I’ve not been shy in previous posts about sharing my love for travel. Or riding on planes. I also love sitting on trains and buses. Basically anything that lets me sit, think and look out the window. Each day in Japan, we take a 1-hour bus ride to and from the Twin Ring Motegi race track. I awake in my itsy bitsy room and Hotel Sunshine, shower, get ready and head down to the local 7-Eleven and buy some coffee drinks and a weird pastry. Then I get on the bus.

Lots of coffee in Japan

Lots of coffee in Japan

A lot of people complain about the bus ride. I get that. It’s two hours out of a day when you’re already jet lagged and working. But I love it.

It presents an hour to think. To listen to music. To rest. To relax. To see Japan.

Utsunomiya to Motegi

Utsunomiya to Motegi

The ride takes you from a city through commercial areas, into residential and then rural, then to a racetrack. The countryside is beautiful and the surroundings foreign. The signage to me is illegible. It’s the epitome of being in a foreign land. As an anthropology student, I’ve always appreciated the differences in cultures, environments, languages and traditions. This bus ride reminds me of that. And I get to think.

Anyway, enough of me loving the world. Here’s that bus ride, condensed to 5 minutes-ish. Do I know my audience or what?