The Tourist Train Adventure

Husband blogged about Tourist Train day on Friday already.  I may have to put pictures on Facebook instead of here as all instructions show up in Japanese and neither H nor I can figure out how to change it.
We took three different tourist trains winding up the mountains behind Kagoshima.  The first two had wooden interiors but the seats were cushioned so it was comfortable.  We stopped at several stations which must have had historical value - where everyone got out and took pictures and bought snacks from the locals.  There are many announcements in two different languages, neither of which is English.  Meanwhile H & I are trying to figure out what is going on and just start following the crowds.  It was fun and I wasn't too scared of missing the train after the young female conductor announced in her sing song voice that it was time to board every time.  The last train was quite modern.  We didn't quite understand the significance as all kinds of people rushed around with fancy cameras taking pictures of the train.  And most of them didn't even get on the train.  Mostly it was the same people we had been with on the first two trains.  On the side of the train it said, :Design a Story Train
Kawasemi Yamasemi since 2017:.  At every stop and along the way people were waving madly at the train.  At some places there were lines of people with fancy cameras taking pictures of the train as we went by.  We were greeted by dancers in costumes at every stop as well as musicians and drummers.  Many times there were people landing out free gifts.  We got a small case commemorating the Kumamoto region, A small bottle of I think Saki, cookies, bags of oranges and lots of advertisements.  I finally asked the young conductor what was going on and she explained in her broken English that it was the Tran's birthday.  It was the maiden trip of the train!  What luck and what fun we had.  Many people tried to talk to us and only the children stared at us.  Not too many Americans in this part of Japan.  The Japanese do not have the "L" sound so no one there can say my name.  They liked H's name "Michael".

And the funny thing about the whole story is that when we made our reservations at the JR station in Tokyo, the girl who helped us did not seem to have any idea that such a tourist train system existed.  She had to research each train and figure out the time table from a big thick book of train schedules.  She ended up putting us in a reserved room on the last train.  It must have cost more than most train enthusiasts were willing to pay as we got the special seat on our JR rail pass!