Typhoon, and the trip to Yamaguchi

So the busiest month is almost over, and I finally got time to write about my summer break - It's been already about a few weeks, though.This month started with the coming of the powerful, yet slow-moving typhoon No.12 and it made the first week super super hectic. Almost all the local lines around my area were delayed or cancelled due to the rise of the river as a result of the heavy rainfall, and I was besieged by hundreds of people trying to take a shinkansen instead, the only public transportation which was running on schedule at that time.I can't describe how chaotic my office was - it was just like one scene of battle. I didn't even know that so many people were living in this peaceful town. Some angry people were blaming other staffs for the delay, which even made me wonder why people dared to go out on such a day, in spite of the fact that the weather forecast had been repeatedly warning that the typhoon would shut down many train lines and transportation services.Why can't people just stay at home? Of course, I know I should NEVER say such a thing, though. :-p

 Anyway, I got only 4 days off this summer. It kinda made me sad. I mean, work is okay, but vacation is always better than work for all of you, right? I wish I could go back in my uni days, when the summer break was for almost 2 months!
On the second day of my summer break, my family(except my father - he had a big golf competition on that day and couldn't join us) and I went on a one-day Shinkansen(Japanese limited express) trip to Yamaguchi. Luckily I still had some fare discounts left for my family that is available until the end of the year, so we were able to go there at a low price.
We left home at 6am and took the first train to Himeji station. I was so excited about getting on the new shinkansen Sakura, as well as the road trip in Yamaguchi. Sakura has been so popular since its service started, and a lot of people come to my window, trying to make a reservation for their seats like every day, but it's always already fully reserved even though it's one week before. It was 10 days before the trip when we reserved our seats this time, and we managed to get 3 of the last 8 seats left at that time - we were so lucky!

The new shinkansen Sakura we took, bound for Kagoshima-Chūō

JR 1-day Pass in Kansai : 秋の関西１デイパス Aki- no Kansai One-day Pass

To people who love traveling in Kansai area by train, good news!

Some of you might already know, but we have a seasonal discount ticket for 1 day trip with JR local trains  now available. You can take JR local trains(including local rapid trains), some of Keihan /Nankai/ Ohmi trains as many times as you want.

Fare: ￥2,900 (Child: ￥1,500)
- Valid for only one day
- Available until Nov. 30th, 2011
- Shikansen is not available with this ticket(You need to purchase another fare ticket and a shinkansen ticket to take a shinkansen)
- Available from ticket offices(Midori-no Madoguchi) at any JR stations and Ohmi railway stations within the area shown bellow:

It has been the best selling ticket at my station at the moment. Why don't you go out and enjoy this beautiful autumn season in Kansai? :)

Alexander Gavrylyuk - Wedding March (Piano)

This gave me goosebumps and suddenly made me want to get married. Really amazing.Just watch it.
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Okayama Korakuen Lightup night 2011

Some photos of this summer that I haven't posted yet on this blog.

Okayama Castle

New people, New place, and New life

Hello friends,

If you have been following my blog I am sorry for the super slow updates. During the past 4 months that I didn't update my blog,  I had so many events and changes that would be a very important step in my life. I graduated from my uni that I went to for 4 years at the end of March, and since April 1st I've been working with JR(West Japan Railway company). If you are living in or have traveled in Japan, especially in the west area of the mainland, you probably have used trains or shinkansen(bullet trains) which belong to my company.

The new Kyusyu Shinkansen which  connects mainland and the southern island

I'm currently working at Midori- no Madoguchi, the ticket reservation office in the station which is about 40 mins away from home by train. My daily work is mostly selling tickets and making seat reservations for shinkansen(since my station is one of the stations where some shinkansens also stop). Making some documents and posters to display in the concourse is also my work. Sometimes we go on a business trip to the branch office and to the headquarter in Osaka, which is quite fun.
 You may think selling tickets is just an easy & simple task (because I had thought so until I started working here), but it's NOT. It's more like a brain work than I expected. Especially when the customer is going to a place which is quite far away or to the places I don't even know whereabouts, I need to be very very careful not to make wrong tickets, referring to the map of all railways in Japan, because those routes and tickets are usually going to be very complicated ones. Also, we have loads of kinds of tickets and I need to know well about each of them. I spend most of the time at the window just sitting in front of the computer, but when I get back home I'm so exhausted I just fall dead into my bed.

Midori - no Madoguchi, the JR ticket office

 (This picture is not from my station )

 But working itself is quite okay for me so far.  My bosses and colleagues are all nice, they still often hold welcome parties for us 5 freshers even though it's been almost 3 months since we were assigned to my current station.
Of course I still sometimes make some mistakes, and there are some customers who love giving complaints to us and claiming unreasonable things, but I'm getting used to handling them (and I'm not a person who gets down by such small things =] ). Except those few customers, I think people in this city are quite nice and I really enjoy meeting lots of people who use our service at the start and the end the day. Though the city is not that big and there's no place for sightseeing, foreigners often come to my window like every day, and I have many chances to speak English.

The remodeled Osaka station, aka Osaka Station City

 Seeing people spreading out to everywhere around Japan (or to the world ) from our station every day is what I love the most at work. It makes me want to travel more all over Japan, as well as overseas. I'm planning to make some railway trips with my friends when we get used to work(maybe next month) using the discount, though I'm still just too busy to make it happen at the moment.
 I'm still on the way of training, and sometimes I feel it's tough to have many things I need to learn, but I'm proud of my work at the station which supports many people's daily lives.Well, I'll just do my best. Wish me luck! ;-)