Thursday, Nov 21
- packing and getting ready to leave L. 😦
- local bus, then rush double stepping stairs (my heart oof) to catch local train, walk past neighborhood houses and rice small fields to bus terminal-
- and bus to kyoto is…. TWO and a half hours late! (surprise, apparently japan has late buses too lol) the positive is i have data (phew), and good practice convo with japanese lady next to me
late breakfast: remaining veg (napa, mushrooms, etc) mixed with leftover rice + egg, pumpkin miso soup 
got to bus station, found through the stairs on the right, had to walk past a dangling huge spider to slide the door open and made triple sure the web didn’t cover the door or handle or that i wouldn’t break the web while walking through it was a whole thing yep 
2.5 late bus, got my pretz out (aka late lunch/emergency snack), offered some to the lady sitting next to me who earlier confirmed that the bus that came earlier wasn’t my bus and my bus is just real late; thank god for having data therefore using my laptop 
last view of lake hamana on the way out of hamamatsu 
luckily bus stopped at rest area shortly after i got on: got houjicha + ‘large mackerel’ onigiri (both recent favs)- ft. the blanket i somehow got in the ‘exclusive’ seat even tho i bought the cheapest seat available i could find on any bus lol, was warm so good, since i was pretty cold from waiting 
arrived to kyoto later than expected, local bus terminal was real confusing, ended up taking the wrong bus getting bit annoyed, then walking 37m to the hotel. no music because earphones are low key breaking but saw a lot of the neighborhood along the way 
late night konbini dinner: タレyakitori, mochi icream, big cup noodle 
cup noodled while waiting for cousins (who are visiting) to arrive 🙂
at the bus station:
some bus came before the estimated arrival of mine, i said ‘no’ when the driver asked if i was coming on, later freaked out a lil when my bus did not arrive thinking the earlier one was mine, asked the lady next to me in japanese about it
ended up sharing pretz with her, neither of us had really eaten lunch, ‘just late breakfast’ ‘me too! i understand.’, gestured for her to take more, sharing about her two day (only!) trip to osaka (don’t rmb, probs) to see her frd, i shared my trip, ‘you’re seeing more of japan than a lot of japanese’ 😅, don’t rmb v clear but think she shared she had never been to tohoku region, never further than tokyo, told her ぜひ she should go! was great practice convo 🙂 she gave me a little you’re so 上手 compliment which even tho ik i’m not there, helped my ‘i can’t speak’ anxiety/hesitations a lil 💪
the convo had started with a question and grew with food (ie. pretz)- reminds me of the time when i made one of the best friends of my first backpacking trip, who i ended up road tripping a week with (joined with another friend and together we convinced her to join our route esp since she had the car lol), and it all started with offering her leftover pasta
food man, just so important and great and (can be, culturally or otherwise) such center of interactions
chloe eats 
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