plus qu’hier moins que demain

“When Spring comes, you will find a happiness.”

The 23-hours-turned-25-hours train ride from Sapporo to Kyoto via the romantically-named ’Twilight Express’ was an experience by itself.

Light flurry snowflakes were falling gently when sister and I left the Sapporo Youth Hostel for the station, which made me want to dance about in the streets [but obviously couldn't because of all the bags weighing us down].

As I couldn’t get over the failure of not-trying-harder-to-see-if-I-can-really-get-the-ds-lite incident back in Tokyo, I bugged sister to accompany me to the Akihabara Yodabashi nearby the train station for a little while to give it a second go. They had the DS in beautiful rose-gold colour and sexy red-and-black combi. *sigh* I want…

Anyway the long and short of it was that I didn’t get it because there was ‘no promises’ it could work properly in Singapore yadda yadda yadda, but sister and I ended up buying a whole lot of other stuff. Like headphones for sister E and mum, pretty 3d handphone protecters and other assorted rubbish things. *resigned expression on face*

Our sinful breakfast.

Back at the train station, we spotted a donut shop and decided to stuff ourselves silly with - what else - donuts. Not surprisingly, they were yummy - not as great as JCo donuts from Batam, different from Melbourne’s Krispy Kreme, and much better than Dunkin’ Donuts from KL [why am I going about different countries eating donuts?!?].

Taking silly photos again. Laughs! It’s not visible but I was carrying this helluva heavy backpack on my shoulders. And do not even underestimate the weight of the Mamma Aiuto! bag, look at the way I had to clench my hand!

Once again, it was a comical ruuuuussshhhh for the train after making the mistake of being thoroughly distracted by a shop selling out-of-the-world Hokkiado cheesecakes [we sampled them] and other sweet treats. Stomping feet, struggling up the stairs unglamorously [there weren't any escalators!], dropping of the train ticket just outside the train - we did them all. Ahem. *straightens shirt, adjust hair*

Yummy stuff.

After making our beds and packing our luggages in the cabin, sister settled down on her upper bunk to write little notes for her friends while I amused myself by taking random pictures of the scenery.

The red bag beneath contained all our sweet treats to sustain us for the trainride. A whole cheesecake, a box of light fluffy thingies called Snaffles, and sweets and chocolates bought from Tokyo, Hachinohe and Hakodate.

Hard at work, she.

It was difficult snapping nice shots ‘cos the train was speeding by, plus there was the reflection of the glass to deal with.

Acres and acres of snow.

The afternoon sun.

starry is deliriously happy when there is snow. Maybe it’s due to the ’snow’ in her name? What, then, about sister?

The world in white. 

They have built-in seats outside the cabins for passengers to sit and watch the world go by.

Some time later, sister noticed a dishy guy at the end of the corridor [the last cabin] and excitedly told me about him. To try catch a glimpse of him, I spent some time sitting on the built-in seat, but alas, he was too far away for my inexperienced eye, plus I couldn’t glance over at him without him knowing [as he was facing our direction watching the scenery]. Shucks.

So I decided to film Mr Eye-Candy so that I can see how he looks like.

Let’s attack the cheesecake!

Cheesecake monster on the prowl.

We have no idea what Snaffles mean or what they are but they are simply delish!!

31st December was the most unproductive day of the Nihon trip for us. We spent it…

 

taking emo shots,

hawking our food wares through the cabin window,

reading non-trashy holiday romance books,

eating, eating, and eating.

That’s the dinner bento set which sister and I decided to share between us. Oh man. Thank goodness we shared it.

Dinner was a horrible bento box; I’m sure it would have been delicious to the locals, but it was too foreign for our palates, and between the two of us, we only finished half of it and threw the rest away. We then topped up our tummies with more cheesecakes and sweets.

- sister

Snowstorm. 

I finally met Mr Eye-Candy accidentally when we almost crashed into each other outside the washroom. Facing each other, we did a comical sychronised left-right-left-right movement before laughing shyly and moving off in opposite sides and directions. Not dishy afterall, but kinda cute. Tall, shy, well-dressed with nice hair.

After several hours of gentle rocking, we gradually got drowsy and retired to our bunk beds early (i.e. 11+ pm, as compared to 1+ am in Tokyo). Unfortunately, as just I was drifting off, I had an encounter of the third kind, and was jolted awake just before midnight. I stayed alert listening for sounds, but all I heard were “Happy new year!” from people in the corridor. After ascertaining all was well again, I managed to drift off again. Throughout the night, we were awoken by the train jerking occasionally along the tracks and once it stalled for a particularly long while. Sis and I speculated that the disruption was due to heavy snow.

