Japan 2012: Back Home...

Friday, 16 November 2012

It seemed one moment I was pondering whether sleep was actually possible and the next I was having my arm gently shaken with inquiries about coffee and breakfast.

Three-thirty in the morning when you're passing over New Guinea mightn't be the optimal time for breakfast, but when it's on offer and you're not sure about the arrangements that were going to come into play later you tend to accept, and once you have, it's over to the iPad for a bit of a read.

What I should have done was reach for the iPod and a soothing soundtrack as well and some of what followed might have been averted.

As it was, I didn't, remaining blissfully unaware of the fact that I was sitting on the item in question and the little package holding the earbuds had wedged itself into the crack between the seat and its upright brother.

I'm not sure why I didn't go for that, possibly because deep down I knew I wouldn't have long before the Seat-belts sign came up along with the request to turn off the electronic devices, but as far as I was concerned the iPod was safely stowed in Madam's hand luggage (the Little Red Travelling bag) rather than my backpack, which was lurking overhead in the locker.

It was when we stood up to disembark that a question regarding the location of the device brought a No, and a subsequent investigation revealed where it was. I don't know why I didn't check for the ear buds as well, but there you go. I'm not sure how much of what followed could have been avoided if I had, but there you go.

We'd disembarked and were heading towards Immigration when the penny dropped, and since we weren't allowed to head back I had to wait for the cabin crew to finish doing their thing after a message was passed back. As it turned out the search was successful, but I didn't realize that was the case until they'd walked past and I doubled back to the checkpoint where I found the item in question. In any case, that got us to Immigration where I discovered that incoming couples with one Australian passport holder could go through the same checkpoint, which would have been handy, and would have delivered us to the head of the Customs queue if the iPod incident hadn't occurred.

I was fairly flustered by the whole string of events to date, and when the bloke from Customs scrutinized the relevant slips and asked whether we were carrying foodstuffs, I reflexively answered that we weren't, when I should have said I wasn't. Madam, of course, was, and pointed out that she did, and we were motioned over to the having your bags inspected queue.

Again, I don't know what difference it would have made, because when filling out the Customs slip I ticked the box about having been out in the countryside over the preceding week, which we had been. Madam hadn't, so regardless of my answer about the foodstuffs we might have ended up in the queue anyway.

Without the earbud bit, of course, we would have been at the top of the queue, so when the phone rang and the Ukulele Lady asked whether we were through Immigration, the response was that we were in a queue and weren't sure how long we'd be there because there were a few people in front of us and no one seemed to be in a hurry.

Eventually, however, we got the all clear and made our way to the front of the building, where a lengthy wait ensued. Under other circumstances, when the call came we'd have been just about through the reentry process and would probably have been told the Ukulele Lady would be right over.


Still, it was early in the morning, so when Ukulele Lady and Sushi Chef Husband arrived in two cars and offered to show us the quickest way out of town there wasn't a great deal of traffic about, and we made our way onto the Bruce Highway without too much difficulty.

And here's where the little things started to add up.

The first issue involved the sunglasses that are de rigeur when driving in bright sunlight. They were in Madam's luggage, and we needed to pull over somewhere so they could be retrieved. That took place in a rest area on the banks of the Mulgrave, where we could also have had a toilet break, but, as in so many other instances through the course of the morning the penny refused to drop.

As we neared Innisfail two things were obvious.

First, we needed something more substantial than croissants and coffee for breakfast. Fine. On the other side of Innisfail there's a rather good bakery at Mourilyan where the pies are excellent.

Second, it was obvious that Madam needed to take a break and catch up on some sleep. She's remarked on the difference between Economy and Business the night before while we'd been waiting for dinner, remarking that she'd probably already be asleep if we were sitting further back. Of course, had we been sitting further back we wouldn't have had the three-thirty wake up call.

Still, we made it to the Bakery, and when an inquiry about rest areas nearby proved unsuccessful I asked about Etty Bay, which produced an answer along the lines of yes, you could go there. Lovely spot.

And it was. Unfortunately it's a lovely spot without toilet facilities, so once we'd demolished breakfast there was an issue that needed to be addressed.We needed sleep, but someone needed the facilities, and until that came the sleep bit wasn't going to happen.

What did come, however, was a cassowary, something that produced a bit of an adrenaline rush while the attempt to obtain photographic evidence was made.

We'd been told Etty Bay was a pretty sure bet when it came to cassowary sightings on the Cooktown trip earlier in the year, and here, in the course of a twenty-minute stay, was the verification.

In any case we were heading back towards the Highway shortly thereafter, and the Sugar Museum at Mourilyan delivered the comfort stop, so we headed off in search of rest areas.

There aren't any between Mourilyan and Tully, but I figured we'd be able to turn off there and find a shady spot. One possibly exists, but it wasn't anywhere we looked.


Back onto the highway…

There was, however, a rest area midway between Tully and Cardwell, and an hour's stop there was a significant battery recharger.

After that, we passed through Cardwell, where extensive post-Yasi roadwork nudged stopping into the too hard basket, and over the Cardwell Range, where we ran through the massive realignment of the highway very smoothly and on to Ingham.

By this point I was thinking we'd be making our way home rest area by rest area, but Madam wasn't needing a break at Francis Creek, so we continued on. By the time we'd reached Rollingstone she reckoned she did, but local knowledge from Hughesy's teenage years meant I could point us to Bluewater, where the shady spot was found and a good hour's break ensued.

We could, I guess, have passed through Townsville, stopping to pick up a resupply of cat tucker at The Domain, but opted instead to turn off at Shaw's Road and take the Ring Road, which immediately became the default option when a stop in Townsville on the way to or from points further north wasn't required.

From there, two and a bit hours got us safely to Bowen, where we weren't too concerned by the presence of two out of three furry felines since the other was fond of nearby drains and would probably be back around supper time.

That theory was shot down in flames shortly thereafter when the neighbour with whom we share the cat quotient and had been feeding them while we were away arrived to let us know that TeeTee was missing, had been for close to a fortnight, and had apparently (aural evidence only, nothing physical) been involved in a disagreement with a wandering dog.

And, after an interval of more than a month there's no sign of him, so we presume the worst…

Japan 2010: Kobe > Kansai International

Thursday, 15 November 2012

And so we come to the end of the overseas leg this particular time around.

With the sightseeing over, and the shopping exclusively in Madam's court, there wasn't great deal for Hughesy to do apart from transform himself into a beast of burden once the morning's Viking breakfast had been devoured.

There wasn't a great deal of hurry in that department since the smorgasbord stays open until, eleven, so it was after a quarter to nine when we made our way downstairs.

We'd stayed at the Oriental on the first night of the first trip, and I remember the Viking that time around with considerable affection. This time around the spread seemed smaller, though still quite adequate and I am, after all, trying to cut down on the dietary intake. The verdict of the bathroom scales once we get home isn't something I'm looking forward to.

The Viking, however, offers traps for young, and even not so young, players.

I started lining up for a freshly made omelette and found that what I had supposed to be fairly finely chopped mushrooms was, in fact, finely chopped octopus. Not bad, but not quite the taste I had in mind.

From there it was back upstairs to pack, and the only remaining items on the agenda came in the form of a spell in the shops at Sannomiya, a train transfer to the dormitory suburb where The Mother lives, another run through the shops after arriving there and the ritual restoring of the various goods and chattels after we'd been reunited with the Black Monster and Madam's Blue Portmanteau.

The only excitement along the way, at least from where I was sitting, came when I was redirected from my position inside the shopping centre, poised and waiting for one of the people occupying the public seating to move and create space for a large hairy foreigner minding two backpacks, the Little Red Travelling Bag and Madam's camera bag.

There was, I was informed, much more seating available outside.

And there was, though there was also the threat of drizzle, a rather nippy wind. Still, I managed to get a bit more travelogue tapping out of the way, a process that continued once the luggage had been sorted.

