Escaping from reality - One day trip to Naoshima

Two weeks ago, I visited Naoshima island with four of my friends. We all got hired  in the same year but since we five got assigned to each different station in our area we've been having different irregular work shifts, so except when we have business training at the branch office or at headquarters on the same day, we usually have little chance to get together.

So this time it was some kind of miracle that we all got the same day off  without asking for the paid holidays. We were like, why not? Let's go somewhere together and escape from real life!

Naoshima is a small island of Kagawa district, and is located in the Seto inland sea. We first took shinkansen to Okayama, and after making a quick inspection of the huge station, we took the Marine Liner, which links Okayama and the Shikoku island. At Chayamachi station we switched to the Uno line, then after 20 mins train ride we arrived at Uno station.

JR Uno station

Here we had almost 1 hour til the next boat for Naoshima, so we had lunch at a Udon restaurant and it was very good! 

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

People's manner in the train

Despite being an employee at a railway company, there's nothing I hate more than riding trains in rush hours. Since I commute westbound it's not as crowded as the eastbound trains such as for big cities like Osaka and Kyoto, but still, being packed into an iron rectangular box for almost 1 hour is just unbearable. 

One more thing that bothers me on the train is people's bad manners. Some people talk so loud on the phone, ladies without eyebrows start putting on make-up without any hesitation, uni students are playing music really loudly so I can hear it clearly through their headphones. KY, abbreviated from Kuuki Yomenai, literally meaning people who can't read the air, is the word that got quite popular in Japan a few years ago. I think there are too many KY people in public places.

By the way, there is a group of bunch of high school students that I see every morning in my commute train. I'm not going to say which school they are from, but the school is one of the highest - ranked private school in my area(or maybe even in Japan) and a great many talented people have been produced from the school. I guess they must have made every effort to enter the school, they all do look so smart and intelligent. BUT, their manner in rush hour train is unacceptable. They occupy the space on the floor with their big heavy bags no matter how crowded it is, talk about difficult things with their textbooks really loudly . The worst thing is, they don't try to move a bit more inside to make a space for others who are crammed at the door. They don't even notice that they are blocking the way to the more vacant space. This really annoys me. If I were in uniform I would shout at them. 

Probably they will be big hopes with many talents in the future, but no matter how good they are at studying, lack of caring for other people won't make them humanly bigger. In public places, I think we need to be aware that we're always 'seen' by others, and need to be more sensitive about it. 

Kobe Venus Bridge