Kyushu rail trip: burgers, teddy bears and an ekiben with whale blubber

Astonishing variety, international cultures on Japan's southern-most island

Hey Siri, find me a hotel that’s close to the station

HAKATA - I’ve spent the last two weeks on trains or staying at hotels near them, and I’m starting to hear them in my sleep.

What was white noise is becoming an aural programming that instructs my body when to rest or rush. I drift away to the shinkansen’s whir; jerk awake at the door opening bell, then nod off to the monotone whine of the subway engine. rousing when my body feels the driver brake. I wake up and type to the metronomic click of limited express trains, the longest rides, workhorse routes six hours end-to-end that connect far off towns and prefectures.

I usually hate feeling like a passenger. I avoid guides, Tiktoks, and the top five vacation Instagrams because I’m stuck on the vain, romantic notion that I might walk an original path. But train travel forces you to concede that a railroad’s worth of people have been there before you.

The exact contours of my trip have been depicted in at least three popular anime I’m aware of. There’s even categories for my exact flavor of train nerd - I am an ekiben-tetsu (train bento nerd) with nascent nori-tetsu (train journey nerd) and eki-tetsu (station nerd) tendencies.

The rain catches me as I’m walking to my hotel in Hakata, as well as the first of several travel bugs. I lost an evening to recovery, but I’m oddly confident that I’ll regain it. Time moves differently in Japan. Punctual trains and buses let you schedule days in smaller increments. Cities, blocks and shops cluster to accommodate people on the move.

I can’t do much with twenty spare minutes in Los Angeles, but along the tracks in Japan, the smallest useful unit of time is about 3-5 minutes. Platform shops and vending machines fit a surprising variety of quick transactions in that time frame.

Station malls have meals and shopping for people who have about half an hour. Regional delicacies and ekiben often intersect with your walk to the next train. Promotional characters market local products, like Mican, the puppy made of mandarin oranges who wants you to remember that Ehime Prefecture is known for citrus.