The result, at 3:29, with nothing to do but lock the Black Monster while we wait for the Socialist Taxi to whiz us over to Kansai International, is that the Japanese territorial trip is almost, as I tap this out, to all intents and purposes, over.

Unsurprisingly, apart from a rather spectacular sunset, the trip to the airport proved unexciting, apart from the interest provoked when a driver attempts to direct a minibus into back streets where it's obviously going to be a tight squeeze. The check in process ran as smoothly as you'd want it to, passing through Immigration on the way out was a no paperwork breeze and half an hour before boarding the head count in the relevant Departure Lounge ran to less than two dozen.

Or more if you count the cabin crew.

Predictably, the place filled up substantially in the final bit, but still, once we were aboard there was an abundance of vacant space.

After the excitement associated with Business Class on the way over, the return leg was, to put it bluntly, a bit of a disappointment, not that there was ever any likelihood of substantial wow factors on an overnight leg.

Before we were seated and fastening the seat belts there was a little change of routine that would have implications about eight hours later when it came time to disembark.

I’m the first to admit I’m a creature of habit, and I like to get myself organized so I know where everything is. I was planning to do a bit of reading and tapping on the iPad while we waited for dinner, and once the seat-belts sign was off I’d be looking to enjoy a soundtrack on the iPad until it was night night time.

With that in mind I was going to stow the backpack under the seat in front, but someone made the helpful suggestion that I stow the thing in the overhead locker after removing the things I wanted. She’d stow anything that needed to be stowed in her bag, which was going under the seat.

The result of the suggestion was that I removed Pad, Pod and earbuds from the backpack and assumed they’d all gone into the Little Red Travelling Bag. As it turned out I didn’t get around to needing the iPod or the ear buds, and that was the cause of a little confusion after we landed.

In the meantime, having seated ourselves, I took a squiz at the menu and accompanying wine list, not planning on a hefty session, but interested to see what was on offer this time around.

The wine options on the way over had me slavering in the manner of Pavlov’s dogs, but the return leg was, to put it bluntly, disappointing. There was a Tempus Two Chardonnay, which looked like a reasonable match for the sweet and sour on the menu, but that, as far as Hughesy was concerned, was it.

Actually, what with the relative lateness and all, a single glass of wine was quite enough, thank you, but it would have been nice to be left on the horns of a vinous dilemma once I’d checked the Halliday Companion app on the iPad. The Chardonnay was the only item out of four that rated a 90 or better, so the Chardonnay would have to d, wouldn’t it?

And the sweet and sour, thanks to the presence of pineapple was much more familiar than the previous night’s version, which was, by the way, a far better option...

In any case it wasn’t that long after dinner that I found myself in a darkened cabin pondering how much sleep would be possible under the prevailing circumstances.

Japan 2012: Kyoto > Kobe

Wednesday, 14 November 2012

Which is where the tying up loose ends and preparing for the return trip kicks in, folks, though there was one major long term issue that needed to be addressed before we departed from Kyoto.

It wouldn't have been an issue if we hadn't been able to access Wi Fi, but news that the pre-sale for dates on the March 2013 Neil Young with Crazy Horse tour of Australia and New Zealand started at noon local time in the various states had Hughesy doing a quick bit of calculating. Japan is an hour behind Eastern Standard Time, and two behind Sydney with Daylight Saving Time factored in, so that meant both looked doable provided nothing went wrong with the connection.

More importantly, with Sydney going on sale first the suggestion that I might see two shows on the tour wasn't immediately torpedoed. Neil tends not to vary the set-lists much once he starts a tour, so things mightn't vary much from show to show, but it is Neil, and it is the Horse, and I haven't had the benefit of seeing the man in any format before. Madam had a bit of end of trip running around to do while I chased up that show, so she headed off, leaving me in the lobby checking email and tapping out travelogue details.

Five to ten saw me logging in to the pre sale website and after a bit of toing and froing by ten past I had a seat for the Sydney show, which meant I had time, once the Supervisor returned, to head upstairs, gather up the goods and chattels while she completed the checking out procedure, after which I settled back to catch Brisbane, which was, predictably, being sold through a different agency and that was a fact that Hughesy, equally predictably failed to notice.

A bit more subsequent toing and froing once I twigged to the change produced a seat, and though it mightn't have been the best you might have hoped for I reckoned I'd done pretty well, particularly when you consider that I could well have been away from Wi Fi capabilities when the pre sale started and would probably have either missed out completely or ended up sitting way up in the nose bleeds.

Once that mission had been accomplished it was time to head off to Kobe. There had been a couple of options kicked around earlier in the morning, but the most straightforward involved waging a couple of blocks to the subway station, followed by a two-station transfer to JR Kyoto and a train that would land us at Kobe's Sannomiya without the need to transfer trains in Osaka.

We could have said Thank you to Hankyu, but that would have in involved a transfer somewhere like Umeda, and no guarantee of seats on either leg.

Once we reached the relevant platform in Kyoto, of course, there were already queues formed for the next train, which wasn't that far away, so while we both found seats Madam was over there and Hughesy was perched on half a seat beside the carriage door.

Those matters resolved themselves just outside Osaka when the other seat over there became vacant, and by the time we'd left Umeda the population had thinned considerably, which was a big help when it came to retrieving the Little Red Travelling Bag and Madam's backpack from the overhead luggage racks as the train slowed into Sannomiya.

From there it was a short stroll to the bus terminal to catch the free shuttle that delivers customers to and from the Okura and the Meriken Park Oriental, which was our destination this time around.

It was, of course, far too early to check in, but once the luggage had been consigned to the cloak room we were free to set off on the first leg of the final shopping odyssey, though the question of lunch needed to be resolved first.


On the other side of the inlet from Meriken Park there's a complex proudly labelled Mosaic, which features a number of eating options and we ended upstairs at an Italian place, deceived by the weather conditions into taking a window side position which meant that by the time the meals arrived the cloud cover had seen fit to relocate and we were sitting in fairly strong sunlight. That's a bit of an issue when you've rugged up for early winter, but there was nothing that could be done about it.

A Primitivo Novello mightn't have been the optimum match for a pasta dish with salmon and mushrooms, but each of them worked in their own way without actually managing to converge. The pasta dish had its share of interest in the shape and variety of mushrooms in the sauce, and the wine was easy to drink and flavours one in a style that was obviously meant to be food friendly though not necessarily with this particular dish.

It probably didn't work that well with Madam 's fish based pasta sauce either, but there were other issues at play in that department and a couple of things, starting with a position away from direct sunlight, would have improved matters on the other side of the table considerably.

The sauce, in terms of aroma, reminded me of my favorite anchovy, tomato and garlic sauce, though the chunks of aromatic fish were visible, rather than dissolved into the rest of the sauce.

From there the next step involved picking up Hughesy's tailor made with a focal length of 85 centimetres computer glasses, which worked quite brilliantly, and then setting out on the process of acquiring stuff Madam needs to take back with her, either as presents for friends and acquaintances or for her own consumption back at base.

Heading back to Meriken Park to check in broke up that process, and we had a couple of hours' break between installments, largely spent catching up on email and travelogue tapping once certain connectivity issues had been ironed out.

By six it was time to head out on Stage Two of the Shopping Odyssey, which took us back to Sannomiya and into the nearby shopping arcades and department stores in search of Japanese language magazines, green tea and other comestibles.

In the age of the internet English might, in effect, be the world language, but there's no sign of that phenomenon in your average Japanese book shop. Sure, there's a section of titles in English in places like Kinokuniya, but in the places we visited in search of magazines that aren't exactly easy to find there might have been the odd semi-familiar title but everything under the English masthead was solidly Japanese.

And I couldn't help thinking there wouldn't have been much correlation of content between the seemingly girl-oriented Oz magazine and the underground magazine of the same title that attracted more than its share of attention in the early seventies.

