Another early start, as the remainder of us; Kevin, Daniel, Nathan, Charlie and myself woke probably at like 5:45 to head off to Okachimachi Station. From there we took a train to Tokyo station, where we took the Yamanote or Keihin-Tohoku Line train to Tokyo station, where we grabbed some Breakfast and lined up on the platform for a Hikari Shinkansen to Nagoya. Once the five of us hopped on, we settled in and most likely slept for the long Shinkansen ride to Nagoya. For almost everyone, it was the first time on a Bullet Train and it’s pretty crazy how smooth and quiet it is considering its going at 300kmph.
We got to Nagoya and changed for the Wide View Shinano train to Nakatsugawa, which was about an hour train ride through the countryside. 
Here we had organized another Toyota Rent-a-car but this time was a tiny little Corolla instead of a fat as Tarago. After hai, umming and ahhing my way through the Japanese guy explaining how I shouldn’t crash the car etc etc, we headed off to Magome. Before we got there, we passed another Komeda’s Coffee so we stopped their briefly for a bit of breakfast and a little hit of caffiene so the driver dun fall asleep. The GPS had set us a route that had us driving along the sides of a few curvy hills without any fences on the sides, which was pretty scary in all honesty. But it did make for some good photo opportunities however.
Anyways, we finally got to Magome with the random Japanese Radio still playing, so we hopped out and used the map to work out where to go, and where everyone else was going.
We went up the hill that was lined with many a old shops selling souvenirs and random rice balls and stuff, and eventually got to the top after everyone had to go toilet, and we bought drinks etc.
Once we got to the top, I took a photo of some random Canto dudes family, and vice versa.
fuark im massif. (Timstar voice).
Anyways, we headed all the way back down the hill and somehow got the Bluetooth audio working. So we did what a bunch of lads from Australia would do best. Turn those damn windows down, play loud music and be a nuisance. We drove along the road you see in the picture towards the other town on the old Nakasendo from Kyoto-Tokyo where people would walk during the Edo period, and parked next to a creek where Charlie was always keen for a ‘quick dip’.
After parking there, we headed up another hill towards Tsumago, where he had another little walk around, understanding nothing cause we didn’t know Japanese and took the usual touristy photos.
Also note how the people are wearing like jeans, and shirts etc. Meanwhile the rest of us were wearing Tees, shorts and singlets. Awks. Love standing out like a sore thumb.
We drove back to Nakatsugawa station after an awkward encounter filling up petrol, where apparently they fill it up for you, and I had no bloody idea what they were saying. We gave the car back to the Toyota, and although the timetable said we had another 45 minutes for the train or so, there was one just sitting right there so we just mother-fkn legged it. We had to try find the non-reserved seats using Daniel’s chinese knowledge, then had to sit seperately because the train was pretty crowded. Dan and I found two free seats, so we both moved up there for the ride back to Nagoya.
Once we got to Nagoya, we took a subway to Osu-Kannon station where we saw the Temple (but didn’t go inside), walked through the shopping district which felt pretty hipster compared to the rest of Japan, even drawing comparisons to Akihabara in Tokyo. There was some random ass band playing there too in the swoltering heat. We got some hyphy chicken that was next to the temple. which was literally deep fried chicken with your choice of like ordinary sauces.
This whole time, we were sweaty, hot and hungry so we took the train to Sakae station and walked around Oasis 21 looking for food after we were taken to almost see an art museum but didn’t end up going there.
We just ended up going to a Lotte (some random burger store) after much debate, which wasn’t too good tbh. We took the train back to Nagoya and I just ended up getting a Tokaido Shinkansen Bento for the train back to Tokyo.
Once we got to Tokyo, we had to pick up our tickets for the next few days through the JR East Ticket office which I had booked online prior to leaving Australia. However, we had only left like 15 minutes time between arriving at Tokyo and the closing of the JR East office. I thought we could swap at any JR office, we so got there and got told to go to the JR East one, so we had like 10 mins before they closed so legged it through the whole station and got there with like two minutes to spare, sweating like the unhealthy Australian pigs we are. But we got our tickets so sa’ll good I guess.
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