The next morning was checkout. This is NO plan Japan, not, I have lots of hotels prebooked plan Japan, so I was rushed to make a new booking before having to checkout and though I felt it somewhere inside me, I didn’t know in that moment just how much of a mistake I had made. The owner of the place took me to the tourist center where I got the three day bus pass, which is very much worth it if you use the bus system more than 3 times going at least 10 stops each time. The buses however do not run the circumference of the island, which, because of my adventures with the monkey legions and their deer overseers among fallen trees I knew exactly why.
The new place I was to go edged that part of the island where the road became a jungle and was nearly impassable, and had reviews to match.
“Don’t expect a 7/11 or anything, it’s out in the middle of nowhere.”
“Not another building for miles.”
That kind of commentary.
Once I finally got off the bus with all my luggage, which was beginning to be a real pain, I always used to travel with nothing but a single school backpack but this time had a very large and medium size one, I humped into the forest following my GPS, which was often very inaccurate due to the phone being de-googled and thus more private. The hostel wasn’t clearly marked but by the sounds of the people inside I knew which building it was.
As I entered the man in charge asked me for my Passport, I gave it, he did a double take on me, then on my passport, then on the reservation, then back to me.
“Ohh, you’re not a women...”
“No. I’m not.” I said
“I’m sorry, but we have no room for you today. You must go.”
“Excuse me?” I said, sure it was a mistake, “But I made a reservation...”
“Yes, but not as a man, as a woman. As I said, you must go.”
“Refund?”
“No.”
“Choto Matte.” I said, meaning, wait a small moment, and I busted out my pc, since my phone had died, and looked over my reservation, sure as shit, I had accidentally chosen a female only bunk, as the female option is shown first when there is a split gender situation while using Booking.com, this was news to me, and terrible news at that.
Now the mind fucked retard inside all westerners would at this point say something about claiming to be a woman in order to remain at the hostel, I’m rather sure such a thing would not pass muster with the Japanese, and in any other circumstance I would pay to see the ensuing confrontation. This time however I was shit out of luck. I checked booking and either everything was booked or way back in town. I had to pray the man knew of another place.
“Is there another hostel nearby?”
“No. Nearest is far away.”
Far away and the bus id used to get there was the last one running that day, and a taxi would be expensive going all the way back to the docks, that was 35 miles away and night had long since fallen. Images of me humping through the jungle with monkeys trailing behind me for 5 hours came to mind, and I did not enjoy the thought one bit. I waited for the man to finish talking with his guests and approached him solemnly.
“Please sir, I need somewhere to stay. Do you have a bed, or a floor, anything I could use?” He narrowed his eyes at me as though weighing several things at once in his mind and then looked behind himself, turned back to me, looked back once more and blinked.
“You pay again?” I nodded.
“I have covid bed. Not supposed to use.” In my mind this sounded like the last thing a sane person would vigorously nod their heads to, but what was I to do?
“I’ll take it.” He nodded, took my money and lead me to the men’s dorm where there was a perfectly fine bunk bed sitting among the others. Apparently this man was either still under some restriction placed on him by the Government for the covid con job, or he really did like the idea of having less guests and thus less money, either way I took it eagerly then took a shower.
Once done with that I went to the main kitchen area where I got into a heavy and long conversation with a pair of socialist Frenchmen who simply could not come to terms with Anarchy in any way and continuously refused to accept that anyone could own anything, even themselves. It was at the tail end of this discussion that a large, powerful white man of young age entered, and we got to talking as well. He was American and very much religious; he invited me to go adventuring tomorrow, and I said it could be. Ohh and what an adventure it was!