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 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: Kobe

Friday, 26 October 2012

Late nights often result in late mornings, but there was plenty on the agenda on what was, effectively, Admin and Organizing Day, so despite the presence of rather effective blackout curtains we were up reasonably early after what had been an uncharacteristic late night at the end of a longish and eventful day.

Still, we didn't get off to a rapid fire start, and it was after eight when we stepped into the elevator to head off to reacquaint Hughesy with the strange but very civilized custom of the breakfast Viking.

We were off, in other words, for a fairly substantial smorgasbord breakfast.

The day's agenda included converting the Rail Pass voucher purchased in Australia into an actual usable document, buying the tickets for the first couple of days' rail travel and anything else Madam thought might be booked out, chasing up some computer specific reading glasses with a focal length of 85 centimetres for Hughesy, transferring the clothing and other items Madam was going to need for the rail pass leg from her (blue) suitcase to mine (The Black Monster), and stashing everything else into the other one, which was going to be spending the next couple of weeks with The Mother.

That took things like neck cushions, airline blankets, changes of clothes for the return leg from Cairns to Bowen and other odds and ends out of the we're going to have to lug all this around the countryside for about three weeks equation.

Downstairs at the Viking I was tucking into a freshly made (as opposed to here's one we made a little earlier) omelette when I had a momentary vision of the inimitable Frockster and his likely reaction to the scene before me. There were, for a start, the regulation number of efficient and courteous hospitality workers, showing guests to seats, clearing tables, delivering tea and coffee and a couple of people who were obviously there to supervise, ensuring that everything was being done just right.

The guests were quietly going about their breakfasts, and the whole scene had a barely audible hum of activity. I figured you'd be able to hear The Frockster before he'd actually come through the door. He'd probably be demanding a table next to Hughesy and the Kobe Carnation and riffing off a variation of the theme that prevented us seeing Mount Fuji last time around.

Then, I figured, he'd sight the breakfast options on offer. Now, I'm not suggesting the man has steak and eggs for breakfast, or beef sausages, or some specific form of cereal, but the first thing he'd have noticed was an absolute lack of anything resembling Corn Flakes or Coco Pops.

The eye would have run along what would serve as a perfectly adequate continental breakfast buffet and noted the presence of the standard varieties of fruit juice and the varied selection of pastries, but would have pulled up short where you might expect to find the cereal. Instead he'd have sighted a variety of very Japanese breakfast options, none of which Hughesy is familiar with because of what lies on the other side of the open space.

There are two alcoves over that way, the first containing a variation on the old salad bar, with a nice array of mesclun leaves, a tray of cherry tomatoes, the assorted fruits and melons you'd expect to find at the breakfast table, a rather tasty variation on a peperonata (which probably explains the grated Parmesan cheese)  and a couple of salad dressings (which would tend to explain the croutons).

I mean, if you're going to have something approximating a Caesar salad for breakfast you're going to need croutons, n'est ce pas?

The other alcove delivered the variations on bacon and eggs, with a chef on hand to do you an omelette on the spot in a non-stick pan and another doing what looked like perfectly done fried eggs without any hint of frizzle around the edges.

I wasn't 100% sold on the look of the sausages but a fresh omelette, some bacon and a few other bits and pieces from the other alcove and a croissant or two made up a pretty solid first go at breakfast, and I ventured back for seconds from the salad bar and a bit more from the pastry department.

I was expecting a fair bit of hoofing and reckoned I'd need the carbohydrates.

Back upstairs we finished sorting things out and caught the 9:55 shuttle into Sannomiya (the same free service looks after the to and from business for the Okura and the Meriken Park Oriental) and arrived at the city's transport hub around five minutes later. After a brief diversion to investigate replacement options for watch batteries we headed off to a Japan Rail booking office for what was probably the most important part of the whole trip.

I've been referring to a voucher but the JR information booklet calls it an Exchange Order, and you need to have bought the little devil before you land in the country. You lob at the JR Office with your Exchange Order and your passport, fill out the form you get at the office and after a bit of peel, paste and laminate action you end up with the document that looks after the majority of your ticket purchases.

