Mini-trip #4: How do I keep finding myself in Saga?

Off to Shin-Osaka on local trains! The pass’ validity was only for JR West lines, meaning I had to take the train to Maibara (the border between the Central/West regions), get off and pick up the ticket from a vending machine, and then hop back for a couple more local trains – since, JR Central, not JR West, runs the shinkansen east of Osaka, so the high-speed rail section of my trip can only begin there. Yes, I am aware that 99% of people reading this either know this already and are saying “obviously…” or have little idea what I’m talking about and probably don’t care.

Mizuho trains on the Sanyo Shinkansen are great since all the reserved cars are 2×2 seating, making you feel like you’re in Green Class! Before boarding, I grabbed an ekiben from the Zojirushi store at Shin-Osaka. Yes, like the brand of rice cooker. Yes, it’s a way to promote their rice cookers by selling people rice that’s been cooked with it.

Stopped at Kokura to (finally) get my mono SUGOCA registered, since the counter was closed at the time I had bought it on a previous trip. Great 1990s computer interface lol.

Hakata is perhaps of the best examples easily visible from the outside of “wait, is this a mall or a train station?” And looks so grand at night!

Fare capping in Japan (what!?) but only for bank cards and not IC cards…….. FUCK QUADRAC. ALL MY HOMIES HATE QUADRAC.

Gave myself a bit of time to walk around and grab dinner before continuing on. Fukuoka’s canals at night are so, so nice.

I don’t know what this was an ad for.

Me when I ride trains in Kyushu (they have my favorite trains in the country).

Oh hey, it’s that mascot of the mediocre soccer team from Kyushu who features on the last commemorative SUGOCA I got last time I stopped by Saga!

I’ve mentioned Eiji Mitooka’s name many times on this blog before, who is the person to thank (or blame?) for this – but seriously, the trains here look nothing like the rest of the country’s. They’re so distinct!

Wow, an ad for Takarazuka (and, underlyingly, to take the shinkansen to go see it lol).

Turns out I didn’t have enough money on my IC card to get from Hakata to Arita, Arita doesn’t have charging machines (only simple tap-only ticket gates, blurrily visible in the background), and the driver of my conductorless was running behind schedule and didn’t have time to collect payment from me, so he just wrote me this slip saying that I should pay the following morning instead.

Arita’s tiny, closed Midori-no-madoguchi ticket office. Cute!

They’re just taunting me with this poster… showing me the old discontinued “Nagasaki Smart Card” bus IC card that’s no longer available for purchase…

I liked these cats. I wanted to ride the full Sasebo Line, so I got off at Arita and walked back toward Nishi-Arita, which was closer to where I was staying. It was so dark and so absolutely silent here at night, in this town where everyone surely goes to bed by 8 p.m.

Arrived at my accommodation which had such a cool layout and amazing wooden interior!

The place I stayed was called Guesthouse Keramiek – the word for “ceramic” in Dutch, as it was run by a super kind Dutch woman, a long-time resident of the town. I learned the next morning that every other guest staying was a potter, or art professor, &c &c and all were baffled-slash-enchanted that I, decades younger than the usual crowd, had come for some sort of non-pottery-related activity. There was even an art historian who had traveled from France! As a certified enjoyer of little trinkets and guys, I’d love to come back to Arita someday to check out the the Arita Ceramic Fair, held annually over Golden Week, with hundreds of vendors setting up tables end-to-end which stretch 4 km between the two stations. It’s an absolutely huge event that attracts over a million visitors, and JR Kyushu even runs special pottery-named trains for it. Seriously, browse around the town, and you’ll see how essentially every single shop is something to do with ceramics or chinaware. So cool.

In the morning, I was talking with the nice Dutch guesthouse owner about how I loved the ceramic guy in the garden, and she showed me the kiln run by a local resident that had cooked up a whole batch of them and given them to some of their favorite neighbors. I had told her my reason for coming to Arita when I met her the previous night, and she offered to drive me down to the station so I wouldn’t have to make the walk there and wake up so early in the morning for it!

JR Kyushu staff arriving on the scene, setting up the little booth to sell cards.

The scene in the station was pretty funny: two employees in hi-vis neon vests counting down to 9:00:00 a.m. to the exact second. They literally synchronized their watches and just stood there staring at their wrists, counting in their heads, for a solid few minutes before the official on-sale time. Oh, Japan…

Obtained!!!!! Good day, Saga! The illustration on this card was drawn an artist from the prefecture, ABEchan.

