I knew it was coming...

So, today has not been quite so good, we have had the first mini-disaster (much more interesting to read about, I bet!)


I left my Japan Rail pass on the bus yesterday. Trains over here are very expensive (for example, a 2 hour journey costs over 80 pounds) but you can buy a 7 day pass for 214 pounds, but only from outside Japan. 


I had planned a trip to Hiroshima today but instead went to the Train station to check if I could get a replacement. I was told no. I then checked if the tickets I had already booked (with the pass you can book all your tickets in advance as well) would still be valid. I was told no. This presents a real problem. I had planned to go to Nagasaki next, which would have been a 5.5 hour journey. I think that journey alone may be equal in price to the whole rail pass. Then I`d need to get back to Tokyo - that was due to be a 10 hour journey on Wednesday. The price of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and back to Tokyo I think would come to maybe close to 1000 pounds, which is rather prohibitive. I have e-mailed the tour company in the vain hope that they will be able to retrieve it - unlikely as it was in a bag of rubbish.


So, I walked around Kyoto today - nowhere special, just around the station and a shopping mall. At first I was fizzing and boiling with rage, mostly at myself, with a stream of bubbles of self pity and self recrimination. I spent an hour in my head saying `if only I had checked the bag before I left the bus, if only I had brought it back to he hostel with me to throw away, if only I hadn`t emptied out my handbag of rubbish, if only I hadn`t brought the pass with me...` you get the idea. Then I stopped and thought of practicalities over a coffee. There is a less than 10 percent chance that I will get the pass back. I may have increased my chances by stopping this afternoon at a Shinto shrine and pausing to pray (bowing and clapping my hands twice) for it`s safe return, but I`m not sure the gods can stretch that far. So... Nagasaki is out. I cannot afford the trip there and back. On reflection, maybe this is not such a bad thing. I like Kyoto and will enjoy spending more time here, plus it did make my schedule very rushed and 10 hours on a train was not going to be fun, especially followed by a 10 hour flight. I have booked in 2 more nights at this stinky hostel and cancelled the Nagasaki one with a 50 percent penalty for one night there. Hiroshima and the train journey back to Tokyo (3.5 hours) will cost me about 230 pounds maybe. It could be worse, I could have lost all my money. I could have got hopelessly lost. I could have lost my backpack. I managed over the course of several hours this afternoon to talk myself back round out of the rage and into acceptance. Buddha would be proud of me!


One good thing did happen which helped to cheer me up. Despite the strict curfew in this hostel between 11pm ad 7.30am there is a girl in my 4 bed dorm who rustles and clumps about constantly. She completely ignores the curfew. Yesterday morning sh was up at 5.30am and very noisy with it for about 2 hours. She did the same between 11pm and 12.30am last night. And again this morning from 6.15am. She has also been giving me The Rage. In my last hostel, which was a `party` hostel and I was in a 10 bed dorm, everyone was like a mouse the whole time and I slept perfectly. Anyway, I only brought one ear plug with me. Don`t ask me how, I`m not sure. But I have been hunting in every shop for earplugs since I arrived and cannot find them anywhere. The searching got more frantic since that girl (I want to call her a nasty name but will refrain) and finally, I found them today, in Muji in the shopping mall, when I wasn`t even really looking for them, just wandering around trying to calm down. They will be my saviour. Just wish I had found a nose plug as well.