An intrepid adventure

Our balcony, with laundry. Of
course I had to start a garden
in some abandoned
flower pots we found.

Will hogging the couch in our living room.
We've added lots of homemade artwork
to spruce it up since I took this. 

Katy and Jane's growing collection
of Japanese mini erasers from the
100 Yen store (3 per pack)

Saturday it rained most of the day. We have 5 people living in a 500 sq. ft. apartment.  Our apartment has a small kitchen and bath, a room in the front that just fits a bunk bed. The living room has a desk, two shelves, two chairs and a couch with as little padding as possible. Industrial dorm furniture. Needless to say, after a day indoors, with one partially aborted outing to the 100 Yen store (where Jane threw a screaming, laying-on-the-floor-kicking fit when I said no to a particularly vile candy), we were ready to get out when the sun came out on Sunday. After doing a few days worth of laundry, of course.

We had acquired a street map, and could now put together the things we have learned from the internet about Hamamatsu. We decided we had to figure out the bus system. If we could crack that, then we could get anywhere. Since I broke down and bought a cheap stroller for Jane last week, this would complete our mobility.

Recreated ancient house

Katy grinding soy

Small bamboo forest
at Hamamatsu
History Museum

Newman's Elephant (?) 

I love this little clam guy!

We walked down the street towards the bus stop, and came to the Hamamatsu City History Museum. The grounds are on the site of an ancient village. There are recreated traditional houses,  excavated shell mounds, and a small history museum with artifacts from ancient to modern times. There were also hands on demonstrations of hibachi grilling and soy flour grinding. In the children's room, a variety of toys and games were available to try. We all loved the tops. A nature trail winds through the park, but we were curious to try out a bus and wanted to get downtown, so we moved on. I'm so glad to know I can bring Jane here to romp and play!

Outside the temple (?)

Temple? fair near History museum

As we walked to the bus stop, we came across- something?- a farmers market? a temple festival? It looked to be closing down, but involved lots of grilling of small fish over charcoal brasiers.

It is a daunting thing to get on a bus that has a mysterious destination. I had watched and observed for the past week as people entered from the middle side and waved a card over the card reader. They exited from the front, where it seemed they paid or waved the card again. Our street map had small magenta circles with writing that seemed to correspond to the bus stops on our walk to school. The bus that went by had an 8 on the sign. At the big stop by the hospital, there was a schematic with circles and numbers that looked like prices. Ok. We were ready to try it. We knew where to get on, sort of how take a ticket, and we knew that the central bus station was right downtown where we wanted to go. If we took it to the end of the line, that might work, right? Well, yes, right! It did work!
We learned that city buses are clean with plush seats (you'd never see that in Chicago!) Over the driver is an electronic fare board. The number on your ticket corresponds to the stop you got on. As the bus goes down the street, it displays the fair price you must pay based on the number of the bus stop where you entered the bus. When you exit, if you have a card, you just wave it over the card reader. If you are paying in cash, you drop your little ticket and the coins down the slot. If you need to change bills, there is a slot to put them in. We found out you have to pay them individually, you can't just put in a bunch of tickets and a large bill to cover them all! Ooops.

Cenral bus terminal is a big circle.
On the below ground level is
a sculpture garden with little streams
and paths and gardens. You can use
underground walkways to get to the train
station plaza (big department stores) and to
ACT City plaza. 

ACT City, from the bus
terminal. It is the tallest
building in town, and has an
observation deck from which
you can see Mt. Fuji. Also, it is
shaped like a harmonica.

Downtown Hamamatsu was a hive of activity. This is a three day weekend- Monday is a national holiday called Sport Day (no idea what we are supposed to do for it, I think it falls into my category of grilling holidays, like Memorial and Labor day). There was a big music festival going on downtown with various acts playing all over the city center. My favorite was a C&W group that really had the crowd going. Except that everyone was Japanese, we could have been in any major American city. John thinks the people were better dressed, but that is because he wears T-shirts all the time. He would be surprised to find most New Yorkers (or Columbus Ohioans, or Chicagoans) don't wear T-shirts all the time, too. I love being married to an academic.

