Day Nine - Part Three

So we made it back on the bus to Minakami. It was maybe about 6 o'clock by this point and we knew we had to find some accommodation. Minakami is a strange place and as the sun slowly went down, my spooked levels rose.

grave yards in people's backyards

abandoned buildings and

'keep off' bridges

We got seperated again, Ben wanted to walk across that broken bridge and I did not. We met up an hour later and I probably wasn't a happy camper at this point, but then I figured that we could of been tucked up in our beds back at the onsen if it wasn't for me! Minakami was a ghost town and yet we tried at least 4 hotels and each one told us there was no rooms available. Everything started to feel very un-Japanese! We were walking and walking, rejected and we started to think about having to take shelter in one of the abandoned hotel buildings for the night.

It was at this point that we made the sensible decision to go back to the train station and get a train to Takasaki, the capital and thus a much bigger place and more chances to find a room. We ran for the train, thinking in our heads it was the last one and terrified we would be stuck in Minakami for the night. Turns out the train didn't leave for 20 minutes, but hey, you build stuff up in your head don't you :P

It was on the train I realised I had left all my money and passport back on the bus. I started to think we'd been hit by the bear curse

This story does have a somewhat happy ending with Takasaki providing us with accommodation and I found out that I hadn't lost my money just my passport...

Will fee get her passport back?
Will fee be able to get back to Australia?
All these questions and more to be answered in the next Japan post :P