Japan 2013: The whys and wherefores

Thursday, 5 December 2013

If I hadn't been to that Elvis Costello in Sydney at the end of January, I wouldn't be writing this in early December.

Costello, many years ago, came up with the concept of the Spectacular Spinning Songbook, toured briefly with it in the late eighties and then revised the methodology, which almost guarantees the audience a substantially different show each night, in the Noughties.

I'd enjoyed Sydney so much that I announced, on my return, that next time he brought The Wheel back to Australia I was going to all the shows.

Fast forward six months or so and I was sitting in an apartment at Aquarius in Cairns checking my email when a posting announced Costello would be playing four Songbook shows in Japan in December.

Significantly, it was right at the time when we were in overseas traveller mode, and the presence of Madam's sister and niece had brought us to Cairns.

So I'd blame them if blame wasn't too strong a word. It was more a case of the penny dropping, and having allies on hand to push the idea forward.

I told The Sister about the four shows, three of them on successive nights in Tokyo, and suggested they might be doable, flying from Cairns. She agreed, Madam was persuaded, and here I am tapping this out in a hotel room in Cairns at five-thirty in the morning.

It's actually Day Two of the trip, having driven up from Bowen on Wednesday, and the plane leaves in just under seven hours. I could well have started this a couple of days ago, but I was in the throes of finishing the Travelogue for our second Tasmanian odyssey, and, anyway, I knew that early risers need something to do when further sleep is ruled out of the question.

So, having explained the basic why, we turn our attention to the where, which breeds an interesting set of destinations under the particular circumstances, which in turn requires further explanation.

So we start with the four concerts, three on successive nights in the Roppongi district of Tokyo (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday) followed by a fourth in Osaka on the Sunday.

That brings the rail pass issue to the fore, with the key question being whether to buy the seven day or fourteen day version. The flight from Cairns deposits us at Kansai International, and the rail journey has to start in Kobe or Osaka.

Given the seasonal factors, with the last show being on December 15, we need to make the Tokyo > Osaka leg on the 14th the final leg of the rail trip. We've only been back from Tasmania for a month, so a fortnight on the road, or rather the rail, in Japan is too long, so the rail pass goes for seven days.

And if we'd opted for the fortnight on the railways we'd have to leave a week earlier, which would have ruled out the Leonard Cohen concert in Townsville last Thursday.

That seven day spell runs from Sunday to Saturday, with the flight in arriving on Thursday evening, and Thursday night spent in Kobe. Booking the train tickets for the week takes a chunk out of a morning or afternoon, so that takes care of Friday, with certain other logistical factors needing to be attended to, and on Saturday we move to wherever the train leg of the journey kicks off.

So where do we go?

To look at that side of things you focus your attention on the other end of the rail leg and work backwards.

We want to be in Tokyo early on Wednesday afternoon so we can book in and scope out the route between the hotel and the theatre, so whatever we do on Wednesday morning needs to be done somewhere around the capital.

Kamakura isn't that far south of Yokohama, which in turn abuts the south of the Tokyo conurbation, and our friend The Interpreter lives in Yokohama. That means dinner with The Interpreter on Tuesday night, which in turn translates to an overnight stay in Yokohama.

So we've got Sunday and Monday nights to look at, and a rail route that ends in Yokohama to nut out.
The concert side of things is Hughesy's part of the trip, so those days and nights leading up to Yokohama are Madam's reward for doing the organising. She loves the onsen experience, it's coming into winter, and there are any number of options, but the best seem to involve hot springs, mountains and snow, so that's where we're headed.

One night in Matsumoto, the other up in Niigata, both in onsen resorts, which in turn means Japanese banquets, probably served in the privacy of the room.

If that looks reasonably straightforward, it is still the result of extensive research, with most possibilities investigated and worked over with a fine tooth comb.

So it's Thursday as fly over day, Friday for sorting out tickets and such. Saturday should be an easy day, with a transfer to the northern side of Osaka in the afternoon.

Sunday morning has the transfer to ShinOsaka, and a transfer from there to Nagoya along familiar territory. We've been up and down that section of track every other time we've been in the country, and there isn't much choice about it. You're talking the main Tokaido line that links Osaka and Tokyo.