We were on a quest to get bus passes. We managed to find the information desk. My attempt to ask in Japanese for help generated a puzzled stare- my pronunciation is appalling, apparently- but when I handed over my phrase book and pointed, the clerk understood, sort of and we managed to buy two passes. She seemed to tell us we didn't need to get one for the kids, and we couldn't figure out if there were youth fares or if Jane needed to pay at all. She said just tell the driver when you get off the bus you want to pay for the kids, too. Ok then.

Admiring fancy desserts

Katy says "No" to packets of eel spine.

We wanted go the main train station, because on the night we arrived, John had seen a Starbucks. I had seen a store with real bagels and muffins. The station is just across the street from the bus terminal. May One, a big department store sort of engulfs the station. We found the bagels (they were even giving out samples!) but sadly, the Starbucks was up a level on the platform. John loves Starbucks, but wasn't willing to fork over 100 bucks for a Shinkansen ticket to get a cup of coffee! In the station lobby at street level, May One has a gift store. In Japan, it would be unthinkable to arrive without a gift for your hosts. May One makes it easy on travelers, one can buy fancy foods or other items pre-wrapped and ready to give away. They also have pre-made meals to take on board the trains.

Will is doing his part by
lifting up Eel Jane.

Food court with some familiar
places. Didn't try it. 

At one end of the lobby, we found the Hamamatsu Tourist Information office, where we were able to pick up some English language tourist information. Katy and Jane posed for their picture, too.

Plastic food display outside restaurant

Off the lobby down a corridor, we found a food area with a coffee shop for John and tried our May One muffins. Mmmmm! There was also a donut store, a McDonalds, a book store and a restaurant with plastic food outside.

The overwhelming sensory explosion of
a Japanese electronics store. Best Buy
eat your heart out. 

Next stop was a quest for a region 2 DVD drive and some more DVDs. I made the mistake of only bringing a few because I thought I could stream videos from Netflix. Ran afoul of copyright laws, though, so I have had to watch Tinkerbelle 8 times so far with Jane. Unfortunately, while a DVD drive was affordable, the kids DVD's were about $45 US each, and it was unclear if they had English dubbing. Sorry kids. We will have to wait till we get home to see Totoro in its entirety. Will found the Lego area, complete with kids building table, but was dismayed to find that Legos were outrageously priced. Almost double the cost in the US.

We next went to Entetsu, another large, fancy department store. I don't understand how businesses work in Japan, but they tend to be mega conglomerates. Entetsu also runs the bus line and has a train line too. The fancy grocery store near our apartment, similar to Whole Foods, is an Entetsu. We rode the escalators all the way to the top and back down. Katy's comment was that it was like WalMart, only better. I have warped this poor child by never taking her to the mall. Must take her to Michigan Avenue in Chicago when we return to the States to re-orient her perspective. Of course, she will now think it is just like Japan!

At Entetsu we stopped on the children's floor are bought some plush Totoros and Pokimon figures. I will just stop now and put in a plug for Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro. Rent it, buy it, watch it. We have only gotten to see bits so far, but have seen other Hayao Miyazaki anime films (Ponyo is the latest). Surreal, lovely, weird, but worthwhile. At least look up the Catbus scene on You-tube.  Katy's class at school is singing a song from Totoro. Katy gets to play tambourine. 

Totoros! 

A schematic of the main bus
terminal with bus routes. 

Finally we had had enough and it was time to go home. Made it back to the bus terminal through the underground passages. The lower level of the bus terminal has a sculpture garden with waterways and stepping stones. We went up and found where our number 8 bus would come. I looked at the route map and tried to find our stop. Couldn't match the symbols for the Hospital on my street map with any of the stops on the number 8 bus route map. I must have looked really confused, because after several minutes, the woman standing next to me tried to help. She indicated that the hospital was not on this route, and took me over towards the information booth. Outside it, we both looked at the big terminal map to try and figure out what bus I needed. She didn't have enough English to tell me what she thought, only pointed to the info booth. I realized, looking at the sign, that the buses have two numbers, an Uber route with sub routes within. We really wanted the number 2, sub number 8. Ah. Went back to where John and the kids were waiting. I love this sensible man. Even though the the bus we thought we wanted had arrived, he had gathered the kids but not boarded until I came back. Since I'd been hustled off so abruptly, he hadn't even known I'd left or where I'd gone, but he wasn't going anywhere without me. True love.

We boarded and successfully found our stop, a block from our apartment. A good day. It is now Monday morning as we are pondering our next adventure!