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Part one. Kinūra Rinkai freight operations on the JR Taketoyo Line. Warning: reduce volume for intro music at the start. Will fix it on the next one.

Another late night, ended up at Namba on the Nankai so I thought I'd go on a hobby shop crawl. I started out by going on Thunderbird #3 to Kyoto so I could get a good seat on Super Kuroshio #5 to Wakayama and get a ride on a 381 as their days are numbered. The Meiji chocolate factory is shaped like a giant chocolate. I took a photo of my hotel at Noda from the train window, my room is circled in red. At Wakayama I took a ride on the Wakayama Electric Railway.

Time flies when you're having fun. From my hotel window I can look across the river to Hiroshima Station. I crossed over to the other side of Honshu today via the Geibi and Sanko Lines and returned by the San-in and Yamaguchi Lines. The first train was a five car set of kiha 40/47's but three were left behind at the end of the suburban area with the leading two car kiha 47 continuing to Miyoshi. From there a kiha 120 ran through to Gotsu on the San-in Main Line.

I've been here a week already. I did the short branch to Miyazaki Airport this morning before going to Shibushi at the end of the Nichinan Line, I think that gives me all Japan's airport branches. Note the 'Round the Kyushu' stickers covering the 787's old names.

I've settled into the Toyoko Inn Nanba for the night. I made the first change to my itinerary this morning when I decided to take the $5.40 bus to Coolangatta Airport instead of the $40 taxi. Took about 20 minutes from stepping off the plane to walking out of the JR ticket office with my railpass so I got into town an hour earlier than I planned. Got the Rapit, or as they say 'Rapito Beta' into Nanba for Y1390 one way, a downright bargin compared to the Airtrain in Brisbane. Tested my Gogo Japan GPS on the iPhone to find the hotel, seems to work ok. Roamimg not working on the phone, at least not in Osaka anyway, all indications are that it should, if I don't have any luck tomorrow I will call Telstra and give them what for. When I got off the plane I got a text from them welcoming me to global roaming so it works when they want it to. Off to Nagoya via the Kintetsu in the moning.

I just got word that the tour to Argentina I was going on in November has been cancelled because of the Patagonian Express being blown off the track. Time to start planning 'plan B', three weeks or so in Japan. At this stage I am thinking of spending time in Nagoya, western Honshu and Kyushu.