Our tour of NK finished, we arrived in Tianjin by night train. We went quickly in search of what would be the last hotel of our trip around the area of Tianjin station. I suppose we had become accustomed to having all accommodations and meals arranged for us whilst in NK, because we were finding the whole hotel search thing to be a real nuisance. And being the last hotel of the trip and all, we decided to dish out for a 3-star hotel with a double room and breakfast included.
北朝鮮の旅を終え、私たちは夜行列車で中国の天津に到着した。早速、天津駅近くのエリアで、この旅最後の宿探しを開始。北朝鮮ツアーではホテルもレストランも全てガイドさんが連れて行ってくれたので、とってもらくちんだったから、この宿探しがとても面倒くさく感じる…。世界旅行の最後の宿だったので、ちょっと奮発して朝食付きのダブルルーム一泊約3000円の快適な中級ホテルに泊まることに。
Tianjin Station/天津駅
For us, just having come back from NK, modern Tianjin was simply glittering. Under construction 5-star hotels abound and the frantic pace of planned development was in your face everywhere you looked. Bustling pedestrian shopping malls, foreign banks, Japanese department stores—all so convenient and so un-communist like.
天津は近代的な街で、北朝鮮から出たばかりの私たちの目にはまぶしい。建設中の高層ビルも多く、開発計画が急ピッチで進んでいる様子。歩行者天国になっているショッピング街はとても賑わっていて、外資系の銀行もあれば、日系デパートもあり、とても便利。共産主義国とは思えません。
Tianjin/天津の風景
Anyway, it was bright and early the next morning that we left the hotel by tax for Tianjin’s new passenger ferry terminal more than 50 km from the city centre. It was from here at 11am that we were to make for the final part of our journey by ferry to Kobe. This feeling was reinforced even more by the large number of Japanese passengers and the Japanese chatter here and there at the port. It was sinking in: finally, we were going home. Tiring of the trip, how long had we been waiting for this moment? But we were not the only backpackers; as a relatively cheap was to travel from China to Japan, our numbers, as well as that of non-Chinese, non-Japanese leisure travelers were quite high. In fact, we met and got along well with a Belgian couple who were making their way to Japan from Beijing.
翌日の早朝、ホテルからタクシーに乗って、天津市の中心から約50キロ離れた、天津新港の客船ターミナルへ向かった。ここから、朝11時発の神戸行きフェリー「燕京号」に乗船し、いよいよ日本へ帰国の途につく。乗客も日本人が多く、久々の日本語の響きに、心からほっとした。そして「とうとう日本に帰るんだな～」としみじみ実感。旅に疲れてきた頃から、この時をどんなに待ちわびていたことか。このフェリーは、中国から日本へ向かう交通手段としては安いので、バックパッカーの利用率もけっこう高いらしく、日本人・中国人以外にも旅行者がちらほら。私たちも、天津のターミナルで、北京から日本へ向かうというベルギー人カップルと出会い、仲良くなった。
Tianjin’s new ferry port/天津新港
So close/日本に出発だ～！
From the new port of Tianjin the ferry makes from the Shandong Peninsula to the Yellow Sea, then from Korea’s Cheju-do Island it continues through the Kanmon Straits (the strait separating Japan’s Honshu and Kyushu islands, until finally making it to the Seto Inland Sea. In total the voyage is 3 days and 2 nights. In the morning of the third day we passed under the Great Seto Bridge and the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge, and in the late afternoon arrived at the port of Kobe. An honest-to-goodness Japanese city after all this time. We had some time to take in the view of Kobe afforded by the ferry before going ashore and were just immersed in feelings of happiness in having made it back all in one piece.
天津新港を出港したフェリーは、まず山東半島沖から黄海に出て、その後済州島沖、関門海峡を経て、瀬戸内海へ。航海期間は2泊3日だった。そして、3日目の朝には瀬戸大橋と明石海峡大橋をくぐり、夕方近くになって神戸港に到着。本当に久々の日本の街。着岸までの時間、ずっと神戸の街を眺め、無事に日本へ戻ってくることが出来た喜びに浸っていた。
Great Seto Bridge/瀬戸大橋
From Kobe’s port terminal we made for New Kobe Station together with the Belgian couple to board the next Shinkansen for Tokyo. The understandable langue, the clean streets, the sheer number of Shinkansen trains running per day, the to-the-minute timeliness of same, the almost unbelievably high price of the ticket…reverse culture shock at this the penultimate stop on our trip. Next stop, the last stop: Tokyo.
神戸のポートターミナルからは、仲良くなったベルギー人カップルと一緒に新神戸駅へ向かい、東京行きの新幹線へ。日本語が通じることに感動し、街がきれいなことに感動し、新神戸駅では新幹線の本数の多さと時間の正確さに感動し、新幹線チケットの値段の高さにショックを受けたり・・・こんな逆カルチャーショックを受けつつ、私たちは、旅の本当の最終地点である、東京に向かったのでした。
Kobe!/神戸だ～！！
Let’s go already!/早く降りたいな・・・