There were maybe about 20 other people waiting to get the card in the morning, and more trickled in after that. I realized that after people had paid for their two cards, as it was “max of two per person”, or so the press release said, they were getting back in line and buying more. Apparently that was allowed? I don’t think it should’ve been, and maintain that type of policy is dumb, and only contributes to scalping (which some of these people were certainly doing). As a result, the station’s stock of 500 copies sold out in seven minutes flat. It did allow me to grab a couple extra copies for friends, though, which was the upside of what I still consider a stupid way to do things, lol.

A bunch of people were taking pictures of their new cards outside the station! Kindred spirits.

and yet a trace of the true self exists in the false self……

A slice of Arita ware on a bridge in Arita!

CROSSBOWS ARE BANNED STARTING MARCH 2022, EVERYONE. IMPORTANT, RELEVANT ANNOUNCEMENT FROM JR KYUSHU.

There was no train for a while, and I considered renting a town bike for a few hours and cycling the ~13 km to Haiki Station and back, but the list of rules you had to follow to rent the bike were insane and long (rentals are suspended on windy days since it’s “dangerous”!) and they didn’t allow you to take it outside of the super-tiny town limits… (and they wonder why no one uses their services…) I considered doing it anyway, but the brakes were the absolute squeakiest thing ever known to mankind and would have surely heralded my illicit arrival from miles away, so I scrapped that plan.

In the end, I called JR Kyushu’s info hotline and they confirmed they still had cards of the other design left, and so with my biking plan abandoned, just waited for the next train – which happened to be the very-cool limited express Huis Ten Bosch, which runs to the Dutch-themed theme park of the same name (fun fact, it’s also Japan’s largest theme park).

Mhm, yes I do.

Loooove the inside of JR Kyushu’s limited express trains!!! So cozy and so unique!

Seriously adore the way these trains look. I’m not one who likes paying for limited expresses all that much, but these are worth it (even if only for a couple stops).

Ja… de Kyushu cuckstoel……

Obtained the Nagasaki design too, yay!!!

When I arrived at Haiki, they were selling the cards at a little table just like the one at Arita, and I was the only one there, so I bought one for me + a bunch of more copies for friends (thankfully had brought a lot of cash) since I could “keep getting in line over and over”. And yes, he would still only let me buy two “at a time”, i.e. handing him ¥4000, then him giving me two cards, and repeat, lol. They eventually moved the cards to sales at the window, and the next local train arrived shortly thereafter, after which a few more people got off (pictured) and all bought cards for themselves.

Taking the local train back to Arita. Even the local trains look cool on the outside.

Here’s the ticket I bought to head back from Haiki Station to Fukuoka – purchasable only in JR Shikoku! As seen on the 経由 “via:” line, it includes a Matsuura Railway section sandwiched between JR lines, a ticketing agreement that JR Shikoku has, but that other JR Group companies don’t, meaning I had to wait to get this route until I was there.

Cute Kuro-chan! (One of JR Kyushu’s mascots, seen quite a lot on the ASO BOY! Design & Story train, and around elsewhere too.)

Why are there QR code-like symbols on the floor of my train…? (QR Code®©™ is a registered trademark of DENSO WAVE INCORPORATED.)

Here’s my Matsuura Railway train I took to head up to the JR Chikuhi Line…

…except that a few stations in, I suddenly realized I had forgotten my backpack in a coin locker at Arita………… so I had to get off in the middle of nowhere (pictured) and figure out how to get back.

Train timetables were sparse, but luckily I only had to wait around half an hour for one headed in the other direction, back to where I had come from. I had time to kill as I waited, so I walked a few stations toward my origin.

On the way, I saw this plaque which apparently dates to before 2008!

The plaque was part of the “Nishiarita Asian Cultural Exchange Plaza”, marked by this monument, although it was apparently closed (forever).

The contrast between this insanely derpy Matsuura Railway mascot character and the sultry anime girl…

The first train I had taken was pretty empty, but the next one I took was packed with students, so I had to stand until my transfer station. What’s called “Imari Station” is really two different station buildings, bisected by a road, with one building run by Matsuura Railway (where I came from) and the other run by JR (where I was headed), connected by this overpass, which was nice and provided a pretty high-up view of the city of Imari, another place in the prefecture famous for their pottery.