It won't get you on to the top level Shinkansen services, and there are a couple of other exemptions, and the Pass doesn't work on railway lines that aren't part of the JR Group, but it does cover some bus and ferry services.

Once you've accomplished the exchange the fun really begins, and given the nature of the beast and the likelihood you'll be sitting in a booking office with a queue of people looking for tickets, this is something best done over a couple of sessions rather than all in one fell swoop.

So you get the tickets you absolutely must have first. If there's no one waiting you go for the next most pressing ones. If it looks like you're holding up the queue you head off to do something else, and come back for another go, or find yourself another quiet office and proceed from there.

We were looking at a leg from Kobe to Kitakami with lunch in Tokyo the next day, so we obviously needed those tickets for a start. Having got that batch we set off for the optometrist for a pair of computer-specific reading glasses and stopped in at another JR booking office when we got to the right general area and filled in the ticketing for another couple of stages. Once the glasses bit had been dealt with we noted there was no one in that JR office, so we headed back in for another go. That might seem like an excessively cautious approach until you consider the process involved.

Bear in mind that this is when you know where you want to go and when you want to do so. Lob up and say you want to go from here to there on Thursday and it's probably a more lengthy process because there'll be a number of options. Madam's pre-trip research was very detailed, and we knew when we wanted to leave most places we were going, and we had the connections along the way nutted out already.

So you start by telling the person you're dealing with what you want and when you want to go. They fill out a requisition form, and when you've finished requesting they start processing the requests, which involved some fairly solid touch screen action and the odd point of clarification.

That process eventually delivers printed tickets, which are then checked against the requisition form and then checked with the purchaser to make sure you're getting exactly what you asked for. As stated, it's a slow process, and requests for the tickets you'll need to cover a fourteen day pass could occupy one particular operative for most of a morning.

That's a significant consideration when you've already been in there for ten minutes tying up one of three operators while a queue has formed, which is why you start with the most important ones, and gradually work your way through the rest.

In any case, with the most pressing ticket issues dealt with we needed to head back to the Okura, though there was the odd minor issue to be dealt with en route, and wandered back upstairs to collect the Blue suitcase just in time for Madam to miss the 1:55 shuttle, something that was largely made possible by somebody's refusal to accept Hughesy's logic that the hotel's over there, there's a roadway that runs right in front of the hotel and this ramp looks like it'll run down to the roadway.

As it turns out I was right on all accounts, but we wandered around the environs of the Kobe Maritime Museum, completing a circuit of the building and ended up gaining access to the hotel by the route I'd suggested was there all along.

In any case there was another bus twenty minutes later. Since I'd probably get in the way en route I remained in the Okura, with the result that three days' worth of Travelogue are more or les complete, up to date and ready for publication about two hours before we head off to rendezvous with one of Madam's old school friends and dinner.

With the writing up to date I decided to follow earlier suggestions and repair to the comfortable chairs in the lobby overlooking the Japanese garden behind the building and settle back into reading Neil Young. I'd been quite happy upstairs, tapping away listening to Toumani Diabate and Bert Jansch, which wasn't an option downstairs, but I thought I'd be spotted when Madam returned, it was her suggestion and I didn't want to be a philistine, did I?

As it turned out, of course, someone sailed through the lobby while I wasn't looking, failed to notice I was there, had a minor panic attack when the realization struck and then didn't exactly rush down to ensure everything was OK and I hadn't been abducted by strange females (or something).

We were due to rendezvous at seven and since Motomachi Station is equidistant by hoof from the Okura and Sannomiya we eschewed the shuttle bus and hoofed it around the edge of the Old Foreign Settlement and the Kobe take on Chinatown (Nanking-Nachi) before making the rendezvous slightly ahead of time and heading across the road from Motomachi Station to a rather good Korean eatery located in a basement at the bottom of a rather steep set of stairs.