- sister

My last shot and view of year 2007 before falling asleep - a train station somewhere about in Nihon.

Good night, world.

Breakfast on 1st Jan was Japanese style again, leading siser to lament woefully to me that the fish she ate on Twilight Express was more than the total amount she’d consumed in her last 20 years [she hates fish]. Haha! After exploring the other parts of the train, we decided to take a nap again upon hearing there will be a 3-hour delay to Kyoto. Making up for all the lost sleep in Tokyo, ya’know.

1st meal of 2008. 

 

One of the rest & relax areas.

What are Japanese if not fastidiously clean? A shower for travellers - put in a certain amount and you can use it.

When we woke up, I hit upon this brilliant money-saving idea of freshening up at the common sink near our cabin [where I first got up-close and personal with Mr Eye-Candy], instead of using the shower room. Drawing the curtains around, I went on to do the normal cleansing-face-brushing-teeth routine.. and then bent forward into the small sink to.. wash my hair, all the while balancing steadily in the rocking train, much to sister’s incredulity and amazement. starry cannot tolerate sticky unwashed hair, yah.

Seeing how much better I looked [and felt] with a clean face and nice hair, sister proceeded to do the same. Laughs. That was then when Mr Eye-Candy came by and we almost crashed into each other again, at the same place. -_-” He started chatting earnestly with me [in rapid Japanese, hello] and we played cards for a little while before sister came in to join us, all freshened up.

Sis’s eye candy came in to “play cards with us” but instead started to hit on Sis. :p

“Do you have boyfriend?” he asked very directly. Through our conversation with him in a mixture of English and Japanese, we found out that he knew a bit of Japanese Sign Language, was currently studying social work in a college and would be working in an elder care home after graduation. He was in Hakodate and Sapporo the same evenings that we were there! What a coincidence!

- sister

I didn’t feel that Haru [yes, that's his name] was treating me any differently from sister or other people [he was chatting with some other peeps in the train the day before], and no bells sounded even when he asked the above question. Just making conversation, y’know, that was what I thought. But on hindsight, yeah, there were a lot of subtleties which I had missed. Like when sister asked me to ask him to bring us around Osaka where he resides [we were heading there after Kyoto], he managed to wrangle my mobile number, email address and home address out of me and gave me his mobile email, email address and home address, which were err. irrelevant to the topic. Like when he was sitting opposite me and his knees kept knocking against mine. Like when..

[I know I know, sister and I have absolutely no sense of self-preservation at all, though I did mutter, "Bring us around? What if he's a serial killer or something??"]

ANyway, I didn’t get it until sister went up her bunk to pack up for Kyoto and he said and did some things which left no room for doubts. When he went off shortly after to give me time to pack my stuff, I bounced up to sister’s bunk level and gave a little scream, “Sis! I think he likes me!” [or something like that] to which sister shot me a look which clearly said YOU MEAN YOU KNEW THAT ONLY NOW??

However he couldn’t stay away, and came by again to chat with us before we left. A round of photo-taking led to a manic frenzy when we realised the train had stopped at Kyoto Station and we were galvanised into action, grabbing our heavy bags and bumping our ways out of the narrow corridor.

- sister 

Man, that was one of the most hilarious moments in the entire Nihon trip. We were going, Kyoto? KYOTO?!! OH NO! Outta the way hurry hurry [I think I literally pushed sister out of the cabin in my panicky haste to carry my backpack] quick the doors are opened argh bump bump bump yikes faster out! And poor Haru had to fumble trip stumble out along with us because he was helping us with our luggages! He then jumped back into the train and waved goodbye as it rolled on to Osaka.

“You have your own Haru now,” sister joked, making references to the popular Japanese drama, Pride, where Takuya Kimura’s character is called Haru. “Wow, and in the show, the female lead is Aki [winter]! And you’re Yuki [snow]!” she added.

“You are also Yuki [our names has it] what!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah, but I do not have a Haru. Heh,” sister retorted back.

So. Remember this entry where I wrote about my fortune-telling accident in Tokyo? The video was all forgotten until our first day in Osaka [3 days after our Twilight Express adventure] when we were freshening up in our hostel before heading out to meet Haru. I discovered it in my mobile and, out of curiosity and boredom, decided to play it.

Needless to say, sister stopped short in the middle of applying her moisturiser and I almost fell off the bed when we heard it.

‘Haru’ means spring. 

Other Nihon reads:

The Amazing Race [Nihon Version]

Meet The Katenas

Let’s Become Lost Children Together

Disneysea Part I

Disneysea Part II

Tokyo Misadventures 

Appletown

City of Lights

Snow is a Happy Pill

You Light Up My Life

s t a r m | s t April 6th, 2008

• the lost traveller