Trip to Osaka 02

On the same floor as the entry wickets, there is a large waiting area with comfortable seats. In the back ground on the right you can see a coffee shop and on the left are electronic signs show arrival and departure times. Behind the signs are the restrooms and a room for changing diapers.

Since I was just about on time, only five minutes early, I went straight up to the platform and found the location where my car would be when my train arrived. I did not even have time to put my bag down before the train pulled in.

At Tokyo, I had to change trains. Actually the trains were from different companies. A while back, they privatized the Shinkansen, breaking it up into a number of separate companies. Each of the lines leaving Tokyo now belong to a different company.

The scenery on the trip is pleasant, but I was reading on my new Kindle so I did not take any pictures, except the following. Ever since I first came to Japan, I have been unable to take pictures of Mt Fuji, or fujisan as it is called in Japanese. The reason is that the weather changes according to whether or not I have a camera. If I leave my camera at home, it is always sunny and Mt Fuji is beautiful. If I have a camera, the mountain is always clouded over. This day was sort of in between. I could see the top, sort of, but the bottom was hidden behind a thick layer of clouds. Way back in 1970, I spend three day in a hotel at the base of the north side of Mt Fuji. During that time I did not see the mountain, even once. Somewhere I have some photos that show only the vaguest outline of the peak, and nothing else.
Before leaving Sendai, I had gone to the website for my hotel and downloaded a map, which I printed out and took with me. After a six hour trip, I finally got to Shin Osaka station, found the correct exit (no easy task) and walked the two blocks to the hotel. I entered and approached the front desk, telling the clerk that I had a reservation. After searching her computer, she crossed the room and searched a printout. Then she came over to me and said that there was no reservation. I said that someone else had made it for me. She asked if I knew the exact name of the hotel and I replied, "The Kishibe Station Hotel". She said that that was the problem. I was in the Osaka Station Hotel. The Kishibe Station Hotel belonged to the same group but was three stations away from there. I looked at my map again and sure enough, in spite of the fact that I had downloaded it from the Kishibe Station Hotel site, it was a map to the Osaka Station Hotel. I said thank you and left. After thinking a minute, I decided to go straight to the restaurant where the people from the conference were having a pre-conference supper. Since I was a bit early, I stopped in a coffee shop to wait for 6:30 when people were supposed to show up. It was a wonderful meal. The photo below shows the end of it, after everything was eaten. However, the story of the hotel is not quite over. After everything was finished, one of the organizers took myself and the other keynote speaker to our hotel. We checked in at about 11 p.m. On the front desk counter, I found business cards for the Kishibe Station Hotel and to my complete surprise the map on the back was the same map that I had downloaded - it showed how to get to the Osaka Station Hotel. I was never able to find anyone who could explain this. The clerk said did not think it was unusual because the two hotels are part of the same chain. Weird!.