So, it's been a while...

Given the time gap between November 2013 and January 2017 one might be inclined to suspect that Hughesy the Author had bundled this whole travelogue exercise into the too hard basket.

Or, possibly, after the 2013 trip to Japan we stopped going places.

The first suspicion is true, the second demonstrably false.

Writing up Japan 2013 ended up being easiest done in Pages and iBooks Author.

The result appears in the latest incarnation of my iBook Over the Horizon: On the Road in Japan.

That's the December 2013 trip, available as an iBook or a PDF.

Right underneath it there's another offering with an account of a subsequent trip to Japan in October 2015.

And, now that I look at it, I see I need to update the other pages in the Travelogue section of Hughesy's iBooks to cover trips to Europe, Southeast Asia, and the wilds of the Gulf Savannah.

Much of the content is not suited to this travel blog, which operates best as a day by day, what I did and where I went exercise with minimal background research and not too much in the way of historical explanation.

Get diverted into historical and other whys and wherefores and, before you know it you're way behind anything resembling a timely blogging schedule, with a backlog that keeps increasing.

Which is, more or less, the way it happened.

So, I've been busy on other things.

But here I am at the end of January 2017, about to head off on an almost month-long jaunt around Australia chasing Bruce Springsteen concerts.

That looks like something which should work in the blog environment, so let's try it.

Coming up: Springsteen 2017: The Beginnings.

Japan 2013: Bowen > Cairns

Wednesday, 4 December 2013

Practice, they say, makes perfect, and we've probably had enough practice to get most things right when it comes to heading off for a week or two.

There are, of course, issues, many of them relating to two furry felines who are deprived of their regular indoor comforts when we head off, and tend to display a degree of resentful disdain when we return. On this occasion,  we've enlisted the help of a feline friendly volunteer and expect to return to find LikLik and Ninja are much more welcoming of strangers, having been feted with food and an appreciation of feline sensitivities over a period of just over a fortnight.

Or maybe not, but we did try.

On previous trips away we've questioned whether the hot plate on the stove has been turned off, had Hughesy fail to switch off the air-con before the cheap tariff down time kicked in, and have been known to make the odd U-turn just to make sure whatever concern has just been raised has, in fact, been addressed.

Each time we do that, of course, we find another thing to add to the pre-departure checklist, and repeated practice has delivered a routine that should ensure all eventualities have been covered.
That was the way it seemed, anyway. Both of us threw in minor suggestions that were met with a checked that from the other side, and it gave us something to do on a two hundred kilometre leg that has been done so often that there's practically nothing short of a major disaster that would provide anything out of the ordinary to remark on.

And we don't want major disasters, do we?

That doesn't mean there's nothing in the pipeline as far as things to comment on are concerned.
As usual we hit the shortcut just south of Ayr, where I was again foiled in my desire to have us pull over so I can get a photo of the sign advertising an entity called Ayr Boring Company.

When I've got the image I've got the caption (The conversation's not that much better on the other side of the river either) to go with it.

The short cut isn't that much shorter, but avoids traffic issues in downtown Ayr, and for the past year or so has delivered the added advantage of avoiding much of the road work going on to the north of Brandon.

For a good year before that it skirted past roadworks to the south of Brandon as well.

Those concerns delivered what amounted to a trouble free run from Bowen through Townsville.

We got a chance to liven things up with a momentary panic when Hughesy's reading glasses went missing after we'd checked the air pressure in the tyres at the Servo near the Townsville race course, but that resolved itself when they dropped out of my shirt.

We took the ring road after refuelling, and were crossing Ross River shortly after ten thirty, having left Bowen just before seven forty-five.

It was, as indicated, a clear run through, with a minor delay at the roadworks just north of Brandon, and things continued in the same vein as we headed towards Ingham.

We identified the scene of the accident that could have been infinitely worse on the last trip to Cairns, sailed through Ingham and over the Cardwell Range and were pulling up outside the Vivia Cafe in Cardwell shortly after twelve fifteen.

The Vivia has been the standard stop in  Cardwell for a while now, and that's not likely to change after a minor incident last time we were passing that way. Somewhat shaken by the accident we'd just been involved with, I'd failed to notice my mobile drop out of the lap when we pulled up in Cardwell.
It ended up in the gutter, where the management of the Vivia had found and held onto it.

Next morning, not realising what had happened, we tried the usual trick when you can't locate the mobile.

Call it and wait for the ring tone.

That didn't work, because we were in Mission Beach and the phone was in Cardwell.
The attempt resulted in a call back from Cardwell. When we got home I found a message on the answering machine as well.

So we got the phone back, and the very least we can do in the way of thanks is to call in for a meal when we're passing. This time the meal amounted to a Tex wrap for Hughesy, crab sangas for Madam, and a couple of coffees.

We were back on the road before one, having bought the loop that will hold the reading glasses around the neck, and preventing a repetition of the servo incident in Townsville on the way up.
On the leg between Cardwell and Cairns the only item of note was the discovery that Hughesy's new iPad, with WiFi rather than 3G technology, lacks GPS capability, which is a pity since I was looking at it as a navigation aid in Japan.

We might still be able to use it in cases where we've got access to WiFi along the way, but the lack of the helpful blue dot indicating your actual GPS-located position limits the value as a navigational aid, and on that basis it looks like the old model will still be in use when we're travelling in Oz.

There were a couple of minor delays on the highway north of Tully, and we found ourselves rolling into the main conurbation at Cairns just after three.

With nothing on the agenda apart from checking into the accommodation at  Bay Village Tropical Retreat, we made a booking for the restaurant at seven and eventually managed to squeeze The Possum into the parking space.

You'd reckon it should be easier to get it out again in the morning, but these predictions seem to have a habit of coming unstuck.

With five hours' complimentary WiFi, we settled down to read email, checked the odd link out of there, and, having passed that particular baton over to Madam I set about jotting down the start of the Travelogue.

The complimentary WiFi came with a few quirks that seemed to prevent two devices accessing the came connection simultaneously, so a tag team approach seemed the way to go.

In any case, after the drive Madam wanted a rest before engaging in brain-related activity.

We wandered through to the Balinese restaurant on the premises that had been the motivation for making the hotel reservation, and while dinner wasn't as gobsmackingly scrumptious as it was the previous time one suspects that might have something to do with the fact there were just the two of us this time around.

Our previous visit had The Sister and The Rowdy Niece with us and was, therefore, a matter of four shared dishes between us rather than the one each thin time around.

But the food was good, the service attentive and the Mitchell Watervale Riesling the way it usually is, so Hughesy went to bed a happy camper.

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: 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.