights to take onboard. We continued our walk towards the metro station. The air in the shadows was actually quite chilly and as the sun started to fade it was getting colder. 

We changed trains at the Kyoto station and ended up at Inari station at 5:50PM just before the sunset. We walked and saw the colourful Fushimi Inari Taisha gates. Actually it wasn't just the gates in the park, but a vast temple complex with the trail on the hill and through the forest. The trail is decorated with orange wooden frames, each with prayers written on them. There were also sponsor names on these gates. The light was warm because of the setting sun, but it also started to fade fast. Soon it became very chilly when there was no more sun heat. It was still spring in Japan after all. We arrived at the main temple and paid 400JPY ~ 3€ for the entrance fee. The orange frames were so bright. We saw the cherry trees on both sides of the alley going to the temple.

We walked through the gates and looked at the temples. We noticed a wall with paper cranes hanging. They say when 1000 or more of those little paper tails have been made, your dreams will come true. They are taking it seriously, because there were thousands of them. We walked to the starting point of the praying trail. In the beginning there were large orange wooden frames, but later there were smaller frames, but still high enough to walk beneath those. Tourists took endless pictures and it was nearly impossible to take a picture without people. Soon it was dark and the orange frames were lit up, it was like walking in a fairytale, in a mystical spelled forest. We walked back to the train station and we had a bit of time for the next train. We walked a bit further to buy a coffee to warm us up a bit, because it was really cold and we were not prepared for this kind of chilliness.

We drove to the Kyoto station and bought tickets for a total of 10,340JPY ~ 73€ and walked to the correct platform. We only needed to wait 5 minutes. Bye-bye Kyoto. We made a promise to visit this lovely city once more and next time stay a couple days and not rush like we did this time. At 7:16PM the bullet train with the duck beak face started a fast journey back to Nagoya. We were lucky to get the seats side by side. Eunice again fell to sleep immediately. Upon arrival we walked again from the train station to the metro station. Again we struggled a bit with the corridors and endless stairs going up and down. The signage was sometimes very conflicting and of course mostly in Japanese only.

We drove to the other side of Nagoya and went to a tiny and humble restaurant. It was like going to somebody’s home, very cosy. We ordered a pile of delicious food with a relatively low price. We had good talks and a lot of fun. We made plans for upcoming days. At 11PM we drove just around the corner. Her small flat is located in the apartment building. We moved in and soon to my great surprise she said that we as guests will stay at her bed and she will walk to her mother’s home to sleep. We thanked her and at midnight we went to sleep.

Seki-san arrived at 9:50AM. Eunice handed over gifts from the Philippines and from Okinawa. I added the Estonian liqueur. Seki-san quickly put on makeup and had coffee. We left the flat and started to drive. First we thought we would have breakfast at Komeda at 10:40AM, but there were 5 people waiting in the queue ahead of us. We dropped the matter and decided to eat breakfast along the way. We manoeuvred through Nagoya to the west and soon we drove on the highway. We made a stop in Gifu at 11:30AM and ate breakfast. I ordered pork with rice and dumplings while the girls went for ramens. Seki-san paid 4000JPY ~ 27€ for all our meals. Eunice has lived in Gifu for several months. We might come back to visit the Gifu castle on Sunday. At 12:15PM we continued on the highway to the west. There were many theme parks for adults on the roadside. Some of them were like romantic castles and some like Middle-East palaces. Seki-san explained that these institutions are designed for lovers and not for kids. Usual cases would be celebrating an anniversary or just romantic hookups. Kinky again, very much a genuine Japanese thing. Girls were in the front seats and talked about their common friends. They have worked together previously in Cebu.

The highway elevated higher and higher towards the mountainous region. We drove through countless tunnels and soon we started to see snow. Snow was on the top of the higher peaks and snow was also melting on the road sides preserved by the mercy of the shadow and covered by trees from direct sun heat. We made a stop and admired the view of the ski-resort.

Later I took over the wheel and drove on the smaller and mountain roads. For me it was no hassle, because this Nissan Leaf had an automatic gearbox. Only a few times, instead of switching on the indicator, I actually triggered the whippers.

At 2:30PM we reached Shirakawa-go at 520 metres. We parked the car and walked over the suspension bridge to a heritage open air museum or to an old traditional Japanese mountain village. Shirakawa-go is a well preserved village surrounded by mountains with snow gaps. The streets were packed with walking tourists. I saw some foreign tourists too. The village is mostly focused on serving visitors, but at the same time there are tiny rice fields, cattle and farms. These villagers witnessed the melting snow just a few weeks ago and we also were able to run in the snow and play with snow. At the edge of one creek I took my shoes off and placed my feet into the near freezing creek’s water. It was really cold, but tolerable. I challenged girls to follow my example, but only Eunice was brave enough to try it out.

