It's hard to believe that I leave the US for my home country in less than six hours. But I'm unsure whether I can say that I'm going "back" to Japan. Is this really a homecoming? Isn't this more like going to another country? One thing I c…

I missed the train to LA due to several delays that occurred in the route from NY to Chicago. Now I'm in a long line to talk with a passenger services person. The problem is that the substitute ticket automatically sent to me--surprisingly…

Yes, this is how Amtrak works: Delay. The train stopped at Albany-Rensselaer, for about two and half hours, and doesn't seem to depart for how long I don't know. I'm afraid that I might miss a return train to LA at Union Station, Chicago, …

The 3-hour bus trip from LA was done. What come next are a 4-hour train trip to Stockton, and then another bus trip to Sacramento which takes only (!) an hour. After that, I finally get connected to the Zephyr route, in which I spend more …

Thank all of you who came to the pub and waited me. I finally arrived at Union Station, LA. The first bus leaves here in two hours. Today was such an eventful day, of course, in a bad way. I hope this won't be a bad omen for this trip. Aft…

Hi all, I finally arrived at UCI campus and am now bringing boxes of books to the library. After this, I'll go to the pub, if you're still there. And special thanks go to my friend who accompanied me all the day! I returned all the books I…

On the very last day I leave CA, I finally made a huge mistake. I made a collision accident, hitting a car in front of me which hit another which hit another. Fortunately nobody got injured (as far as I remember, and I was actually slowing…

I'll be on campus or around Irvine on Wednesday and Thursday. And probably I'll leave for Union Station LA from the amtrak station in Irvine in the late evening of Thursday. Like the protagonist of Schubert's Winterreise, I came here as a …

I depart from LA for the coast-to-coast train trip in the early morning of Friday and come back to LA in the morning of Dec. 19th. I leave for Japan in the morning of Dec. 20th. I'll be on campus from around noon to 5 PM tomorrow and proba…