From Nagoya,  we're also on a track we've covered before, but this time we're travelling in the opposite direction. Last time around we did Nagano > Nagoya, a spectacular run through the autumn mountains. This time, with winter on the way in, we won't get the coloured leaves, but the scenery should still be spectacular.

And Hughesy can keep track of things through the new, camera equipped iPad, which has taken over the Travelogue role. I'm anticipating a much richer visual record this time around.

But we're not actually going all the way to Nagano. Matsumoto is half an hour or so down the line from the city that hosted the Winter Olympics, and when we alight we'll be heading to Matsumoto Castle, one of Japan's Top Three Castles.

Japan's big on Top Threes and such, and this visit will mean we've been to all the castles.

After the castle,  it's off to the onsen, and the Japanese banquet.

Monday's much the same, though the rail leg involves a couple of changes that might seem to require split second timing, but given the punctuality of the rail services we should be right.

Monday ends in Niigata, another go at the hot springs and the banquet, and Tuesday brings us down through Tokyo to Yokohama.

Wednesday morning has been set aside for temple and shrine viewing at Kamakura before we head back to Tokyo for the first of the Costello triple-header.

Thursday has visits to art galleries and viewing platforms in Roppongi pencilled in before Hughesy takes himself to the Costello show, and on Friday we'll take a look at the Imperial Palace before I toddle off for a third go.

Given the nature of the concerts there's a slight possibility that Hughesy might be grabbed and hauled on stage to spin the wheel, but I'm not holding my breath. Night One and Osaka are probably the most likely ones since we'll be there as a couple, but I guess hairy foreigners might attract attention on the other two.

I suspect, however, that I'm in the wrong demographic and probably the wrong gender, but you never know. Maybe I'll get to request Beyond Belief, what with living next door to the Great Barrier Reef and all.

Saturday will be the zoom down the Tokaido line on the Shinkansen day, followed by the final concert on Sunday. In between we're having lunch with The Sister and The Rowdy Niece, before transferring to Kyoto for more temple and shrine viewing on Monday and Tuesday.

Wednesday afternoon will see us back in Kobe, ready to prepare for the return flight, which arrives in Cairns around sparrow fart on Friday morning.

The experience last time around suggests driving back to Bowen that day is not a good idea, so we'll overnight in Mission Beach and take our time getting there, stopping off for a pie at the Mourilyan Bakery along the way.

On Saturday, it’s either breakfast at the accommodation or brunch at the Vivia cafe in Cardwell, followed by the run through Townsville back to the Little House of Concrete in time to prepare for the silly end of the silly season.

That, in a nutshell, is the plan. How it pans out forms the content of the next eighteen entries.

Japan 2012: Kobe > Tokyo > Kitakami

Saturday, 27 October 2012

The Tokyo Express wasn't leaving until 9:25 but I was awake around the regulation back home time, which meant the body clock was operating in Australian mode and we had time for leisurely movement through the shower, and a casual check of the packing arrangements.

So casual that when we made our way downstairs for the Viking we neglected to grab two vouchers on the way out. Back upstairs, minor panic when they weren't quite where we thought they were. It was a timely reminder that you don't want to take things too easy.

There was a single pass through the buffet for Hughesy, and Madam's return visit brought back a single serve of a single item. We were upstairs by 7:40, loaded and locked and checking out before eight, catching the 8:05 shuttle, which delivered us to Sannomiya in plenty of time to take the one stop underground leg to ShinKobe, arriving hree-quarters of an hour before the scheduled departure.

The frequency of Shinkansen services along the Tokaido line was underlined by the fact that our 9:25 Hikari was the third train headed for Tokyo after nine o'clock, and followed almost immediately after a faster Nozumi, which left at 9:22.

Once aboard, the Black Monster went into the space behind the seats at the back of the carriage, the backpacks went onto the overhead, and we settled back for the three hour haul to Tokyo. As soon as the train started moving we were straight into a tunnel and when we emerged a minute or two later we were zooming along around rooftop level. We'd landed Car 7 Seats 10 B&C, which meant we didn't have access to the window seat, which seemed to be vacant. I could have been tempted to snaffle the spare seat but with Osaka and Kyoto coming up in quick succession I thought it might not be a good idea.