From there it was on to the very impressive food section at Daimaru, where Madam, as we entered, jokingly remarked that they'd be conducting a wine tasting downstairs.

At least I thought she was joking.

We were in the green tea section with what appeared to be the wine section barricaded off behind a temporary facade, so that, I thought, was it for the tasting department, but after a visit to the cookie counter I was steered towards another discrete wine display where, yes, there were tasting options available.


There were red and white versions of Burgundy, the red very obviously Pinot Noir and the white equally obviously Chardonnay, as well as a couple of Italian styles. Much of what had Ben available for sampling was gone since it was late on the second last day of the promotion, but the Frascati and Trebbiano I tried would both have been quite acceptable, with the Frascati being, to borrow a phrase I picked up at Rockford, the sort of wine that invites itself to lunch. I left with a bottle of the Pinot Noir as we left in search of dinner in Chinatown.

We'd walked down the particular street on the evening of our first full day of this trip without surrendering to the shills of the spruikers outside the various establishments then, largely because we were elsewhere bound as far severing meals were concerned, and we passed most of them by again this time around because, basically, neither of us was particularly hungry.

A decision, however, had to be made, and after repeated What do you eel like eatings from Madam we settled on a place where the spruiker (or, in this case, not that I want to appear sexist the spruikess) was marginally less pushy than her neighboring confreres. I settled for a sweet and sour pork and a pitcher of draught beer, which was just the right quantity and combination as far as I was concerned, while Madam opted for a small platter of dumplings that were rather tasty.

The sweet and sour, by the way, bore scant resemblance to the Australian version, largely duets a total absence of pineapple. It made for a rather welcome change.

Outside, making our way back to Sannomiya it was obvious winter had set in, with December weather coming a good three weeks early. The conditions forced us into the underground maze that sits under most Japanese transit centers, taking us through passages lined with eating options and other small businesses and delivering us to the bus station just in time to see the shuttle bus heading off.

It wasn't that much of a disaster, but the time we'd spent going up and down stairs was probably the difference between catching the bus and waiting twenty minutes for the next one.

Back at base, of course, Hughesy was ready for bed, while Madam indulged in what was more than likely the last opportunity to have a lengthy Japanese style bath this time around.

Japan 2012: Kyoto

Tuesday, 13 November 2012

Anyone familiar with the Japanese mindset where sites of national significance and coloured leaves are concerned would know it's a good idea to get in early before the crowds start to arrive, and given the fact that the two sites Madam had pencilled in for our only full day in Kyoto lay around nine and a half kilometres from the CBD it should come as no surprise to learn that we were queuing for the Number 8 bus outside Karasuma Station well before the scheduled 7:22 departure.

The crowds were going to increase as the day went on, and it seemed logical to assume a fair swag of them would be travelling out on later services on the same route.

The journey out through the regulation urban landscape was mostly uneventful, though it took a while to pass through a particularly notorious intersection, and shortly thereafter we were winding our way up into the foothills, alighting from the bus around 8:15 and turning our thoughts towards the morning's route march.

Madam has had plenty of time to figure out the paths down which Hughesy's mind is likely to wander, so having landed close to the temple at Jingo-ji, a venue that would, I was told, involve an unspecified degree of climbing, the first thing on her agenda was to determine whether a walk to the other option (Kozan-ji) was doable.

The maps and other data available on the ground weren't particularly helpful as far as administrative details like distances were concerned, so she went for the nearest available human source, a middle-aged woman, obviously a local, sweeping up leaves.

No problem, she was told. It's a fifteen minute walk. At least, that's the version I was given. Since the conversation was in Japanese she could have decided to recast any information that had been given and I would have been none the wiser.

But a fifteen minute walk certainly seemed doable, and while there were concerns expressed about the state of Hughesy's feet I was determined to soldier on and cover whatever distance was required. It was, after all, the last bit of sightseeing for the trip.

As we set out along a relatively deserted back road that showed signs of imminent crowds, it was a pleasant and surprisingly tranquil stroll through autumn tones across a river valley and up and down the slopes on either side of the stream. Eight-thirty was, it seemed, a trifle early for the people who operated the various sightseer-oriented businesses along the way to be starting the day's business, but there were signs along the way that they'd be starting to set up in the not too distant future.

As I walked, in between stopping to enjoy the views while someone lagged along behind capturing the interplay between light and leaves, I meditated on something approximating Zen and the art of walking with sore feet.

If you walk long enough, I figured, you're going to end up with sore feet. It's part of the deal, and the more you think about your feet, the worse they'll feel, particularly in situations where you can use them as an excuse to get out of walking any further.

So the answer is to avoid thinking about the feet at all. Focus on the walk, the act of walking and the scenery you're walking through.

So I did, and a thoroughly enjoyable time was had up to the time when the riverside back road joined the main road just before Kozan-ji. That meant a few minutes' careful treading along the side of the road while the traffic moved past within army's length.

That sort of thing had worried me four and a half years ago when I'd been heading to and from the hotel in Hakone, but after two weeks of negotiating backstreets where the traffic comes and goes this time around I merely exercised a bit of caution and waited for a break in the traffic flow if it looked like things were getting a little too close for comfort.

In any case it was only a couple of hundred metres before we hit the entrance to Kozan-ji, another of those uphill tree-lined avenues completely bereft of vehicular traffic. I'd just settled back into Zen and the art of walking when a god almighty racket from over on my right cut into the tranquility.

A bus full of elderly Japanese sightseers had pulled into the car park and was busily disgorging its load. Fortunately, I thought, this would mean they'd have to go down to the entrance we'd used to get us off the road, so I could maintain a comfortable degree of separation between myself and the racket.

Of course, it didn't work out that way. I rounded a curve that brought me within sight of the booth where you pay your ¥500 admission fee, looked to my right and there they were, heading right towards the same point along a converging track.

I was pretty quick about paying the admission fee once Madam had caught up, and was pretty smart about getting comfortably ahead of the chattering mass.

The walk up to the temple complex itself, once they'd been left behind, was a pleasant ramble, and once I got there and we were comfortably removed from the clamouring crowd we were right into the full Zen monks in the forest ambience, hardly surprising since the mountains around Togano, which are justly famous for their autumn foliage, have a long tradition of mountain asceticism, and there have been many small temples among the ancient cedar and maple trees in the back woods.

Temples in the area are said to date back to imperial orders issued by Emperor Kōnin in 774, but Kōzan-ji (formally Toganōsan Kōsan-ji) was officially founded by scholar and monk Myōe (1173 – 1232) who served at nearby Jingo-ji before he was granted the land to construct a temple by Emperor Go-Toba in 1206.

There may already have been a temple on the site with Myōe doing a restoration job, but there's a diagram housed at Jingo-ji drawn in 1230, showing the thirteenth century layout of the temple, which consisted of a large gate, a main hall, a three-storied pagoda, halls dedicated to Amitabha and Lohan, a bell tower, a scripture hall (originally the residence of a member of the Imperial family), and a Shinto shrine.

Structures on the site have been destroyed numerous times by fire and war and the oldest buildings standing today is the scripture hall, now known as Sekisui-in and Myōe's former residence, two of the few remaining examples of Kamakura Era architecture, with a roof of thatch and shingles.

The grounds also hold the oldest tea field in Japan, planted by Myoe with seeds brought from China by the Zen priest Eisai. Tea helped monks stay awake during late-night meditation.

Kōzan-ji is home to numerous national treasures and important cultural properties though most of them of them are currently on loan to museums in Kyoto and Tokyo. The Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga (The Scroll of Frolicking Animals and Humans), a set of four picture scrolls of ink paintings from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, sometimes described as Japan's first comic, that takes the mickey out of human foibles by showing frogs, monkeys, birds, and rabbits engaged in worldly pursuits. The original is currently housed in Tokyo National Museum but apparently there are precise replicas on display on site. I say apparently because I was more interested in the ambience among the towering cedar trees and moss-covered ground than checking out areas that were likely to attract a crowd.