There was nothing I could see to advertise the place, no prominent display board with the various menu options, no one spruiking the quality of what's on offer downstairs, but when you're that small (it's not the largest eating space you've ever seen and wouldn't hold much more than thirty diners) and that good you probably don't need the shill. Mind you, there probably was some form of signage outside that I failed to notice...

Dinner came in a variety of small serves, covering a variety of styles, some steamed chicken with kimchi that I wasn't expected to like, but did, barbecued beef, a seafood omelette and there were enough of them to cover the middle of a smallish table. With help yourself bowls and such in front of each diner as the two old school friends chatted away and the dishes kept coming I did my best to clear space in the middle of the table where everyone could reach things more easily.

One of the things I wasn't particularly eager to reach was the one that arrived with an I'll tell you what it is later which is the proverbial dead set give away in the probably oh yuck department. Whatever it was turned out to be chewy, not particularly interesting, and not much to my taste. Subsequent inquiries as to the identity received a single word response.

Guts.

There was a bed of noodles as well, which was more to my liking, and I pecked at it intermittently. Interestingly, no one else seemed particularly concerned to finish it off. Any suggestion to this effect will undoubtedly be met with an immediate denial, but I suspect there's a bit of the old let's see what the foreigner reckons about this one operating here, much like the two exposures to the surprisingly crunchy jellyfish last time around...

There wasn't any hint of a wine list, but Korean goes better with beer anyway, so I managed to knock over (figuratively, of course) several pitchers while we made our way through the platters.

It wasn't all that late when we called stumps and wandered back through Motomachi, guided by the old school friend, who'd parked very close to the Okura. We'd headed in via the Cape, with Madam suggesting the deals they're offering at the Okura and the Meriken Park Oriental were related to a slightly inconvenient location compared to the competition, but if you know where you're going and you're willing to walk, Motomachi is only a hop, skip and a jump from the Okura.

Across the road at the zebra crossing, through the car park and over the pedestrian bridge and you're a bit over a stone's throw from Motomachi, and with shuttle buses to Sannomiya for most of the day and well into the evening isolation is a relative thing.

Still, if they're going to offer deals like the one we were enjoying we'd be mugs to knock them back.

We'd picked up the rather impressive deal (two nights with full Viking breakfast for the special rate of ¥23000, remarkably good value when you work on Madam's easy conversion rate of ¥100 to the Aussie Dollar, and still pretty good value when you do the sums at the actual conversion rate opting on the day concerned. By comparison, I'm looking at a base rate of $229 per night as the base rate for my preferred accommodation option when I head off to catch Elvis Costello in concert in Sydney early next year.

Back at the Okura we finished most of the preparations for Travel Day One and clambered into the cot just after eleven, looking forward to whatever the morrow might bring.

Japan 2012: Cairns > Kansai International > Kobe

Thursday, 25 October 2012

Getting a good night's sleep before a major excursion isn't as easy as you might think, and I was awake, if the old memory serves me well at one-thirty and three before I emerged from a dream involving High School acquaintances, degenerate cricketers and an Elvis Costello concert around five-thirty.

At least I slept better than Madam, who ascribed an inability to get a good night's sleep to a combination of factors you can probably figure out without actually being told. Given the number of things that could go wrong over the next three weeks you'll be running over the possibilities, and that sort of thing isn't exactly conducive to deep and undisturbed slumber.

In any case, once I was awake I was back on the Travelogue and had the prelude largely knocked over before the pre-breakfast shower. There had been some consideration of a walk to find a breakfast option away from the hotel but intermittent drizzle put paid to that theory and we headed downstairs for a Spanish omelette (Hughesy) and a bowl of fruit (Madam) before we completed the packing and the regulation reshuffle of bits and pieces.

The Ukulele Lady had kindly offered to drop us at the Airport (she was working somewhere over in that direction so it was more or less on her way) and we were downstairs around half an hour before the time she'd indicated on the off chance she might be running early. We didn't want to be keeping anyone waiting, did we?

The check in and departing the country procedures ran smoothly, producing a state of illusory well-being that was severely disrupted by an announcement around half an hour before we were scheduled to begin boarding.

