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Published: August 8th 2017
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7 August, 8.30pm (but posted at 3.30pm the following day. Still having problems getting photos up tho, sorry.)
Well, we’re here. We’ve been looking forward to this for so long, and the day finally arrived. We had three alarms set to get us up before 4 this morning, and they all worked, and we got up fine. Showers, final items in the bags, check everything, close and lock the suitcases… oops, the old one looks a bit broken. Oops, the old one has a 6-inch hole in the bottom seam. Oops, we have to find another bag and throw everything into it, now! Luckily we had another bag, a bigger one, so that was fine. We just got a bit behind on time, so no breakfast. The taxi got to the pickup spot before we did (our street is too tiny for cars, so we arrange pick-ups on the main road, about 100m away), and we were off.
All smooth sailing at the airport: easy check-in, some yoghurt and some milk, a cup of tea for Stephen, on board on time, took off on time, ate a bit, slept a bit, watched half
Nearly at our Stop
This is 5 o'clock traffic! a movie, read a bit; 6 hours later, on the tarmac at Tokyo within a minute of the scheduled arrival time. That’s Japan for you. Immigration went swimmingly, and when we got to the luggage carousel, about 20 minutes after disembarking, there were our bags with just two others, lined up ready to be taken. Everyone else had been and gone.
Through the gates, and we found the bus ticketing office we needed, and were told the next bus would be leaving in 20 minutes. Perfect. It was about a 30 minute drive to where we are staying, but this was the first time either of us have ever arrived in Japan in daylight. It was surprising to see how much and how little the region was what we expected. Lots of green, very nice neat squares of fields, lots of trees separating villages and townships, but in the dark in the past I had thought there was lots of urban area to pass through, which was hidden by tall highway walls. In fact there was a lot of countryside, some industrial areas, and only a few bits of city. We were halfway here, at about
First Night's Dinner
This is Hello Kitty food. Beautiful, but ... can we really be sure it's food? It's as if the food is designed to look like the wax display models, not the other way around. 4.30, when I realised we hadn't yet had any lunch - only breakfast had been served on the plane.
The bus stopped near what will be our local railway station, Kemigawahama Station. We had a small hand-drawn map that Giang had sketched for us on Friday when he gave us the key to his apartment. I thought I recognised where we needed to go from when I had used Google Maps to look it up, (no I wasn't stalking, just curious), but we decided to try to follow the instructions first. And they weren’t very wrong, just not very clear. We didn’t need to make any u-turns, just a slight detour to get back to where I thought we should have gone in the first place. The flat is tiny: maybe 6m x 10m, divided into quarters: one quarter is a kitchen with a dining table, another is an almost empty office, just a desk and chair, where I’m writing this, another quarter is the bedroom (with the scent of straw from the tatami-mat floor), and the other quarter is the toilet, laundry, bathroom and entrance hall. I hope the apartments that have families in
them (eg,the one with the two kids next door) are not exactly the same as this.
Anyway, we got in, had a bit of a rest, and then set off back towards the station. That’s the only commercial area around here, so to get in some supplies for breakfast and get a ready-made bite to eat, we had to take the 500m walk back there. We found the station itself, and were able to buy the train cards (like the British Oyster cards) that will make travelling a lot simpler. We got some provisions for breakfast at the 24-hour supermarket, then looked for somewhere to eat at. The supermarket actually had some really nice-looking sushi, yakitori (chicken and other stuff on skewers) and other take-home stuff,and there was another takeaway of traditional food also, but we wanted to eat out. The only non-foreign restaurant we could find was more like a diner, but the food was the kind of stuff you see everywhere in Japan, even if not what you would call “Japanese cuisine.” I had a hamburger patty stuffed with cheese, and Stephen had some kind of meat platter, with chicken, beef and a sausage. Stephen calls this “Hello Kitty” food: each piece is smooth and perfectly formed, every one identical. At least this was flavourful, and reasonably nutritious. The menu gave the calorie count of each dish along with the price. We’ll see if this is a widespread thing or just this restaurant’s quirk. (I suspect the former.)
As we left the restaurant, there was a light spatter of rain just beginning. We walked home, waiting at the lights , but as we crossed, the rain strengthened, until a minute later it was teeming. Luckily there was a bus shelter near the corner, where we waited for a while, but although the rain lightened once or twice, it didn’t actually stop. After a while we just decided to brave it. I covered my head with a bag of groceries (but I have to say that two yoghurts and a litre of milk don’t make a comfortable hat) and we trotted the next 300 metres back. Utterly soaked we were, down to our skins. A warm cup of tea, trying to sort out the wifi (still not quite there - I’m typing this offline, hoping to get it sorted soon), and I think an early night will be in order.
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