Heading back down the hill I wasn't exactly looking forward to our other temple visit since the morning was getting on and there were obvious expectations of substantial crowds among the roadside merchandisers. Most of the stall holders had just about finished setting up as we retraced our tracks along the riverside side road, and when we made it back to the original starting point it looked like we were in for another experience in crowded sightseeing.


Fortunately, the old monks who set about establishing these temples were careful to locate them where visitors would need to make a bit of effort and whoever founded Jingo-ji must have liked his peace and quiet because he positioned the place at the top of a series of fairly steep climbs.

The first one was enough to sort out the sheep from the mountain goats and would, I thought around the halfway point, be enough to deter most of the Kozan-ji chatterers. Those that weren't put off by the incline would be having issues with breathlessness by the time they made it to the top of that particular climb.

The top of that climb featured a little eatery affair where sightseers could stop for refreshment, and there was another fairly steep set of steps thereafter, with refreshment stops thoughtfully provided along the way, before a sharp turn revealed another set of steps that needed to be negotiated.

Sore feet and straining leg muscles are likely to kick in with a vengeance in such circumstances, but a combination of Zen and the art of walking and an absorption with the mechanics of the stride pattern kept those issues in the background.

Along the way I passed a TV camera crew filming an elderly woman in a yellow top and black tights and a much younger female making their way up the final incline to the temple complex.

This, subsequent questioning revealed once The Photographer had caught up (I was comfortably ahead of the camera crew by this stage since they were doing reruns of particular bits of uphill walks from different angles) was a significant Japanese actress from the generation before mine making a filmgrimage around the best spots in the country for coloured leaves on one of those holiday shows.

That means there's a possibility, albeit a very slight one, of a black capped hairy foreigner, head down in Zen and the art of monitoring your stride pattern mode passing the said filmgrimage on the way up appearing on Japanese network TV, with the equally absurd proposition of a sighting as he cowers in a nook beside the ticket booth waiting for his native-speaking accomplice to catch up.

Actually, from there I must admit the presence of the crew did a bit to dampen my enthusiasm as I tried to work things so I stayed out of shot. Once we'd paid our admission fee, I worked around where they were working, passing a couple of impressively weather beaten structures before I found myself at the foot of yet another set of steps leading up to the Kondo, which houses an image of Yakushi Nyorai, the Buddha of Healing.

Sitting on top of Mount Takao to the northwest of the downtown Kyoto at the top of a long flight of stairs, Jingo-ji dates back to 824 and a merger, instituted by statesman Wake no Kiyomaro, of two private temples founded earlier. They were Jingan-ji in Kiyomaro's home province (present day Osaka Prefecture) and Takaosan-ji, founded on the current site in 781. The combined temple was named Jingokokusoshingon-ji (Shingon temple for divine protection of the country) and Kukai (774-835), the founder of the Shingon sect, was named as the head priest.

Like most significant sites, buildings at Jingo-ji have been destroyed by fire and war over the years. The original structures were rebuilt in 1184 after being burnt down but most were destroyed again in the Onin War. Only the Daishido survived and several of the current buildings date from a major reconstruction commissioned by Itakura Katsushige, a daimyo and former Kyoto shoshidai in the Tokugawa shogunate, in 1623.

Another reconstruction took place in the 1930s.

Madam was having the time of her life capturing images of coloured leaves, and by the time she'd caught up the camera crew, who'd skipped the structures I'd just passed, we're making their way up the stairs before me. Madam was all for heading up that way herself, but the prospect of further climbing along with the camera-dodging had me deciding to make my way back to the approaches to the temple and spend the time gazing at the multicoloured hillsides.

And if you're calling me a sook on the strength of that last decision, it's Mister Sook, thank you very much.

Iif I’d done a bit of research before arrival I would have taken myself over to the Jizo Hall, located above the Kiyotaki River where you can buy clay cups (kawarakenage) to throw off the adjacent cliff (kin'unkei) to rid yourself of bad karma. At ¥100 for two, that seems like a rather economical way to achieve that aim, but it only works (or so the on-line research suggests) if you can get the disk all the way down to the river. Flick the discs very gently, convex side up, like a Frisbee.

If only I'd known...

It took a while, but eventually Madam made her way back to where I was standing and we began the descent, predictably a much quicker process than the uphill one, though there were delays along the way as images worth capturing presented themselves in the changing light.

There were a couple of places where the conformation of the stairs permitted a rapid descent, with a single stride covering the whole of a step that needed a stride and a bit on the way up, but things were tempered by the frequent need to stop, look around and ascertain how far Someone Else had progressed.

Back at the foot of the whole thing I paused yet again, and when the touring party had again attained a quorum inquired whether there was anything else on the agenda.

No, I was told, there wasn't, unless I was inclined to eat.

Since we'd set out before breakfast and hadn't managed to find it along the way, the prospect of food was definitely tempting, but there was one more ascent needed to get us back up to the bus stop, and I wasn't sure how frequently the buses ran. There was a packet of raisin bread rolls we'd bought the night before in the backpack which would, I figured, have to be eaten some time, so my take on the situation was get ourselves up the hill, check, out the bus times, and eat if possible.

That packet of raisin rolls would have to be eaten somewhere, and it was highly likely we'd have a lengthy wait once the ascent had been made.

That was, as it turned out, close to the situation we found when we arrived. There was about half an hour until the next Kyoto Bus, but a JR bus would be heading up from Kozan-ji in about five minutes. There was already a fair sized queue for that one, and since it had started elsewhere there was no guarantee we'd get a seat on the forty-five minute trip back into the city.

That was the way it turned out once the bus arrived, and so we headed over to the rival stop, positioned ourselves at the front of the queue and bunched on the packet of raisin rolls. Once the bus arrived we picked up the same Hughesy's legs friendly seats we'd had on the way up and, incidentally, sailed straight through the difficult intersection that had slowed things down significantly on the way up.

The bus dropped us off just past the hotel, and once we were there the thoughts, predictably, turned to lunch. It was around one by this stage, and updates on the Sponge situation suggested we'd be eating late when it came to the evening meal, so lunch was a matter of some urgency.

A packet of raisin bread rolls is all very well, but after significant exercise with the prospect of a night on the turps you need something substantial in the way of lunch. There was a ramen place marked on the Eateries around the neighbourhood map Madam had procured from the Front Desk, so we headed off in that direction. There was, however, a perfectly acceptable alternative just around the corner that did exactly what was required.

Back at the hotel again, Madam needed to head off to do a bit of shopping while Hughesy sat in the lobby, doing what needed to be done on line before heading back upstairs for further travelogue tapping.

We weren't expecting any further Sponge updates until well after six-thirty, since the day's show in Himeji had involved road, rather than rail transport, which in turn meant they had to drive back, unpack the van, head home and make subsequent arrangements once they'd touched base there.

Eventually, however, the rendezvous was arranged for the East Gate at Karasuma station, so we headed along there around eight, and by twenty past were headed off for a return visit to the place we'd spent the equivalent evening four and a half years earlier.

This time around the dramatis personae were the inimitable Sponge, the young lass we'd christened Double Sponge, and Take, an enthusiastic young bloke who announced himself to be Triple Sponge, but didn't quite manage to live up to the self-proclaimed status. Mind you, given the capacity of his colleagues, most people would experience a degree of difficulty in that department.

By the same token, it was a late start, and with the regulation array of platters on the table things flowed along nicely without hitting any great heights in the alcoholic consumption department and the trio's need to catch the final train for the evening meant that most of us probably ended up in bed in much better shape than would otherwise have been the case.

Japan 2012: Osaka > Kyoto

Monday, 12 November 2012

Tired.