Just as well. A couple of minutes later we were in Osaka where a flood of passengers filled up most of the vacant seats, leaving 10A teasingly empty as we set back off. That brought us onto flat land between Osaka and Kyoto, passing houses intermingled with agricultural plots, assorted commercial premises, apartment blocks, a stretch of forest, a real patchwork of land use.

We came up into Kyoto in a hurry. One moment I was checking we hadn't passed it without noticing because I thought we'd be there by now and the next, there we (quite literally) were. Another flood of incomers failed to fill 10A, so as we emerged from the regulation tunnel on the way out of Kyoto I took advantage of the vacant window seat. With half an hour until Nagoya I might as well.

Again, the land between Kyoto and Nagoya is mostly flat, with the same patchwork of land use. We weren't quite in Nagoya when the news ticker at the front of the carriage revealed Silvio Berlusconi had been sentenced to four years, and Nagoya delivered  an occupant for 10A.

The presence of a head between Hughesy and the window had me looking around a bit more than would have been the case otherwise, something that underlined the cambering of the tracks on the Shinkansen lines. Queensland has the tilt train that heads along regular railway tracks, but if you want genuine speed and extremely rapid transit you want to be travelling on a train that leans into the cambered curve.

We'd doneNagoya > Tokyo in two legs last time, one as far as Odawara en route to Hakone and the rest of the way a day later, so it wasn't new territory. Just as well since sunshine had 9A and 10A sliding down the shades, and directing the sightseeing side of things to the left hand side, which was the quarter where you'd expect to be sighting Mount Fuji.

Predictably, between the camber and the weather conditions, the Fuji-viewing prospects weren't looking too flash, but heading out of Hamamatsu, when the camber permitted the sight of mountains away on the left (partially obscured by haze, but definitely mountains) made me much more hopeful.By the time we pulled up in Mishima, however, it was obvious that the Curse of the Frockster had kicked in again.

For years, well before our 2008 journey, the Frockster had babbled on about trips to Japan and the possibilities of planting a Bowen Mango on top of Mount Fuji, a prospect so sacrilegious the deities guarding the mountain kept it shrouded in cloud and drizzle while we were there. It was an obvious case of ensuring we couldn't locate the sacred peak on the off chance we might return with plans to fulfill Eylesy's suggestion.

10A was vacated at Mishima, which lies on the edge of the Yokohama-Tokyo conurbation, with a subsequent increase in the frequency of tunnels  and apart from the improvement in the sightseeing aspect there was a handy electrical outlet that allowed a slight recharge of the iPad as we thundered towards Tokyo. It would only be a tad over half an hour, but every little bit helps.

Everything needed to be packed away the stop before Tokyo itself, and once we were off the train it was a case of seeking out The Translator, which turned out to be remarkably easy, given the number of people who were in and around Tokyo Station.

Once the rendezvous had been made, we wandered off to check out restoration work that had just been completed, restoring the ground level entrance to the facade built just under a century before.

A couple of photos of the impressive dome at the actual entrance and we were off across the station square for lunch.

We had around two hours to spend over lunch, and a glance around the immediate vicinity revealed queues just about everywhere. Fortunately we spotted a vacant table in the corner of an Italian place that seemed to belong to the eat at the counter persuasion, and grabbed it tout suite, I can tell you.

It turned out to be a very handy stroke of lunch. The pasta was freshly made on the premises, the accompaniments were quite acceptable, and there were a couple of Italian wines on the wine list, so I managed a rather good Montepulciano over lunch. When we found ourselves with another hour to kill the options were to order something else and stay where we were or head off in search of somewhere we could sit and talk.

If the dessert menu had included cassata I'd have ordered one, but it didn't, so I had settle for a rather moreish Nebbiolo. Fortunately I took my time over it, and was able to resist the siren song. With lunch out of the way it wash case of back to the station, so we took the lift down to the basement and made our way back through the underground redevelopment that proved very interesting indeed.

