Goodbye Nihon: boarding the ferry from Kobe to Tianjin
Continuing the story of the journey from Akita, Japan to Korla, China is part 3 which takes us from Kyoto to Kobe with a users guide to getting a seat on Japanese trains. Part one is here, and part two is over there.
(19.08.05)
Having said my goodbyes to Chase Long (left) and Flaming Nora I went through the ticket wicket at Kyoto Station, found the right platform and boarded the 9:14 Kaisoku (Rapid Express) bound for Sannomiya and beyond. The train was packed with commuters and a few Chinese here and there.
Got a seat when we hit Ashiya. Getting a seat on a packed train in Japan is quite an art form. Aside from carrying an umbrella and using it to nab a vacant space like one slides in ones bat when Chris Harris whips a throw in from the covers the trick is to move into the center of the carriage away from the doors. Don’t stand near people who are sleeping or reading as they are going to be on the train for a long time and you wont have much chance there. Try to look for people who have just woken up, are glancing furtively at their watch or who put away their reading material / mobile phone. These are the people you want to move close to. Then when they get up slide in behind them and sit down – so you should be on the side furthest from the door. Watch out for old women as some of them are pretty vicious and have moves that would put Mike Tyson to shame.
Once the train pulled into Sannomiya in Kobe it was time to change to Port Liner. The ferry terminal is located 2 stops from Sannomiya at a station strangely enough called Port Terminal. Most of the area around the port was heavily damaged during the Great Hanshin Earthquake and has been rebuilt so it doesn’t really have much atmosphere. Wandered around for a bit before finding the check in counter on the first floor. Chooch booked the ticket for me on the internet, so I only had to give them the booking number and they gave me my boarding pass and a 500 yen voucher for booking over the internet. An easy and straightforward process.
Another wander around the terminal and I found immigration. IIRC it is on the second floor. The Immigration officer person gave me a bit of a looking over even though I had mostly sobered up by that point. His hands were quite heavily scared so I guess he was either formerly a dock work or a yakuza minion who got the job through dodgy government contacts. There was no security check after immigration which surprised me. The whole process from immigration to boarding the ship only took about 10 minutes. Certainly much faster than changing a plane in Atlanta (6 hours for that!).
One of the ships stewards kindly showed me to my mattress in the cheapest section of the ferry. I was in a room with another 20 odd people. There was an aisle down the middle and then mattresses lined up side by side on either side. I was a little worried at first about leaving my powerbook in there but soon decided it wasn’t worth being concerned about. Apart from people wearing each others shoes everyone respected everyone else’s privacy.
I dumped my pack there, nice to get that off my back and went to explore the boat. Our section was on one of the lower decks, just above and aft of the engines. The ship has three main passenger decks, but it was the roof I headed to to watch us embark from port. Watching the ferry leave Kobe for Tianjin were quite a number of people seeing off friends and loved ones. Some of them had streamers which they were throwing from the wharf side onto the boat. That was pretty cool. If I closed my eyes and wrinkled my nose up in just the right direction I could imagine it was 1923 and we were setting sail from Plymouth.
I like to travel by ship. Photos can be found in the gallery.
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