That was the key word about two-thirds of the way around the day's exercise routine, and with one final day's exertion to go as I sit typing on a Tuesday morning where the forecast says cloudy in the morning, later turning to rain, that's just as well.

The day's assignment seemed straightforward enough on the surface. A late rise after a big sleep made sense, since we wanted to avoid the morning press of salarymen and other workers making their way into central Osaka. A morning transfer to Kyoto made sense, since it would leave the afternoon free for sightseeing, and an evening without appointments would probably leave us fresh to face a more adventurous schedule on Tuesday, after which it was all a downhill run, so to speak, with Wednesday taking us back to Kobe and Thursday devoted to preparations and packing prior to the return Down Under.

That's pretty much downhill all the way from here, folks.

Of course, there were complications along the way. The first came when The Mother's Phone started making buzzing noises. Given the linguistic issues involved I passed the Incoming message to Madam, who was otherwise (naturally, in an expression of Murphy's Law) engaged in the bathroom. Equally, given the fact that it was probably a text message rather than a voice call, it wasn't that urgent, so someone had time to complete the morning ablutions.

Checking, she established it was a message from a rather concerned Sponge, who we wanted to catch up with, whose communications had been overwhelmed by spam and had, in turn, been waiting to hear from us. We, of course, had been away from email access for the best part of a week, so there wasn't much we could do in terms of contacting him.

In any case, the flurry of text messages following that initial contact established that he was off to Himeji early on Tuesday morning, which effectively ruled out Monday night, and whatever happens on Tuesday is going to depend on how he feels at the end of a longish working day.


Still, that meant we 'd managed to shine a bit of light on the last remaining issue that needed to be resolved, so we duly packed up and set off for Kyoto. That wasn't such a major operation after the transition from lugging the Black Monster to carrying the Little Red Travelling Bag, but we were reminded of the way things could have been as we made our up and down staircases and in and out of subway carriages.

Around ten in the morning things weren't quite as hectic as they would have been an hour and a half earlier, but we made the subway transition to Umeda and the Hankyu connection to Kobe without too much difficulty. I hadn't quite been on the ball the night before when we were headed into the Spanish eatery and the party space across the road was operational, but we passed that particular side street on the way to the subway station so I grabbed a quick photographic record along the way….

Things got a little messy once we'd made our way out of the railway station and set off for the hotel, which turned out to be a bit further from the station than expected, and on the opposite side of the street. Still, things could have been worse.

The initial influence that brought things unstuck was lunch. That might seem like a minor matter, but for some reason The Supervisor set her mind on a particular French/Italian option that came highly rated and wasn't that far from the hotel. Actually, it was a bit further than expected (there's an emerging theme here) and was, when we eventually found it, booked out.

I'd initially suggested I wasn't particularly concerned about the nature of lunch, provided it was conveniently close, and we'd already passed a number of places I thought might have made perfectly acceptable options, but when a decision was called for I pushed us towards a curry place that wasn't that far from the booked out place, so at least we didn't have to go far.The meals, while they weren't anything to rave over, we're perfectly adequate and reasonably cheap.

With lunch out of the way, we set off for the afternoon's sightseeing, which involved a visit to Kiyomizu temple, which is, and I really should have picked up on this earlier, Kyoto's major temple attraction and is almost invariably packed. As it happens it's on the same side of the same river as the places we'd visited on the Sakura Sunday four and a half years before, and I really should have been looking at a map before I ventured an opinion on the relative wisdom of walking as opposed to catching a bus.

Given a slighter better grasp of the geography I would have undoubtedly elected to go as far as possible by bus.

Given a slightly better grasp of our current location vis a vis the river and the city's major transport axes, I would have undoubtedly elected to go as far as possible by bus.

Given an awareness of the number of steps and winding uphill paths involved, I would have undoubtedly elected to go as far as possible by bus.

From which the astute reader will no doubt have inferred, we walked.

Now, it doesn't really matter whether you catch a bus or not. The bus doesn't get you that close to the actual temple, so you're going to be doing a fair bit of walking whichever way you approach it and walking wouldn't have been a problem, except for the fact that it was a bit further than either of us expected.

Actually, we'd made our way across town to the river, crossed the appropriate bridge and started the gradual ascent towards the temple precinct when I looked ahead and realized that we were headed for them there hills and them there hills weren't as close as you'd have liked. Still, the walk wasn't too bad in the early bit. The footpath wasn't that crowded, but as we headed uphill all roads, it seemed, lead to the temple, and each road was delivering its share of pilgrims and sightseers.

Founded in 798, Kiyomizu-dera (Pure Water Temple) isn't the only temple in Japan operating under that title. There's also a Kiyomizu-dera in Yasugi, Shimane, on the 33-temple route of the Chūgoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage through western Japan, but the one under consideration here gets its name from from the Otowa waterfall within the complex, which runs off nearby hills, splitting into three separate streams whose waters are supposed to bring a long life, ensure success at school and guarantee a successful love life. Visitors use cups attached to long poles to drink the water, though drinking from all three is considered greedy. You can't have everything, but I guess if you could manage two you'd be singing along with the Meatloaf song.


Although Kiyomizu-dera dates back to the early Heian period (794 to 1185) when the capital moved to Kyoto the present structures were built in 1633, on the orders of Tokugawa Iemitsu and were constructed without the use of nails. Given the size of the Main Hall (Hondo) and its veranda that opens off it, that's a rather impressive achievement. The veranda, supported by 13 metre high pillars, juts out above a precipice, offering impressive views across the city, and a spectacular view of cherry and maple trees towards the hills in spring and autumn.

Similar structures were apparently erected at a number of  sites visited by large numbers of pilgrims during the Edo period. According to a tradition dating back to that era, jump off the verandah and survive the fall and your wish will be granted. That's the origin of the Japanese equivalent of taking the plunge, to jump off the stage at Kiyomizu. Two hundred and thirty-four people are supposed to have tried it during the Edo period, and, allegedly, 85.4% survived.

I did the maths to figure out an actual number, and came up with a figure of 199.836, which probably shows how rounding off affects your calculations. Multiplying by 85.5 comes to a tad over 200. In any case you're not allowed to do that any more.

The temple precinct contains fifteen buildings classified as Important Cultural Properties, including the inner Temple (Okunoin) a smaller scale version of the Hondo, Amida Buddha Hall (Amidado), and a vermilion three-tiered pagoda and several other shrines including Jishu-jinja, dedicated to Ōkuninushi, god of love and good matches. Visitors who succeed in walking between a pair of love stones with their eyes closed are supposedly guaranteed to find love, or their perfect match. Attempt to do so with assistance and you'll still find it, but will need the assistance of a go-between or matchmaker.

There are also halls dedicated to the historical Buddha and another that contains close to two hundred statues of Jizo, protector of children and travellers. A visit to a structure at the southern end of the temple grounds is said to bring about easy and safe childbirth. Like most of its peers, the complex has an assortment of talismans, incense, and omikuji (paper fortunes) for sale, and when I spotted one that's supposed to protect travellers on the road I thought of the inimitable Staggster, and bought one.

We'd seen our share of temples and religious sites over the preceding two and a bit weeks, and there's a fair possibility that I was more or less templed out, but I must admit Kiyomizu struck me as a bit of a disappointment. There's no denying there's a great view back across the city, and the verandah, with its sheer drop is impressive when you're up there, and very impressive when you're standing on the bottom looking up, but the crowds were getting to me and a fair part of the complex was closed and undergoing repairs.


Anyway, with the walk through the temple out of the way it was a matter of making our way back to the hotel, which, basically, should have been a matter of making our way down to a bus stop and proceeding from there.

Unfortunately, the way down from the temple itself takes you through the steep and busy lanes of the atmospheric Higashiyama District, winding streets lined with shops and stalls, and this is where the failure to take the bus on the way up kicked in big time.

