Sam didn’t stir, just continued right on snoring. It was cold and I gradually put on more and more layers.
I lay down again and slept at 5.30am, peeling off the layers again like peeling an onion.
I woke again at 6.30am. Sam woke up then, which is really early for him.
6.55am. Time to get up, pack, have breakfast at 7.30am and leave at 8.15am. Good thing we were down at the dining room just before 7.30am, as there is a line not long after the dining room opens.
Bucky makes me my coffee now without me having to give instructions. (Bucky is kind of cute, ugly cute. He has to be really, otherwise I wouldn’t have given him a nick name) Espresso with a small jug of warm milk on the side. I don’t think he has had such an order before. (Any man who makes me coffee… well… you know)
Sam and I both had mushroom rice for breakfast.
The restaurant was busy with people this morning. This is the time the Japanese are on holidays, after all.
“See the Japanese want western food,” says Sam.
I saw a woman at breakfast with two noisy kids (who were pretty cute kids, admittedly) (and a handsome husband, too) who she said shhh to the two young boys, be quiet, and the kids didn’t quieten down at all, and she went on getting her breakfast. Parents of this generation are just failures, if you tell them to be quiet, make them do it. Be quiet. Fail!
8.10am. They drove us to the Yudanaka train station with the guy from New York. Bucky was outside to say goodbye, with his cute rabbit teeth. He asked us about where we came from in Australia and when we said Melbourne, he said it was known for its coffee, so that much he knew.
“Yes, thanks to Italian immigration in the 1950s and 1960s, I said.
One of the girls drove the van.
8.37am. Our train left for Nagano. A lovely old silver train.
The sun was shining, which always makes the air fresher and the day lovelier.
The train was different, gone was the outdated modernist creation we arrived on, the rapid, in its place was the standard design train with seats running down the sides for the length of the train, everyone looking at one another. A handsome Japanese guy sat opposite, staring down at his phone.
The sun shone in through the windows. The gentle ease of a country morning was all pervading.
Through the plains of rural Japan, lovely and gentle and calm. Clackity clack, clackity clack. The blossom still in the trees. Clackity clack, clackity clack. A gentle descent into the urban throb. Clackity clack, clackity clack.
We had to swap trains half way, who knows why? Off one train and straight across the platform and onto another train already waiting, also silver glinting in the sunshine.
The guy from New York talked all the way, non stop. Sam sat in between me and him and with the sounds of the train and his hushed New York accent, I had trouble hearing everything he said. I found myself nodding without much of a clue, at times. He told us about his previous trips overseas, how his first trip to Europe when he was very young only cost him $200. He told us how a car ran over his foot in London on another trip. He told us how one trip to China he had 13 accidents, or mishaps.
He was born in Hong Kong but moved to New York when he was a young boy. He liked to travel always, seemingly, on a budget. He had travelled back to China many times.
He got off at Obuse, he was off to see some lino cut art. Out the door and then he was gone. He was quite nice really, said it was a pleasure meeting us and hoped we would meet up again, possibly in Bali. (We all said we’d like to go to Bali on our next trip away) We left him standing in the middle of the local train station looking around, as if trying to divine the way to go. He travels on a budget, he has limited funds, good for him. It is not only the cultures you see when you travel, but the people you meet too and their stories you hear.
The “local” train was packed by the time we got to Nagano. Seriously, if it is always like this put on a few more carriages Japan rail, or whatever it is you are called. Or, join the two trains it took to get us to Nagano together.
We bought a club sandwich and an espresso coffee at Beck’s coffee shop. Then Sam bought sushi to go.
10.48am. We catch the bullet train to Kanazawa to catch a connecting bullet train to Kyoto. We got on car 9, but were supposed to be on car 4, and as the train was leaving by the time we discovered our mistake, we had to walk through the train for 5 minutes to find our seats. Still, it was better than getting off and having the train leave without us.
Why is it that we all have to be subjected to people’s noisy kids? There is a screaming kid whose head I’d like to take in both my hands a smash into the window until it stops making a noise, or until it is to slippery to keep hold of, whichever comes first.
The urbanisation out the window never stops. The development never eases off, wide open spaces never appear. It does a bit from time to time, but never like Australia. There are never wide open spaces of undeveloped land.
11.34am Toyama train station. It looks very slick and modern, white and silver steel. This must be a new station, surely.
