Sept. 19th - Morioka's revenge

I shouldn't have talked bad about Morioka being a boring station. It brooded over its revenge and today was its chance to catch me and prove how awesome it is. Or at least make me feel bad. Today I started punctually in Akita at 10 am. But suddenly, short before the small station before Morioka the train got slower and stopped inbetween for short whiles. What was happening? Then there was a written message (they have displays in the cars), that the traffic between Tokyo and Aomori is suspended without an ETA and in both directions.

Luckily the internet worked and I could get the information that 2 Shinkansen had decoupled midflight (I told you that the Hayabusa and Komachi go from Tokyo to Morioka as one train and get decoupled there). Luckily nothing else happened and no derailment, collision etc took place and nobody was hurt. So the history of the Shinkansen running without any bodily harm to passengers since 1964 or so is unbroken. But of course they  wanted to determine the cause and stopped all trains on these tracks. When I finally arrived in Morioka 1 hour late there was no ETA yet but a few minutes later the news was published that trains will resume operation from 1pm. Now the problem is, that there is a HUGE throng of people in Morioka station as well as in the next one on the line, Sendai. Naturally I cannot reserve a seat under these circumstances and I really don't feel like standing for 5+ hours until Kyoto with two suitcases and a backback.

So I decided to get off the station and stay in Morioka one night and go to Kyoto tomorrow. The hotel in Kyoto is the first one I booked without free cancellation, since I never imagined being late with only Shinkansen to take, but well, everything happens for the first time and so I have to pay double for one night. Will maybe try to get a refund from JR East, but I am pretty sure this is hopeless. I found a free room in the Richmond hotel directly vis a vis the station and since it is too early to enter my room I left my luggage at the reception and are now sitting in kinda lounge with free coffee, tea and softdrinks and working places for notebooks. Unfortunately the plug has not enough room for my adapter and so I am runing on battery. 

If anything interesting happens today I will add it in the evening.