The actual Higashiyama District (Higashiyama-ku, or east mountain) covers the eastern part of Kyoto's city centre along the lower slopes of the Higashiyama mountain range and extends a fair bit further than the section we traversed, as far, in fact, as the Philosopher's Path to Ginkakuji Temple which was one of the sakura season highlights last time around.

Fortunately, as subsequent research revealed, it's the sort of place you're going to be heading back to, hopefully with the tiredness taken out of the equation since it is, by all accounts,  one of the city's best preserved historic districts and a genuine reflection of traditional Kyoto, especially between Kiyomizudera and Yasaka Shrine where the narrow lanes, wooden buildings and traditional merchant shops invoke a feeling of the old capital , which was the way we went. They've even gone to the extremes of removing telephone poles, doing away with the spider web of cables and wires you find above most Japanese streets and and repaving the roadway to maintain the traditional feel of the district.

Streets in Higashiyama are lined by shops, cafes and restaurants that have been catering to tourists and pilgrims since some time around the 14th century, selling local specialties such as Kiyomizu-yaki pottery, as well as gift culture staples like sweets, pickles, crafts and other souvenirs.

The walk through Higashiyama from Kiyomizudera to Yasaka Shrine is around two kilometres and could be done in half an hour or so, but you you could easily spend much longer visiting the temples, shrines, shops, cafes and restaurants along the way.  Maybe next time around we'll be walking beyond Yasaka Shrine past Chionin and Shorenin Temples to Heian Shrine, and possibly even further via Nanzen-ji Temple, with a collection of architecture and artwork from the the late 16th century Momoyama Period. The area also contains the Kyoto National Museum. I expect we'll be back, but next time we'll be getting there by bus, won't we?

The businesses along the way gradually morph from establishments catering to the temple visitor/sightseer trade into a network of interesting streets in a neighborhood that gradually, in turn, morphs into the Gion District, and the further we got away from the temple the more the crowding eased, though you're never in danger of finding tranquility and solitude in any Japanese city, and that's particularly the case when you're in one of the must visit areas of Kyoto.

Kyoto's most famous geisha district, Gion dates back to the Middle Ages, and the shops, restaurants and ochaya (teahouses) located around Shijo Avenue between Yasaka Shrine and the Kamo River originally catered for travellers and visitors to the shrine, but by the mid-18th century the area was Kyoto’s premier pleasure district. From there, the district evolved to become one of the most exclusive and well-known geisha districts in the whole of of Japan.

There are actually five geisha districts in Kyoto where geiko (Kyoto dialect for geisha) and maiko (geiko apprentices) entertain clients, and since geisha are entertainers, not prostitutes, Gion is not, despite popular misconceptions, a red-light district. If that sort of thing floats your boat research suggests you head for Shimabara instead.


Traditional wooden houses called machiya are a major drawcard in Gion, and since property taxes were based on the width of the street frontage, they tend to have narrow facades but stretch up to twenty metres in from the street. Some of them are ochaya (tea houses), traditional establishments where patrons have been entertained for centuries. As expert hostesses, maiko and geiko engage in conversation, serve drinks, conduct drinking games and perform traditional music and dance. Other preserved machiya houses now function as restaurants, serving Kyoto style kaiseki ryori (Japanese haute cuisine).

Having made my way through Gion I was ready to get away from the crowd, and the boots that had seemed so comfortable back when we'd bought them before the Cooktown trip were starting to squeeze the feet, probably as a result of having been worn solidly for a fortnight, with a pinch of prolonged exposure to wet weather thrown in for good measure.

Actually, I suspect that having got wet the outer layers didn't dry out completely and had shrunk marginally. Hopefully further wear will push things back into shape, but it's very much a case of wait and see.

Having made our way through Gion, we were off to the hotel, and here those factors involving unfamiliarity with the public transport system and lack of knowledge of the local geography kicked in again,and they kicked in big time, along with a pigheaded reluctance to say "That's enough, my feet need a rest."

After all, I figured, it wasn't that far, and, off course, following up on that emerging theme, it wasn't a bit more than we expected ("May as well walk," as I recall we're my exact words, "it's only a few blocks."

But it was considerably further than I'd bargained for.

Back at the hotel where any sane man would have had the boots off and laid back for a well-earned rest someone had to check out the Wi Fi situation in the lobby and while it was there, it was painfully slow until Madam joined me with her iPad and ventured into the territory of the bleeding obvious, wandering over to the Front Desk to ask about minor administrative details like passwords. Things sped up considerably thereafter.


A spell upstairs after that gave the feet a welcome respite, and around six-thirty we started making Dinner noises, at which point lunchtime's failure to get in where she'd wanted, along with Hughesy's suggestion we opt for a curry place kicked in big time. Madam had located another French/Italian wine bar sort of place and pointed us in that direction. It wasn't as highly rated as the first one, but that, hopefully, meant it wouldn't be full either. There were two (actually, make that three) major surprises when we arrived on the doorstep. It was another of the basement type eating and drinking establishments, which meant signage above the steps going down.

The first surprise came in the form of the business name. Cheers isn't the first name that springs to mind when you're looking for a French/Italian wine bar sort of place, but maybe the American sitcom never made it to Japan. They probably serve beer, but given the quality of the wine I sampled there I don't think I'd be bothering.

Surprise #1 had a significant addendum, since Cheers seems to be aimed pretty solidly at the female market. That mightn't be quite accurate, but it's hard to avoid the conclusion based on signage and a Girls set section of the menu.

Surprise #2 kicked in when we walked inside to find the place was practically deserted. Maybe Monday nights are quiet, maybe the crowds arrive later, but when we walked in there were two tables occupied. one emptied while we were there, and no one else came in. Strange.

Because the food and wine quotients there were rather good. We did the sharing a variety of small plates thing, and everything was very good, from the oyster and shallot gratin that arrived with the salad to the pizza that finished the main courses side of things. Madam finished with a chocolate mousse that was very tasty and had me wishing I'd done the same. Full marks on that front.

Even better was the wine selection. There were other by the glass options that didn't appear in the actual by the glass section of the menu, but I limited myself to the official version, and the results were very satisfactory.

There was a Prosecco that might have been a tad on the sweet side but worked nicely as an aperitif, a Sauvignon Blanc from Touraine that was obviously SB and obviously in the mould the Kiwi exponents of the variety are looking towards, a Chardonnay from Burgundy that would have received ticks of approval from the New Wave Oz Chardy crew and an Italian Primitivo (a.k.a. Zinfandel) that wrapped things up nicely. Madam limited herself to the SB while I had the other three, but there were glasses passed back and forth, and if she'd weakened I'm sure the result would have been another interesting wine and an excuse for Hughesy to go one more beyond that.

All in all, a very pleasant little evening, and the perfect prelude to a good night's sleep before an early start in the morning.

Japan 2012: Osaka Day Two

Sunday, 11 November 2012

There were no breakfast arrangements in place for Day Two in Osaka, and in a way that was just as well. Given the way things had turned out over the preceding thirty-six hours a sleep in, a late checkout, a move to a third hotel and a rendezvous with The Sister at a French restaurant provided a painless way of filling in the morning, and we'd already planned to catch up with The Former Secretary some time during the day, so when it transpired she didn't have anything else on her plate we suggest she join us for lunch at the Bistrot des Mauvais Garçons.

There was a slight degree of confusion regarding the actual location of the Bad Boys' Bistro, but we arrived more or less on time, just before The Sister lobbed on the scene. There was no sign of Former Secretary, it was drizzling and we were standing in front of the door of another establishment (Bad Boys go upstairs), so de decided to follow the Bad Boys and head up, expecting Former Secretary to find us upstairs.