We continued walking on these lovely streets and between old farms. Almost all houses were built using wooden planks and roofs covered by reeds. Very nice atmosphere. We walked uphill to the viewpoint overlooking the valley and the village surrounded by mountains. The riverbed was very wide and contained rocks in all sizes, but now the river has shrunk to half of the width. Sun was still nicely warming us and it was just pleasant to face the sun and admire the view. I really thought I was in the Alps in Südtirol in Italy or in Austria. The feeling was really similar. As we walked back to the village, we saw how one man was taking huge packages of reed to his back and started to climb on a ladder to the top of the roof. I helped him to get the reeds on his back. He was laying on the ground and he had difficulties getting up with the load. He was very surprised. He was really skilful in climbing.

At 10PM we decided to drive to Ryusenjinoyu bath house and spa. That was a huge place, baths in industrial scale. We paid 700JPY ~ 5€ + 500JPY ~ 3€ for saunas. It is very affordable for each Japanese person and therefore it was crowded too. We walked to separate dressing rooms and soon after to baths. I guess I saw about 100 dicks, because about 30 baths were filled with naked Japanese lads. There were about 15 baths indoors and the same amount outdoors with the city view. Later girls said they didn’t have a beautiful night city view, instead they had a shitty view towards a wall. I laid down on the edge of +33’C water pool and enjoyed the view. I felt the eyes on me, but whenever I turned around mostly young guys pretended to look away. There were no other foreigners in sight and perhaps not very often visit this bath house. Well, this was perfect. I really enjoyed the unique and authentic experience which has not turned into a tourist attraction just yet.

At 11:30PM we met with girls in the sauna area. We needed to wear kimonos which we got at the entrance. Girls were even able to choose the colour of the kimonos. The sauna experience was also something else. First there was a nice wide open area for relaxing. There were shelves full of comics and even cooking books. There was a bar and there were also plenty of places to just sit or lay and relax for hours. Some were sleeping or watching TV inside the wine goblet-shape chairs. Well, that was very different from my understanding of sauna, but as it was also a SPA, then it was all understandable and I also enjoyed this quiet relaxing time. We went into some of the saunas. We laid down on hot stones and host stones cooked slowly on my back. We also tried a steam sauna. We also checked a hot sauna where we sat on the edge of a yurt-type interior. We went back to baths and again enjoyed the outdoor pools and the Nagoya night view. I walked indoors and sat on the little chair in the washing station. There was absolutely everything for washing including shampoo and conditioner. I dressed and walked to the resting area and ordered a beer called Asahi and wrote about my emotions in my diary. Soon girls with bright red cheeks arrived. We drove back to Seki-san home. It was late and I sat only a bit and at 2AM she walked to her mom’s home to sleep.

We drove towards Inuyama castle. Inu means dog and yama means mountain - dog's mountain. We reached to Inuyama and first we needed to find a parking space, but that was not an easy task. There were payable parking spaces, but these were marked by red hieroglyph meaning full. Finally after some spinning in downtown, we found a spot for parking. We walked to the tourist street that led to the castle. There were many people walking in the slow phase, many with dogs and children. There were cafés, boutiques, ice cream spots, street food and workshops.

One of those workshops was a silk shop where kids were so engaged. The simple machine took the silk thread from the silk eggs. Kids were very excited to make something with their own hands. We also saw the preparations for the upcoming festival. Ladies were wearing kimonos and posed to the cameras in front of the theatre. Another cool thing was a massive wooden tower on wheels called Omikoshi which accommodated a shrine and a small stage for performing. These portable shrines were parked in the tall garage. We continued walking and at the end of the tourist street then it started to drizzle. We made a drink and sweets break in the nearby café. We discussed the long tradition of being suspicious towards Gaijin - outsiders, foreigners, not from Asia. Seki-san has seen a more open society in the Philippines and can make a point about that matter. But in general being suspicious about strangers could also be something more universal. Because whenever a person can travel, connect, be curious and exposed to different food, cultures and languages, mostly that alone changes the person fundamentally.

The rain stopped and we walked up to the castle. We bought the tickets and the first activity was to stand in the queue which started in the courtyard and spinned around the yard. There was a 650 year old tree right next to the building that served as a  protector of the castle from lightning, however in 1965 it finally gave in. But the trunk was still standing and was preserved. We finally reached the castle door. We needed to take off the shoes and we got shoe bags for carrying them. We started to climb up on multiple levels and steep staircases. I felt the smell of tar and old wood as we walked on the wooden floors. In a sense I saw again the real Japan - endless queues for everything, because there are just too many people crammed in these islands. But in the case of visiting the castle I guess it was also a matter of not letting too many people to the floors and more importantly to the outer terrace. It would be just dangerous to have pushing and rushing people at the top of the castle. Eunice was a bit freaked out, because the terrace floor was tilted and we needed to hold on the handlebars and make sure we would not slip but the view was worth it.

The fort was overlooking the settlement and it was also to make sure nobody passed the castle without paying fees and taxes on the river Kiso in the old time. It was windy and cold and we started to walk down. We saw old warrior items from the age of samurais. As I remember this castle story was also somehow related to samurais, loyalty and betrayal. Actually there are many castles, but some of them are not original and have been rebuilt, because of the destructive fire or something else. Seki-San picked and chose the legit castles for us.