There wasn't much, surprisingly, until we'd passed through the barrier into the Station proper, where we found a veritable rabbit warren of retail outlets, including a liquor operation that was offering a little wine tasting.

I tried two versions of an indigenous red grape variety, something that mightn't sound too promising, but the early drinking style was good, and the other, given the benefit of a little bottle age was quite acceptable. I've tasted worse wines made by far better known operations from much more established varieties.

We'd dawdled a bit along the way, and when we spotted a clock showing 2:44 when we were due for a 2:56 departure it was a case of a couple of quick photographs and a scramble to find the seats and, more importantly, claim a bit the all important space behind the seats in the rear of the carriage to stow the Black Monster.

That space was almost gone, but I managed to claim the remaining bit, something that came in handy when we made the mad scramble off the train in Sendai. Kitakami isn't one of the stopping points for the faster services and we'd deliberately veered away from the stop everywhere all the way from Tokyo option which would have meant a substantial reduction in time allocated for lunch.

Tapping out the update took us out of greater Tokyo, through the stop at Umiya and towards the tsunami zone. We'd been over this section before, around the same time of day four and a half years previously, and we were on the right hand side of the northbound train again. The countryside is fairly flat, and while there isn't a whole lot of actual visual interest along the way the patchwork is easy on the eye, and the more urban stretches have plenty of green scattered among the buildings.

The run towards Sendai proved simultaneously easy on the eye and mildly disturbing, largely due to the amount of greenery across to the horizon. We'd headed across this time with hopes of sighting hillsides full of autumnal colouring, but apart from the odd russet patch here and there the foliage, on the southern side of Sendai, at least, remained a deep green that was, as suggested, rather pleasing as a vista but wasn't what we were there for. Still, we weren't all that far into the Deep North Perhaps things would be more promising as the latitudes rose and altitude kicked in.

Something)= brought us to an unscheduled stop at Fukushima, where there was no sign of the nuclear power facility that attracted so much attention in the aftermath of last year's tsunami, largely, I guess due to the mountain range that lies between the city and the coast. That isn't the case at Sendai, where we were due to change trains.

The Shinkansen was around five minutes late coming in to Sendai, and our slower up country train was due to leave five minutes after the scheduled arrival time of the Shinkansen, but it was waiting on the other side of the platform when we arrived, and we managed the switch without difficulty.

The up country train doesn't use the same tracks as its more sophisticated sibling, and from the time we pulled out of Sendai, that was rather obvious. Not to suggest we're talking the old clickety clack of the Queensland rattler, but we moved into the gathering dusk at a noticeably slower speed with much more frequent stops.

The first was at Furukawa, but not far past there we were into a fairly solid wall of forest on the left hand side of the train, which is where we found ourselves this time around. I may well be wrong about the forest, but as we rattled along at a fair old sub-Shinkansen clip there weren't too many lights out there until we started to slow down for the stop at Kurikoma-Kogan. While we were pulled up there a passing Shinkansen reminded us of the pecking order.  Madam remarked that we must be starting to climb, and we were probably moving into coloured leaves territory. Given the fact it was now totally dark outside there was no way to verify the notion but I hoped she was right.

The carriage hadn't exactly been crowded when we boarded, but there was a steady flow of departures that continued at Ichinoseki, And again at Kanegasaki so that by the time we reached Kitakami there was practically no one left and most of us chickens alighted there.

A check on the ubiquitous Google won’t give you that much on Kitakami, but in any case we weren’t there for tourist attractions or sightseeing. Madam and Our Host go back far enough to warrant a visit when we’re there, so it’s a matter of catching up and conversing after an evening arrival, with the option of taking a squiz at the sights the next day.