11.56am. At Kanazawa Station, to catch our connecting train. It is called the Thunderbird number 22 bound for Osaka, so that must be a good sign, Thunderbirds are go, and all, except it is not a bullet train, it isn’t even a fast train, the Thunderbird is stopping all stations.
Komatsu, Kagaonsen, Awaraonsen, Fukui, Sabae, Takefu, Tsuruga, Kyoto.
Kyoto here we come.
The voiceover just never stops. The fact it is done in several languages doesn’t help its brevity, or lack thereof. Japan is generally like that, there is always some back ground noise going on.
There are no big trees in Japan, that my eyes can see out the window. Well, for the most part, in the urbanised areas. No large trees in gardens of houses.
I put my headphones in and listened to The Two of Us, Alfredo Malabello. Lay my head back and felt the movement of the train lull me to sleep.
And then I listened to Michael Buble Live. I wonder now if I imagined the movement of the train lulling me to sleep? I’m not sure there is much movement with a bullet train. Maybe it was the warmth of the confined spaces.
Sam played his games with his headphones on.
The sun shone. The train was warm.
I listened to Kate Ceberano’s 19 Days In New York. My eyes close and sleep nearly envelops me, but not quite.
2.37pm. We arrive in Kyoto.
We had to catch the underground to Marutamachi underground station. There is a manual, of sorts, of how to get to the house. Screen shots and written instructions, as there was in Tokyo. Around the corner and along a bit, turn right and you are there.
There are rules, a page of rules. We can leave our bags after midday, but no staying in the house before 4pm. There is something about a fine from the cleaners that will be oncharged to us if we check in too early and disturb them.
The entrance is a bit grim, a sliding door with a central lock, there is one of those key safes like real estate agents use. We have the code, click open there is the key. First door open, along a dark walkway to another door, open. There are the bikes we can ride. There are doors in all directions from there. The front garden. The toilet the front door to the house.
“What do we think?” Sam says. “It is 3.15pm, surely the cleaners have come by now.”
“Find the wifi password, message the owner to ask if 3.15pm is too early?” I suggest. “Or will the universe implode if we stay now?”
“Surely not?” says Sam.
We have to check out by 10am on checkout day, otherwise there is a 10000 yen for every fifteen minutes we overstay. Yeah, right, I think. Of course, Sam and I are pretty quiet tenants who abide by the rules. Don’t worry luv, we’ll be gone before 10am. Don’t you worry.
“I’d like to see them enforce collect on 10,000 yen fine, quite frankly,” I say.
“Seriously?” says Sam.
“We could go anyway,” I say. “Go get coffee?”
“Coffee? Is that all you think about?”
“I’ve only had one today.” He must be tired, I think. We are tired, I reckon. It is tiring packing up and moving everything to another place, changing trains 3 times to do it. And we were up early, 5 am and 6 am, that is early.
“You’ll turn into coffee one day.”
“I could be so lucky.”
“Has she answered?”
“No?”
“Oh well, let’s go,” I say. “We don’t want her to shit her pants over it.”
So, we went and got coffee. It was rubbish. The menu said espresso, but seriously, I think it was pour over just put in a small cup.
We came back at four, just because that is how long it took us.
Sam says she has answered, he reads it out. “The cleaners have been now, it is no problem if you stay now.”
“Only an hour too late,” I say. “But it makes no never mind.”
The house is really nice once you are inside. They just need to tart up the front a bit and they’d probably get more rentals.
Then we went and got food. Around the corner and along a bit. Too tired to really go looking for anything nice, we fall into the Japanese take away kind of place. I eat beef with kimchi and a salad and something and miso soup. Sam eats beef with eel and ochre and silken tofu and a crab miso soup. There is always miso soup in Japan.
I came home and I was a bit sleepy. I lay down on the couch with my laptop, time to research Kyoto. What to do in this place tomorrow?
Next thing I knew it was 10.30pm.
I sat up for a while, Sam played his game, Final Fantasy.
We went to bed at midnight.
I lay in bed wondering what kind of fire trap this place is. Really, it on has one door, the front door and to get to it you have to walk through a long, enclosed walkway. I think about Buddy and Bruno and fall asleep.
I really just want to go home, play with my bulldogs and play my new CDs that I have bought. Japan is just not really doing it for me, I am afraid.
That’s not the attitude I think, as I lay in the dark under the soft and luscious doona. There is only a week to go, it will go fast, enjoy it.
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