As it turned out, FS had done been there earlier and gone to check on something or other when we weren't there well before time and made it back late, by which time we were upstairs and she was scratching her head wondering where we'd got to. A quick text message, one of a couple she'd sent without Someone noticing, sorted that out, and we were all set for a lengthy and leisurely lunch, with a bottle of quite acceptable Pinot Noir from your actual Burgundy.

The wine went down very well, the lunch (salad, cream of pumpkin soup, squid in a tomato sauce, beef slowly cooked in red wine, dessert and petit fours) delivered a pleasant combination of tastes though the portions weren't over-generous. The conversation kept things rolling along to the point where, having been the first customers to arrive, we were the last to leave.

The attempt to find the lunchtime venue had delivered us onto the famous Ebisubashi bridge across the Dōtonbori Canal, just underneath the legendary Glico Man billboard. The bridge was originally built to provide access to the nearby Ebisu Shrine, and is associated with a legendary curse on the Hanshin Tigers, Osaka's baseball team. Given the familiarity of the Glico Man and the fact that it lies between the Shinsaibashi-suji and Ebisubashi-suji shopping districts the bridge is a popular meeting place and it's known as nanpa-bashi (by foreigners) and hikkake-bashi (by native Japanese), both of which translate as the pulling bridge due to the alleged ease with which girls can be picked up in the vicinity.

We went back and forth a couple of times over the course of the afternoon and evening, which was largely spent in the Ebisubashi-suji shopping district, which opens off the street that takes its name from the Dōtonbori canal, which means it's time for another excursion into the realms of history.

While it's the main destination for food travel in Osaka, Dōtonbori owes its origins to a decision back in 1612, when a local entrepreneur, Dōton Yasui, decided to connect the two branches of the Yohori River, which run north to south, with a canal. He set out to do this by expanding the Umezu River, which ran east to west, and the intention was to increase commerce in the region. Along the way, Dōton became involved in the Siege of Osaka and died defending Toyotomi Hideyori, but his cousins finished the project in 1615 and the new ruler in Osaka Castle, Tadaki Matsudaira, named the canal and avenue beside it Dōtonbori (Dōton's canal) even though he'd been on the wrong side of the result in the siege.

Six years later the Tokugawa Shogunate designated Dōtonbori as Osaka's entertainment district and by 1662 the street had six Kabuki (classical Japanese dance-drama) and five Bunraku (traditional puppet) theatres, and the Takeda Karakuri mechanical puppet theatre. The theatres were so popular they encouraged numerous restaurants and cafes to open, catering to the flood of tourists and entertainment-seekers who poured into Dōtonbori, and while there has been a decline in support for traditional forms of entertainment and Dōtonbori's five remaining theatres were bombed and destroyed during World War II it remains a prime attraction for culinary tourists.

Today Dōtonbori is famous for its shops and restaurants, and the neon and mechanised signs that line the canal and feature in the shopping areas. For a start there's snack/candy manufacturer Glico's giant runner crossing the finish line, though he's just one part of a formidable barrage of electronic advertising. Inside Ebisubashi-suji there's s six and a half metre mechanised crab that moves its arms and eyestalks in front of  a crab restaurant called Kani Doraku that dates back to 1960 and spawned a number of similar creations, including a squid that puffs steam.

We took a leisurely ramble through Dotonbori, along the arcade that leads to Namba station, where The Sister bade us farewell, and back through a major electronics store and Tower Records, eventually looping into the hotel to check in and looping back out to chase up a Wi Fi hotspot and dinner.


The pursuit of Wi Fi and the need to contact the Kyoto-based Sponge meant we neglected to book seats at the preferred eating destination (Pieno, just off the arcade-type thoroughfare) and while we'd planned to land on their doorstep around five, Wi Fi matters delayed things to the point where we could either spend a lengthy wait in the drizzle waiting for space to become available or look elsewhere.

Predictably, we looked elsewhere, but only as far as the Mar Bar, which was conveniently celebrating a fourth birthday and supplied us with complimentary Cava as we surveyed the menu. That's not quite accurate, of course.

The two girls surveyed the menu, passing comments and requests for guidance across the table. Really, I wasn't particularly concerned about the actual dishes involved, since we were in tapas territory, and if I didn't like one I'd be right with the next provided no one headed off into extreme territory.

Everything, however, proved quite toothsome, and while the glass of white that followed the Cava was a little on the sweeter side of what I'd prefer, an unidentified fuller bodied red was quite tasty, to the point where I ended up with a third glass.

Having seen Former Secretary off at Namba Station we made our way back to the hotel, making a final pass past the psychedelia alongside the canal with a diversion along the way to take a look at Hozenji Temple, all that's left of a major  17th century site after the main hall was demolished during World War II. Decorated with paper lanterns and tucked away in a relatively quiet neighborhood on an alley paved with stones and lined with old-style Japanese restaurants and bars. It's one of those places that's definitely worth a revisit, preferably when tiredness is removed from the equation.

Japan 2012: Osaka Day One

Saturday, 10 November 2012

After two weeks on the road, Madam had designated the two day stay in Osaka as a rest and recreation spell, and after the previous night's indulgences, rest and recreation was definitely what I needed. It started with a long soak in a warm bath, which did some good, but not enough to overcome the effects, and after breakfast at the downstairs coffee shop I would have been happy to roll the rock across the door and hibernate, but we were faced with an eleven o'clock checkout time and a move to fresh quarters.

Friday night's hotel had been selected with an eye to convenience (and very convenient it was) but it had one major drawback. It didn't as far as Madam's initial research could make out, offer a coin laundry, and after the two weeks on the road we'd have a pile of washing that would need to be done.

That was what prompted the relocation, and neither of us was happy when she found that the first stop did, indeed, offer such a service. Had it been evident when the bookings were made we'd have stayed put, I could have taken further recuperative baths and the washing  could have been started much earlier, giving Madam the chance of a longer rest before we set out to dinner with The Principal.

As it was, we left the checkout as late as possible, took ourselves out for a walk with the baggage in the cloak room at the old hotel, located the new one and made a futile attempt to kill time before the check-in time there.

We headed down to the middle of the business section of Osaka, an area that would presumably have been much busier from Monday to Friday, and while things were pleasantly quiet my head throbbed as a result of overnight overindulgence and my right knee was doing something similar as a result of something I'd presumably done just before  we'd shipped the Black Monster back to Kobe.

The knee had been troubling me on and off for the previous couple of days, not to any great extent, but enough to make things uncomfortable. Now, when a lengthy walk might have served to remove some of the toxic elements from the system by way of exercise, the knee was saying, Hang on there buddy boy, this thing needs some rest.

So rest I did. In a park on the banks of a river while the knee delivered constant reminders that it was there and the head pleaded for somewhere to lie down and quietly expire. Eventually, on the off chance that we might be able to check in early, we headed over to the new hotel and made polite inquiries, which saw us upstairs and into the room well before the regular time. I slept, Madam ran the laundry routine, and still managed a bit of a spell before the evening appointment.


That proved, predictably, to be a much more restrained affair than the previous night's exercise, with a rendezvous that took us straight into Japan's longest shopping arcade, Tenjinbashi-suji Shopping Street. I've seen an arcade or two in my time, but not to many that stretch over more than two and a half kilometres. The roofed arcade grew out of a vegetable market associated with the Tenmangu Shrine during the Edo Period and today contains some six hundred stores selling all kinds of day to day items including groceries, clothes, snacks, used books, medicine, and assorted odds and ends. It's not high end shopping and, by all accounts prices tend to be low in and goods are of average quality. Not the place to go looking for Gucci handbags and the like.

But since it's an everyday shopping environment for everyday people it offers a range of eateries and cafes in the arcade itself, and there are more in the streets and alleys that open off the main arcade. You might be inclined to question Hughesy's assessment of a shopping arcade as packed with a bewildering variety of eateries, and in a common or garden arcade you'd possibly have a point in any other society, but a stroll through the eating and drinking quarter of most Japanese cities would sort that issue once and for all.