Located around the confluence of the Kitakami and Waga Rivers in Iwate Prefecture, Kitakami (population around 95,000) sits on the Tōhoku Shinkansen and Tōhoku Main Lines, both operated by JR East, connecting Tokyo and Aomori which makes it a convenient and reasonably accessible resting spot for people looking to catch up with old friends. It's about three hours north of Tokyo on Nasuno/Hikari, the slowest of the three versions of the Shinkansen, which delivers a fair indication of the pecking order where the bullet trains are concerned. The trip will set you back around 12,500 yen (a tad over $A145), which underlines the value of the JR Pass (7 days $335.00; 14 days $535.00)

The fastest version, the Nozomi, only stop at major centres like Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka, hurtling between destinations at maximum speed, a now you see it, now you don't proposition when you're standing on the platform at one of the lesser stations.  Rail Pass holders don't get to ride on those, but that's understandable given the demand for seats. Below that there's a variety of fast and semi-fast versions, depending on the actual line you're taking, including the Hikari and Sakura (Tokaido, Sanyo, Kyushu), Hayate and Yamabiko (Tōhoku) that stop more often, but bypass smaller centres. Kitakami, with a population that's heading towards a hundred thousand, still isn't big enough to warrant being included on those services.

We were there in the wrong season, since the city's main claim to fame lies in ten thousand cherry trees planted along two kilometres beside the Kitakami River in Tenshochi Park. You get another sense of pecking orders in the sakura department since the fortnight or so in late April when the trees are in full bloom might attract a rating as one of the Tōhoku Region's three best cherry blossom spots (Hirosaki Castle and Kakunodate are the others) it's only regarded as one of the hundred best places nationwide to view cherry blossoms.

Other attractions (mentioned on the off chance you might be passing by) include summer festivals including the Michinoku Traditional Dance Festival, featuring Oni Kenbai, a traditional sword dance where the dancers dress as demons, and Michinoku Folklore Village, an open air museum containing thirty preserved farmhouses and other buildings from around the Tōhoku Region restored and arranged around forested walkways, ponds and fields. I'm guessing they're similar to what we saw in the Hida Folk Village in Takayama last time around, but they'd certainly be candidates on a less crowded itinerary, as would the Kitakami City Folklore Museum (included in the admission fee for the Folklore Village) with exhibits of Buddhist art, natural and  cultural history of the area.

The Kitakami River, coincidentally, being one of the region's most significant geographical features is the fourth largest river in Japan, draining an area of 10,150 square kilometres in the rural areas of Iwate and Miyagi Prefectures and, interestingly, has no dams from its mouth to the Shijūshida Dam north of Morioka, which results in a spectacular salmon run every autumn. We'll be referring to the river again when we talk Hiraizumi in tomorrow's Travelogue.

Having alighted from the train we made our way through the station and into the car park, where a quick conference saw Madam and I back inside buying the tickets for the next day's leg after they'd conferred about what it was going to be. Our Host’s a teacher, and has plenty to do, so we figured we'd get on a train somewhere along the route we followed on our day's ramblings and then leave her to get on with the rest of her weekend.

Extracting the tickets from an official in the ticket office who seemed to resent people carrying Japan Rail Passes in general, or Japanese-speaking people carrying JR Passes in particular. Took a couple of minutes more than you might expect, but we emerged, tickets in hand, to head off for the evening's accommodation, a reacquaintance with a certain Grog Dog, and an introduction to his canine confrere who we've nicknamed Red Cordial Dog since he seems to have fallen into a vat of hyperactivity inducer.

We didn't hang about too long, however, and we're soon off after a quick discussion of the available options. We got a sorry, house full at the first, a similar response at a second, but a phone call and a brisk walk through the eating and drinking area near the station got us a booth at the third, a vaguely Italian-themed place whose trademark dish was Buffalo Chicken.

That turned out to be bony chicken pieces with a barbecue sauce, so I'm not sure where the Buffalo bit originated. Still, it was cheap, there was plenty of it, and the Chilean red wine with a title that seemed to translate as The Devil's Castle was quite quaffable, though I exercised a modicum of restraint, the bill, which I managed to catch a glimpse of on the way out, ran to around ¥7200, which seemed pretty cheap for a variety of plates of nibbles, a fair sized pizza, a drink each for the girls and around half a dozen glasses of red for Yours Truly.

Back at base camp there was coffee, conversation and a couple of performing dogs to fill in the time until one felt inclined to crash.