July 29: "Business Trip"
Whew! It's going to be hard to remember all the details of today; it's been a long one. >_<
I got up a little after 6:15, showered, packed my bag and left the dorm. I picked up katsu-don at the LAWSON STATION for breakfast, as I didn't want to spend the time to sit down and eat dorm breakfast, as going from Hayashi to Kyoto includes many, many places where things can go wrong and take extra time.
A bus came to the stop VERY quickly, as about a hundred million buses come between 6 and 8. I am a little skeptical of their scheduling, as the bus was nearly empty, and one was scheduled to come 7 minutes later... I will withhold final judgement until I see more empty morning buses, but at the moment I am thinking it would be nice to have some of those buses spaced throughout the day so that it's not 1/2 hours between arrivals. >_< Getting to Yokochuu was very quick, because no one wanted to ride! I actually skipped the first express that came, because I wanted to eat my breakfast, and I could see that another train was going to come in about 4 minutes.
I rode the express to Kamioooka (yes, that's 3 o's) and took the Yokohama subway blue line to Shin-Yokohama. In Shin-Yokohama I bought a non-reserved seat ticket for the Nozomi (super express Shinkansen) to Kyoto. I unfortunately did not check before boarding where the non-reserved cars were, so I had to wander the train for a while in a rather sketch-looking fashion, but I eventually did find the non-reserved cars, and even a window seat!
I am just going to take a moment to point out that the Shinkansen is mind-bogglingly fast. You cannot track the telephone poles beside the track coming into view, as they just kind of flash by in a dark blur and are too far gone. 300km/h is something that just has to be experienced; I can't really do it justice by describing it in text.
I was able to doze a little on the train, but I didn't want to fall completely asleep, as I had no desire to end up in Oosaka by accident. XD I ended up arriving in Kyoto at 11, about an hour ahead of schedule. Oh well, it's better to be early like that than late. I was able to scope out all the omiage (gift) stores inside the ticket-wickets while I waited for Kabutoya-san. They had some incredibly uninteresting ties for 13000+円, and some rather more reasonably priced edible things. I find it rather obvious what they expect people to actually buy. >_<
Kabutoya-san arrived at just before 12, and we ate lunch in the station. We both had curry-ramen, which is apparently not very common in Japan, according to Kabutoya-san. It wasn't very good, so perhaps that's why? D: We then departed by Kintetsu line for the NTT building in Keihanna. Unfortunately, Kabutoya-san is apparently not so familiar with going to Keihanna, as he completely missed the stop where we were supposed to transfer to a bus, and so we had to get off at the next (express) stop, and go back. >_< This meant that, after we ended up getting to the lab, the time we had to speak to Iwata-san (the person we came to see) was cut in half. After about half an hour, he had to make a presentation, at which point Kabutoya-san said that I should go home. >_<
There you have it! My first business trip consisted of roughly 10 hours of travel to and from combined, cost the company 24000円 in Shinkansen fare, and about 8000円 to me. Oh well, it was nice to be invited to go on the trip and it was a nice experience. I also saw a lot of nice scenery. >_<
I made my way home by myself, as Kabutoya-san stayed for the presentation. I got back to Kyoto station pretty much without event, where I bought some omiage to give to my labmates. I also ate dinner at the restaurant beside the omiage store, where I ate a respectably executed katsu-curry and an absolutely delicious iced green tea au lait. I was thinking about trying something more interesting than katsu-curry, but all their other options looked really, really small.
My Shinkansen ride back was very nice, and I was able to watch the landscape transition from evening into night, which was quite beautiful. I dozed some more, but made sure not to fall asleep, as this time I would have been in danger of ending up in Tokyo! (not such a bad fate haha)
I went back to Hayashi and bought a grapefruit to eat along with some senbei, as my dinner was actually at around 5:15. I then was *going* to go to bed at a reasonable time, but unfortunately for my health, the Evolution stream started, and now I am kind of stuck haha. I've actually got my screen split 50/50 between the stream and WordPad. >_< I am going to have to demonstrate incredible resolve to pull myself away, as even though the tournament has just started, the stream has already shown games by Kindevu (a top Japanese player), Floe (highly regarded American player), Sabin and others that I'm already beginning to forget. >_< Ugh! Must. Stop. Watching!!!
Anyways, I'm going to go brush my teeth now, and then I'll be off to bed, I swear.
Night!
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