Technical issues, they said, were going to delay boarding (and, subsequently, departure) by an hour and while I wasn't happy about the delay I'd rather they found things that were likely to go wrong before takeoff. In any case, with things up to date almost right on the originally scheduled boarding time it was a case of a bit of thumb-twiddling with the iPad battery around 83% and the iPod taking over the workload.

There was, however, one major departure from revealed form this time around.

Faced with the prospect of an early morning arrival back in Cairns Madam thought it might be worth investigating the cost involved and the extra benefits obtained in Business Class. The original motivation was more legroom and the chance of a better night's sleep, but an extra ten kilogram luggage allowance is a significant factor for someone who'll be looking to bring a quantity of delicacies and other odds and ends she can't buy in Australia back with her.

We were, by the way, entitled to sixty kilograms of luggage on the way over, so the fact that the scales registered thirty-five in Cairns probably means someone's credit card will be reeling by the time we make our way back.

I'd heard rumors of better quality food and drink in Business Class as well. Not that I was expecting anything spectacular in the Jetstar version thereof, but you never know, do you?

As it turned out, when the boarding call came around an hour late we were the first through the Business queue and had plenty of time to acquaint ourselves with the extras, which started with the zipper bag of goodies and the blanket to keep you warm en route. The offer of a glass of bubbles to start off before we started moving was a nice start, particularly when the glass of bubbles I started lunch with seemed awfully familiar.

Fine, but there was better to come when the menu arrived, along with the accompanying wine list.

The bean curd appetizer, with marinated Japanese leek and dressing didn't quite sound like my scene, but the chance of a glass of Jansz Premium Non-Vintage Rose bubbles with it sounded like a good way to take the edge off the tofu as far as Hughesy was concerned.

Given the rest of the lineup the Tinpot Hut 2011 Sauvignon Blanc is probably a classy drop, but take a look at what followed it on the list. Stella Bella 2009 Chardonnay, Innocent Bystander 2010 Syrah and Cape Mentelle Cabernet Merlot? Count me in.

So the entree, a choice of Chicken rikyu-yaki or Beef ginger teriyaki for the main and a chance of a bit of cheese for afters, along with very decent wine? No problems.

As it turned out, of course, airline catering is airline catering, and the food was about what you'd expect under the circumstances, but the glass of Jansz Sparkling Rose seemed suspiciously similar to something I'd tried not that long before.

Madam had gone for the Stella Bella Chardonnay, and ended up with a glass of seriously good new style Oz chardy, which was impressive, and when the flight attendant delivered a glass of Innocent Bystander Syrah I wasn't quite in seventh heaven, but I was a very happy camper.

If we'd been sitting further back we'd have been looking at a choice of an SSB or a Shiraz from some offshoot of the McGuigan dynasty, but here we were with a choice of wines you'd expect to be looking to pay around the $10/glass in a restaurant. On that basis, Business Class has got me.

The point behind all this is that on your average budget airline Economy starts with a price and you start adding on the extras, starting with minor details like luggage, meals, drinks and blankets. I'd noted the Economy wine options had kicked in at $7/airline serve bottle. The Business glasses were slightly smaller than that, but you'd have been looking at $14 for the alcoholic equivalent of what arrived gratis on Business.

On the other hand you can start by looking at the business price and start counting back the things that'd cost you. Somewhere around $20 worth of wine by the glass is a bonus on top of the extra leg room, the increased baggage allowance and the fact that down the back you're paying for the meal.

There's still a differential, but if you look at it that way it diminishes rather substantially. Of course, it helps to have picked up the seats on sale, but every little bit helps...

With lunch out of the way a predictable torpor descended over the area as we settled in for the long haul without much to look forward to in the way on scenery et cetera. I'd noted green jungle below us during lunch, and guessed we were over the Owen Stanley Range. There was a highly distinctive river system that brought the name Markham to mind, something that needed to be confirmed, and a recent check on Google Earth and the National Geographic Atlas app failed to deliver a definitive answer, but for the next couple of hours it was a case of a semi-dose with something quietish on the iPod.