I loved the ceramic 駅名標 ekimeihyō (station sign)!

As always, being in Saga Prefecture = running into a lot of Romancing SaGa-related stuff.

Gotta keep the trains clean. I liked how they were just doing this on some random extra tracks in the middle of the day, which I don’t think I’d ever seen before.

I didn’t notice at the time, but looking back through my photos of this trip, I noticed a typo: This is JR Imari Station (as it says in Japanese) but it’s called the Chikuhi Line, not the Imari Line! It used to be called that, but only prior to 1945, not since JR’s been around.

I loved this detailed guide inside the trains showing the different door operations at different stations. First time seeing anything like this! Red = only front door opens (unstaffed stations); green = all doors open when staff are present; yellow = all doors always open; blue = depends on both the train type and time of day.

No SUGOCA use on this line, cash or paper tickets only! And no totally-not-Suica, totally-not-nanaco, or totally-not-WAON either…

The hand straps were shaped like hearts! I always like when trains have non-standard-shaped ones for whatever reason.

Cozy local train. Teenager was just chilling on the floor despite many seats being open, lol, which people online like to assure you “never happens” out of “respect” or something. But countryside Japan is very different, and a lot more relaxed. :)

THE TERM “MaaS” IS FOR USE IN PLANNING-LEVEL BUSINESS CONTEXTS, NOT ON CUSTOMER-FACING SIGNS OR APP NAMES. AAAAAHHH JAPANNNNN

View of Karatsu Castle from the train. Also visible just off the coast was the island of Takashima, population 174, home of one elementary school, one guesthouse, and Hōtō-jinja, a Shinto shrine that’s supposed to bring you good luck in the lottery.

Super pretty seaside route. Reminded me a bit of the TheBus route on the north shore of Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi.

A half-worn away, old-school station sign. I like how the “JK17” sticker is obviously much newer than the rest of it, from when they introduced station numbering to this part of the line in 2018.

These elementary schoolers got on my train, saw me, and after building up some courage, asked if I could help them with some answers on their English homework LMAO. Work smarter, not harder.

I thought I might be able to get some extra PASPY at Hiroshima for friends, before the card got discontinued at the end of the following month, but the line at the Hiroden counter was soooo long due to everyone trying to claim refunds and buy their new MOBIRY DAYS cards, so had to forego the plan. Since this photo, the new, elevated Hiroshima Station has opened, so this photo of the old counter next to the now-closed tram line on the first floor is now a relic!

The okonomiyaki I got at a restaurant called Icchan, north of the station, was sooooo great. I had an awesome chat with the women who ran the shop, who told me that something like 70% of the okonomiyaki shops in Hiroshima get their noodles from the same supplier who’s widely agreed upon to be the best, hahaha. The daughter of the owner and her classmate were there too, were interested in hearing about where I’d come from that morning, and both of the girls wanted to study abroad or do an exchange America one day when they got older!

The mom & grandma combo who ran the shop gave me some cute okonomiyaki keychains to take home with me, and gave me this bottle of Yakult “for strength!” as I told them I’d had a long, busy day. :) I’m not a huge fan of the “lacto” drinks that Japan seems to love so much, but I drank it on my next shinkansen as I would’ve felt bad throwing it away. 🥲

…Am I supposed to have access to this from the shinkansen platform?

Here, let me just copy-paste the text from a previous post: “Passing through Okayama again so you know I had to go get some black tea lovers’ black tea bread (white chocolate dice inside) at the Vie de France.” There was one last one for me!

Here, I’ll copy-paste this caption from that same post too, because I’m nothing if not consistent: “Grabbed a Hareca IC card for a friend from a bus driver outside Okayama Station (the sales office was closed) during a quick transfer.”

For some reason the automatic ticket gates wouldn’t let me transfer to the local lines at Shin-Osaka. They let me through manually at the staffed gate, but I asked if they knew why it wouldn’t work, so they put it into their machine to read the magnetically encoded info from it (they ended up not being able to figure it out though lol) and I got to see what their screen looks like?!?!?!?!?!? omg tell me what it all meaaaaansss

Aaaaand headed back home on my last train to Nagoya. I had time during my transfer at Maibara, so I stopped outside of the station for a hot minute and jumped on some small piles of snow. :)