We came down to the tourist street and it started to drizzle again. We found a spot for street food. We ordered grilled mushrooms, chicken skin and beef. We walked around the block and saw a cherry tree in blossoms in somebody's garden.

We walked back to the car and drove back to Nagoya. First we did some heavy shopping in the Don Quixote store. The bill was nearly 10,000JPY ~ 68€. We bought gifts for Mirjam, to my Indian grandmother Billy, to Danish and Saleena. We also bought a manual coffee bean grinder and V60 coffee maker in one. This camping unit became handy later on the Indian trip. We drove to another major store to buy shoes. Eunice got a nice pair of light weight shoes designed for hiking. The cost was 5000JPY ~  34€, as she was about to pay for the shoes, Seki-san sprang in and claimed that she would pay for these and this would be a late birthday present. Of course there was this universal game - I pay, no I will pay, no it is really me who's paying - before Eunice put her money back into her wallet. Thank you Seki-san.

We drove to a nearby suburban area and picked up Seki-san's friends Miki and her Filipino husband Clein. We drove to a small nice restaurant and Seki-san had booked a table for us for 7:45PM. We ordered tofu and pork guts based ramen and we cooked that on the table. For starters we ordered pickled cucumber, beans and some bacon rolls. I went to check at the counter what draft beer they have available and Seki-san jumped off and ran to help me. Actually I was doing just fine using verbal explanations and not using much English, because the bartenders and waiters didn't speak any English and she avoided me creating chaos. Damn it, I like chaos from time to time to see what would happen. I've got my Kirin beers. We had a lot of fun and even had naughty jokes. Miki was an English student in Cebu and started to have more than educational relations with her teacher Clein. Clein is actually some 4-5 years younger than her. Later we ordered udon noodles and rice and we added them to the bowls for finishing off the food. We ended our dinner at 10PM and got a whopping bill of 17,800JPY ~ 120€, the cost was to share between us. We dropped Miki and Clein back to their home and drove to Seki-san house.

We made a little stop at the convenience store to print out Eunice's e-visa for entering India. We opened Vana Tallinn liqueur and enjoyed some more talking. We thanked Seki-san for hosting us and let us stay in her place. She left at midnight and walked to her mother's place. We packed the last items. Eunice needed to filter out many clothes which she will send to Cebu. She couldn't take them all, because we will have limited space on the motorbike on our journey in India. She will send the clothes in a suitcase and she will also send a small backpack and I added Job’s book. She has a new hiking backpack and comfy shoes - she is a proper hiker now. We were tired and went to sleep soon.

Mo03/13

We woke up at 6AM and it was raining outside. That was unpleasant news, because we needed to walk to the subway station. I had a very rough night. My stomach had some serious issues and I went to the toilet to shit like hell quite many times. Was it something surprising in food that caused it or Japanese bacteria finally got me. We quickly washed, she did her makeup and packed the last items. At one point it stopped raining. We left Seki-san's apartment keys to the postal box and started to walk. Damn, it started to drizzle again. We walked from the sleepy neighbourhood to the main road. Actually it was only 1,5KM of walk to the Heinadori station, but we had some luggage to carry but we made it. We recharged the Manaca cards and walked in a sub-terrain network of tunnels and stairs. At 7:05AM we sat in the subway and tried to sleep like other passengers. At 7:30 we changed trains at Kanayama station. We were able to sit and she was able to put her head on top of the pile of bags and tried to sleep. At 8:10AM we crossed to the airport island and soon were at the counter for check-in. All went smoothly except I was not able to speak out the emergency exit seats for free and we got a setback in Bangkok. It turned out we would not be able to make it after all to have dinner in downtown Bangkok. The airport is introducing new rules for immigration and security checks and the ladies at check-in recommended strongly not to risk dinner and miss the flight because of the hassle later on.

The A350-900 was fully booked. We got lunch. I tried to sleep and managed to sleep the majority of the flight. She was watching movies, because there were big screens and plenty of movies to choose from. Actually this was the first time for her to have a flight with onboard entertainment and board catering. Her flights had been shorter around the Philippines. After a bit more than 6 hours of flight we started to descend.

At 4PM we walked to the international transfers and sat in the bar first. We checked messages and worked. We ordered Singha beer and coffee. We sat there close to two hours and paid 540THB ~ 14€. We walked around and found a quiet gate where we completed work related tasks. This was like a new reality for both of us, we needed to find time for working and get things done regardless where we were physically travelling. We checked perfumes like one should do in an airport. We ate spring rolls and drank jasmine tea. We paid 616THB~ 16€. We both felt a bit weak and muscle pain. Probably we got cold in previous days when we were walking in the rain. We walked to the gate and she tried to sleep. At 10:30PM we started to board an old Boeing 777. At 11:30PM we took off from Bangkok. We ate the inflight meal served and she got the first spicy taste of India.

Read further the Adventure in India