Madam took advantage of the proffered iPad to watch Madagascar 3, which filled in the time rather nicely, and in terms of battery usage I'd have been better off doing something similar. As the snob in me sniffly dismissed the audio, visual and reading options available on their iPad I tapped away on mine, running down a battery that was seriously depleted by continuing to read the Neil Young autobiography.

They roused us with just under two hours to go, and I used the opportunity to sample a bit of the Cape Mentelle Cabernet Merlot, declining suggestions of more solid sustenance, which were of the noodle in a cup or standard packaged snack persuasion, looking forward to the chance to watch the passing light show once we made landfall.

Last time that had been somewhere around Kyushu or the southern end of Shikoku and there had been a run along the coast with  the Seto Inland Sea visible, but we were following a different flight path this time around, and the lack of precise geographic awareness in the darkness threw me big time.

Looking at it now in the cool clear light of morning reality I can see (with the admitted aid of the National Geographic Atlas app) that we must have made landfall around the eastern end of Shikoku, probably around Tokushima, which I managed to confuse with the Kobe-Osaka conurbation around the time the final landing instructions came over the P.A. System.

They're leaving that remarkably late, I thought, under the mistaken impression we were on our final approach. In reality we were still somewhere around two to three thousand metres up and the lights on my left that would have represented a fairly large urban and industrial centre that looked reasonably close must have been an extensive conurbation that was probably twenty kilometres away.

Still, even if I didn't know where we were the lights gave something to occupy the attention once we'd been told to turn off all electronic devices.

Once we'd landed there was a lengthy around the terminal building before we reached the designated air bridge, where another of the benefits of business came into play.

I'd carefully stashed everything I didn't need except for the iPad and whatever I could fit in my pockets in the back pack, which had been stowed in the overhead locker, so once the seat belt sign went off and Madam moved into the aisle retrieving it was easy, and when the doors opened we were in among the first to disembark, which brought us to the first door on the shuttle that carries you towards the Arrivals processing area.

Moving swiftly, Madam and I had hit the lead of the pack through the temperature check and I arrived at the Foreigners section of Immigration (there was a bevy of her compatriots following Madam to the Japanese passport section) to find there wasn't a queue at all.

Straight in, hand over passport and immigration form, place the index fingers on the fingerprint machine, get the facial recognition bit done and I was through something that mightn't have actually taken an hour last time around but certainly felt like it.

In fact, that process needed less time than I took to type that last paragraph.

Things didn't go quite so smoothly in the Baggage Claim area, since the baggage handling process doesn't seem to be class conscious, but once we'd done the retrieval and whisked our way through Customs we were on the lookout for the shuttle bus and looking pretty good.

I'm not sure exactly what happened next, but having been directed to the relevant stop (#6 if I recall correctly) I joined the queue with the bags and Madam headed off to get the tickets from the relevant machine. We'd checked our bags, the bus had arrived, and the driver had refused to accept what we wanted to hand over. Instead of two tickets and two receipts from the machine we had one ticket, the requisite number of receipts, and a driver who wanted actuals rather than apparent evidence.

There was some flustered to-ing and fro-ing that ended up costing an extra ¥2000, but we ended up on the bus at 8:35, a far better result than we'd expected when we heard about flight delays back in Cairns.

Last time around I'd made a mental note to sit on the right hand side of the bus because it seemed the view of the city lights was better on that side, but this time, Madam's attempts to figure out what had gone wrong proved a significant distraction and I didn't see a lit-up Osaka Castle this time either.

The run along the freeway from the airport to downtown Kobe takes about an hour, and we were in plenty of time to catch the 9:50 shuttle to the Okura and Meriken Park Oriental Hotels. last time around we'd started at the Oriental, but this time it was the Okura for the first two nights.

Negotiations at reception proceeded with the regulation courtesies and rituals, and we were conducted to our room on the twenty-fifth floor by a bellhop who wasn't anywhere near as over the top as the Harry Houdini clone we'd encountered at the Oriental last time around.