Monday, 14 April 2008
After the previous day's long haul, Madam's detailed research paid off big time with a leisurely morning, a midday checkout time and no appointments until the evening.
I kept plugging away at the email mountain, a slow process since most of it was only accessible through Telstra webmail, which is hardly the speediest of conveyances.
From the 28th floor of the hotel, which is on the western edge of downtown Kōbe, we had a view away across the long narrow city wedged between mountains to the west and the Inland Sea.
Once the preliminaries were completed, and the suitcase packed, it was time for a brief review of options for the next hour or two.
This amounted to a choice between going straight to lunch at the German bakery or working up an appetite by taking a stroll around historic houses in the former foreign quarter. That area beside the hotel on the southern side, was, however, a bit hilly.
Bearing jobs that needed to be carried out later in the day in mind, I thought walking up hill and down dale would waste time that could be spent otherwise. My preference was an early lunch.
Once we left the hotel and surveyed the topography, I was sure I'd pulled the right rein.
The slopes leading to the historic houses, while not quite vertical were not all that far off it.
Freundlieb is located in a converted church on a quiet back street a short walk away from the hotel.
There is a downstairs retail section we walked straight past, and a stylish cafe on the first floor.
We ordered the Monday sandwich special for ‘Er Indoors (soup, salmon and vegetable sandwich, drink and ice cream for ¥1080) and a roast beef sandwich (¥1600) for me.
If I'd been on the ball, I could have ordered a half bottle of Valpolicella to go with it. But the sun wasn't quite over the yardarm, so I opted for a cappuccino instead.
Both meals were substantial enough for a satisfying brunch though Madam claimed she had difficulty tasting the salmon in hers.
With brunch out of the way, we rolled back to the hotel, collected the luggage from the cloakroom and boarded the subway, Myodani-bound. A quick taxi transfer took us to The Mother's place.
A quick report on our activities over the previous week preceded a rearrangement of luggage for the next couple of days (Kōbe > Kyoto > Nara > Kōbe).
Having arrived with two large suitcases, we'd transferred to one (mine) for the Rail Pass leg we'd just completed.
Figuring we only needed a couple of changes of clothes for the next three days, we packed what we thought we'd need into a smaller overnight bag.
The casual observer might be puzzled by frequent relocations, particularly when we were staying in Kōbe.
So, initially, was I. Once we were on the ground, however, things made a bit more sense.
The first night in Kōbe had been somewhere to crash after the flight, a place with a good view, a smooth transfer from the airport shuttle to the hotel, and, most importantly, a smorgasbord breakfast.
Those factors were irrelevant for the rest of the stay, and the location on the edge of the harbour was slightly out of the way.
And ‘Er Indoors had found a good deal for one night.
The second place had been chosen for ease of transfer to and from the train to Osaka, remembering our return was probably going to be rather late.
The third spot gave easy access to the train service that delivered us into the Kyotic cherry blossom Sunday and the following day's Shinkansen leg of the rail pass journey.
Back in Kōbe, we'd stayed next door to ShinKōbe for Sunday night, close to somewhere we could eat and more or less on the way to The Mother's place.
Where we were headed for the night might have been a reasonable step from Sannomiya but offered a substantial Viking breakfast that would fit in with the following day's travel plans.
In other words, we probably wouldn't need to eat until the evening.
Once we'd booked in for the night, it was off to meet Gomi-san and Sakai-san. Or so we thought, a late email en route to the rendezvous advised that Sakai-san was a late scratching). Once we arrived at the rendezvous, it was a case of the lift, up to the 28th floor to negotiate the vital matter of free drinks for the night.
Actually, the term free drinks is misleading.
There was a one-off charge (¥1200 for males, ¥900 for females). But a bloke who can't knock over twelve Australian dollars' worth of grog in three and a half hours doesn't qualify as a serious drinker.
With a choice of beer, saké, basic spirits and wine, we stuck with the wine. There was a selection of four reds and four whites (Rosemount Estate Jigsaw labels included).
Out of the Italian and Californian wines, there was nothing to match what we'd come to expect around the Rosemount Jigsaw price point.
Dinner was another Viking affair, and while it wasn't the most magnificent spread I've ever seen, there was plenty of it/. I thought it was quite good value for money.
Having eaten, we sat chewing the fat and savouring the Sangiovese that we'd agreed was the pick of the non-Oz wines on offer until the management called time. At that point, predictably, we drew stumps and decanted ourselves into the darkness.
