This morning I woke up early to prepare for leaving since the one and only ferry left around 09:00. Petri, Shinko and Anni went with me to the ferry to see me off and Shinko had even made me some bentou to eat during the travel. When I got on the boat me, Petri and Shinko waved goodbye to eachother and after a while Anni discovered me waving and waved back. And of course I and Petri documented eachother with our cameras while the ferry left the pier. When we had left the harbour I went to the relaxing area to get some sleep during the 3 hours it took to go to the mainland. I have never seen such a relaxing area before. As you can see on the picture there were raised floors where you could sit or lie down (there were  kind of pillows to use if one needed). When I had arrived I walked to the train station to take the train towards Fukuoka. To go as cheap as possible I bought "Seishun 18 Kippu" with which I can ride all trains except express trains and shinkansen all day long. The regular trains take time however, and they don´t go all the way so I had to change trains 6 times or something. 

I found out what the deal with Hakata was by the way. It was Emma who made them call for me in the speakers. The reason to that was that the train she had choosen for me to ride turned out to cost about 5 times more than she had payed (a special extra ticket) and she was worried that he conductor on the train or the people on the station I arrived at would ask me to pay the rest. But I never had to pay so it was fine. They had missed checking me for the extra ticket or something I guess. Well I found out that when I tried to buy the same kind of ticket back. Only this time they asked me for the whole amount right away. So I bought the "Seishun 18 Kippu" instead. Well the high price figures. I wondered why it cost less to go the long distance from Hakata to Kushikino with nice seats than the short distance from Kurosaki to Hakata standing...

One thing you should be aware of if you go to Japan (especially if you have blonde hair and blue eyes) is that you will most probably be stared at and that people will want to talk to you, being an exotic foreigner. A lot of times they will speak in English even if you answer in Japanese. I was surprised that there had been no people that had been amazed by me and turned and stared in Kagoshima since there was a lot of that in Sapporo but on one of the first trains some high school students on their way home from school finally had saved up enough courage to start talking to me. They were apparenty amazed by my beautiful eyes. Well that´s what they said. And when switching to the next train a group of high school girls waved and said hello jittering. They were heading my way and wanted me to sit besides them. When their friends came by they proudly introduced me as their friend. Of course I was asked the standard questions about where I come from and if I have a girlfriend...

There were several pleasant things about the trip even though it took all day. For one thing the conductor on the first train was very helpful and because he went along on the following two trains he helped me to remember the stations to get off at there also. Later I had the pleasure to watch the sunset over sea from the train window. All in all it was a pretty pleasant day.