Many of them are izakaya, basically small bars that offer food to accompany whatever you're drinking, casual places often based around after-work socialising. Izakaya were originally sake shops that allowed customers to drink on the premises, sometimes called akachōchin (red lantern) since paper lanterns are traditionally found in front of such establishments. Nowadays the term usually refers to small, non-chain izakaya.

As the astute reader might suspect, Hughesy is a big fan of this concept, and would be a bigger fan if I was able to read the language and decipher the captions underneath the picture menus you tend to find outside. Somehow we never seemed to find ourselves in nomi-hōdai (all you can drink) or tabe-hōdai (all you can eat) places where, for a set price per person you can order as much food or drink as you can hold, though they tend to be careful to impose a two or three hour time limit.

On arriving you'll invariably find yourself being given an oshibori (wet towel) to clean your hands and possibly an otōshi (in the Kanto region) or tsukidashi (in Kansai) a snack or appetizer charged to the bill in lieu of an entry fee. From there the food quotient will vary according to the particular establishment, and food and drink are ordered throughout the session with food items usually shared by everyone at the table. I took a while to get used to the fact that the closest platter wasn't specifically mine, but the practice allows you to pick and choose. One thing you will notice is that such places tend to be light on for rice, which also threw me at first until I was told that you're getting your rice quota through the sake, which is, of course, rice wine.

Even if you're drinking beer.

Yakitori (grilled chicken skewers, often grilled in front of you go particularly well with Japanese beer, and I'm also quite partial to the cook it yourself Korean barbecue places The Principal guided us into one such establishment where we put several platters of marinated meats through the cooking process as various matters were discussed, and a couple of quiet beers were indulged in, then we wandered off to a Chinese place in a side alley.

The food there was good, a pleasant change from the seasoned Korean meats, and the combination as a whole worked rather well. Given busy schedules for Japanese high school principals and the need for weary travellers to rest we weren't up all that late, and a farewell two stops onto the return train journey saw us heading back through dark, semi-deserted but quite tranquil streets to the hotel, which this time wasn't as conveniently located with regard to the railway station.

Japan 2012: Kagoshima > Osaka

Friday, 9 November 2012

The last last day of the two week rail leg dawned a little later than Hughesy's regular waking hour, and it was around six thirty-two when I surfaced from a rather weird dream involving catering for wedding receptions while obviously working as a primary school teacher and resumed work on the travelogue. Madam surfaced shortly thereafter, announcing an intention to hie herself off to the nearby public onsen, a development that delivered close to an hour's uninterrupted tapping until her return shortly after eight.

With the train scheduled to depart at 11:32 we weren't inclined to do much in the way of pre-departure activity, happy to wander downstairs for a latish breakfast, return to the room to finish packing and check out just before ten. That scenario gave us a leisurely move to the station and a bit of looking around before departure time.

The day before we'd headed down for breakfast just after six-thirty, and found the place close to chockers. Madam's trip out to the onsen had started with an elevator ride that stopped at almost every floor on on the way down as salarymen and other guests sought to indulge in the ¥500 breakfast that seemed to be the Sunn Days Inn gimmick to attract the business clientele.

If it is, then it definitely seems to work, because when she returned and headed to the elevator to take her back upstairs the breakfast room had progressed to the point where there wasn't an actual queue but awaiting list had the next prospective breakfasted being called by name.

On that basis, my decision to tap away rather hurl myself at the shower once she'd been gone more than half an hour could be deemed to be a smart move. We only had the one room card key and I needed it to keep the lights and electricity running, and I wouldn't be able hear someone knocking at the door while I was in the shower, would I?


In any case, a leisurely morning was the order of the day, and I lobbed myself gently towards the shower rather than hurling myself into the rain room. Breakfast on both days was good deal for the ¥500, and you could see why most of the occupants of the hotel's three hundred and fifty plus rooms would be inclined to eat there rather than elsewhere.

Still, it was relatively uncrowded when we made our way downstairs around eight-thirty, hit the breakfast options and wandered back up, passing the impressive display of bottles associated with one of Kagoshima’s other claims to fame, the sweet potato shōchū (imo-jochu). Typically distilled from barley, sweet potatoes, or rice, though it can be made from brown sugar, buckwheat, sesame and chestnut, shōchū is a completely different beast to sake, though if you're in Kagoshima and ask for the latter you'll almost certainly be served shōchū instead. There are, by all accounts, hundreds of different brands, and a fair few of them were represented in the display.

Kagoshima is the only prefecture in Japan that doesn't brew any sake at all, and the spirit dates back to at least the mid-16th century, arriving in the country through Kagoshima from China or Korea. There's a reference in a piece of temple grafitti written by a carpenter in 1559. Apparently the abbot at the particular shrine was less forthcoming with the spirit than his workers would have liked.

Madam had intentions of sampling the local product, but hadn't managed to do so over the preceding day and a half. With plenty of time till the train left she could still have done so, right up to the time we boarded the train, since the Shinkansen platforms at Kagoshima-chuo have bars offering more than a hundred varieties.

Instead, having made our way over to Kagoshima-chuo I set off in search of the statue commemorating the young men from Satsuma who broke the Tokugawa Shogun’s ban on foreign travel, travelling to England and the United States to study Western science and technology, an adventure that did much to kickstart Japan's industrial revolution. I’d spotted the item in question while Madam was scoping out the transport options between station and hotel, had promptly forgotten all about it the following day but now, with the best part of an hour left till the train departed looking for it was a decent way of killing time.

Had I done a head count I’d probably have found only fifteen there, though the party included a recruit from from Tosa and another fom Nagasaki, and apparently there were a couple of supervisors along for the ride as well. They studied at University College London, and many went on to Oxford and Cambridge before returning home. Among their number was  Mori Arinori, the first Japanese ambassador to the USA and, subsequently,  Minister for Education, Godai Tomoatsu (founder of the the Osaka Chamber of Commerce and the Osaka Stock Exchange) and Terashima Munenori, who went on to become Japan’s Foreign Minister.

With that done there was still time to kill, so we loitered around the station’s shopping precinct, noting a rather interesting poster advertising a newspaper and sending Madam off to perambulate through the local delicacies on sale to the travelling public. As stated elsewhere this kind of thing is an important consideration in a gift-giving culture and she didn’t return empty-handed. Once she’d made her way back with a selection of goodies I took a turn around the same area, somehow managing to arrive in the Shōchū Store, though they didn’t seem to be offering samples.

Aboard the train we were seated on either side of the aisle rather than in contiguous window seats, which coincidentally meant we didn’t have access to the handy electrical socket that comes with said seats.

I’d been hopeful of getting access to the power point along the way since I figured there’d be a turnover of seats along the way, but while the seat beside me was vacant when I boarded it was occupied at one of the first stops by a bloke who appeared to be an academic rather than an itinerant salaryman, and when he got off in Okayama the seat was immediately claimed by another dude who remained aboard until Kobe.

Still, although it ran the batteries on the iPad and the iPod down considerably, I was able to tap away at the travelogue while listening to my own personal playlist, and the four hours passed remarkably quickly.

Arriving in Osaka the contrast with where we'd been was noticeable. Actually, it was more than noticeable, it was remarkable. There'd been plenty of room to move in Kagoshima-chuo, and the shinkansen is a fairly tranquil means of transfer, but having grabbed the Little Red Travelling Bag and made our way to the doorway,  two steps later we were in the antbed turmoil of ShinOsaka. Fortunately there was a mere one stop train ride and a single stop subway transfer to get us to the night's hotel, so we had an opportunity to catch the breath before the evening's appointment with the inimitable Diamond Chef.

That started with a visit to an establishment that delivered a range of little platters which went rather well with beer, a visit to a jazz club where Madam found the featured vocalist was an alumni of her old university. From there we were on to a single malt club and things start to become blurry...