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
Two weeks down, one week (more or less) to go.
We headed downstairs to the Viking breakfast just after eight, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and in need of substantial nutrition to carry us through a walking-oriented day.
And, if the range of goodies didn't match what we'd encountered at our previous Viking breakfast at the start of the sojourn, the quality was, we thought, better.
From there it was a hike to Sannomiya and an hour's train journey to the outskirts of Kyoto (Hankyu Arashiyama station).
We placed the baggage in a coin locker, wandered over the river through the cherry-blossoms and caught a bus into the hills, with a basic plan to walk back downhill from Toriimoto.
The first part of the walk took us along a traditional Japanese street lined with houses with a stop at Kyoto Municipal Preservation Museum of Saga Toriimoto's Streets and Structures, an impressive title for an impressive little establishment.
The museum is a reconstruction of a Meiji Era townhouse, with photographs and an interesting model of the district as it was in the early twentieth century. But we got the most benefit out of talking to the attendant, who was keen to point out details we mightn't have noticed.
Toriimoto is spectacular in autumn, and, with tree-covered hills surrounding the area, it would be a fantastic spectacle.
But we were there in spring. We would have walked straight past the tiny, delicate maple flowers if they had not been brought to our attention.
We eventually found ourselves at Gioji temple. We wandered through the garden, marvelling at the translucent beauty of newly formed leaves as the morning sun filtered through the canopy over our heads.
It's the sort of scene you just don't experience in areas where all the trees are evergreens.
The effect was utterly magical, and, again, I was fascinated by the mosses that covered the ground under the trees.
The sight was almost enough to make me want to relocate somewhere temperature, and rainfall would encourage the development of moss in the garden.
From Gioji, we went on to Nisonin, which dates back to the first half of the ninth century.
The main hall was reconstructed in 1521 after being destroyed by fire.
From there, we strolled along the bamboo path.
Our final stop for the day's temple tour was Tenryuji, a World Heritage site dating back to 1339.
Most of the buildings on the site are more recent due to destruction associated with internal conflicts over the years.
Although fire destroyed the buildings several times over, the landscape garden, one of the oldest of its kind, dates back to the founding abbot, who designed the layout.
We took our time walking around the garden, stopping for a rest at the bamboo grove near the North Entrance, and strolling back through the cherry-blossom.
By this stage, we were just about templed-out. So we headed back to the station, retrieved the luggage, and set off for the night's accommodation, which turned out to be an economy room with an economy-sized bathtub to match.
Right at the time when a lengthy soak in a warm bath would have been wonderfully therapeutic.
And we had to rest up before an evening when we would catch up with The Sponge and Lighting Dude, two members of a theatre troupe that had passed through Bowen about eighteen months ago.
They were doing an Arts Council gig around the district's schools on their way to the Pacific Edge Arts Conference in Mackay.
We'd caught up with The Interpreter in Tokyo, and prior experience suggested the evening would be a somewhat fluid affair.
A flurry of emails established the plan for the night.
Meet at Karasuma Station and then head somewhere to eat, and, what is more important, drink.
The Sponge is as the nickname suggests, partial to a drink.
And so, of course, am I.
Once at the station, we found two familiar faces along with a third member of the troupe who'd been enlisted for the night because she was a good drinker. She also knew her way around the value-for-money eating and drinking establishments in downtown Kyoto.
We stood around, chatting while waiting for the final member of the party to arrive.
Once she had, we set off on a route march that turned to the left and headed into a basement just when I was about to ask why we'd set off on a lengthy excursion without a compass and a cut lunch.
We removed the shoes, placed them in a locker, and were ushered into a cubicle where we set about organising copious quantities of food and drink.
Beer seemed to be the logical starter, and there was a discussion (in Japanese) about appropriate sizes of drinking vessels.
Sponge, having spent a day on the promotional trail, was not in a mood to drink out of a tooth glass. He uttered what sounded like Dynamo, but I heard it as Dynamite.
And, given the size of the thirst, nothing less than Dynamite would suffice.
When the first round arrived, I discovered Dynamo denoted a vessel containing substantially more than a pint glass.
For the next couple of hours, Hughesy and The Sponge washed down another array of assorted dishes. There was nothing in the high-class-gourmet category, but plenty of good solid blotting paper to soak up copious draughts of Dynamite before we changed to saké.
Along the way, we discovered Lighting Dude needed a change of nickname, due to an aversion to flying. He was now to be known as Chicken.
It didn't, however, stop there. Before much more time had elapsed, we learnt Chicken was one of the very few people in Japan who doesn't own a mobile phone.
There are probably two people in Japan who don't own one of the ubiquitous devices.
Remarkably, they both work in the administrative section of a particular children's theatre company.
So Chicken is now known as Double Chicken.
As Hughesy and The Sponge demolished the Dynamite, the third member of the troupe kept up. When she decided beer lacked oomph and switched to Shōchū, her capacity for strong drink prompted a new moniker (Double Sponge).
She also expressed a desire to visit Australia to demolish large quantities of steak.
Later, I switched to saké. The Sponge is an expert on the subject, with a particular interest in smaller regional producers.
On a future visit, he's supposed to act as the guide on an intensive saké-appreciation course.
It was some time after ten-thirty when we paid the bill (a reasonable ¥1500 per head to cover food and drink for six people, including three very thirsty ones). With the financial details settled, we set off for the station to see the others on their way home before wandering back to the hotel feeling no pain whatsoever.
Wednesday, 16 April 2008
After the previous night's excesses, a basic breakfast was all we needed before setting off once again on the temple circuit.
Alarm bells should have been ringing when we walked out of the hotel and boarded a bus heading towards our first destination. There was an inordinate number of high school students out on the streets when (just before nine o'clock) they should have been in class.
Our first stop, Rokuonji (Deer Garden Temple), but usually referred to as Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion Temple) dates back to the late fourteenth-century.
In keeping with its reputation, the Golden Pavilion was spectacular but, on a day when half the High Schools in Japan seemed to have to organised a cultural awareness excursion, extremely crowded.
We started our tour beside the Mirror Pool, where the crowd meant hundreds of digital cameras were pointed at the three-storey structure with its gold-leaf covering.
From there, we made our way through the strolling garden that makes up the rest of the temple grounds, past the pond of Anmintaku enjoying the foliage along the way.
Outside, we followed the road down to Ryoanji temple, thinking, by the lack of high school students on the ground, that we might just have given them the slip. But as we neared the temple, there they were in swarms again.
The best way to experience the Temple of the Peaceful Dragon would involve a long gaze at the temple's famous dry landscape rock garden, with its fifteen boulders placed on a sea of raked gravel and dating back to the late 1400s.
In the best of all possible worlds, visitors would have the time and space to verify that the stones have been placed so that only fourteen are visible at one time.
The sheer weight of numbers in a confined space limited most people around us to a couple of hurried photos to remind themselves of the visit.
Away from the rock garden, on the other hand, there was room to move. We took our time walking around spectacular picture gardens, with masses of sakura over the moss-covered ground.
Outside, we followed the road to Ninnaji temple. There, faced with another swarm of school-kids and a sakura display that didn't look as impressive as what we'd just experienced, we gave up and headed downtown for lunch.
A definite case of total sensory overload, though the crowds didn't help.
In the city, we found a cafe near the hotel that reminded Madam of the places she used to visit in her student days.
Perusing the menu, I decided to go for something called taco rice. That turned out to be a chilli con carne remarkably similar to the one I throw together whenever I get the chance. Madam opted for spaghetti with vongole.
With lunch out of the way, we collected the luggage, walked back to the station and caught the train to Nara.
Once we'd arrived and checked in, we could have headed out for a stroll but decided to take it easy in the room until our dinner appointment with The Sister and family.
I'd just finished running a hot bath when a phone call advised Madam that Her Sister and The Niece had arrived downstairs. So I took my time in a soaking bathtub and left them with the opportunity to chat without having to worry about amusing a large hairy non-Japanese-speaking foreigner.
Out of the bath, with those considerations in mind, I took my time heading downstairs.
I'd made it downstairs just before six. Once the preliminary pleasantries had been completed, there was nothing for it but to head off to the restaurant where we'd be dining that evening.
After the now-familiar shoe-removal ritual, we were ushered to a private dining room and were joined shortly afterwards by The Brother-in-Law. A very busy middle-level executive simplified what could have been a lengthy ordering process by glancing at the restaurant's Top Ten dishes and ordering the first six.
The roast beef was particularly tasty and, in a moment of weakness, I was persuaded to try the Korean-style raw tuna, which wasn't bad either. In fact, the whole six dishes were all excellent,
it was just a matter of those two sticking in the memory.
I enjoyed an excellent Spanish Tempranillo as we discussed Australian real estate prices and other matters of interest. After the walk back to the hotel, we didn't manage the usual good night's sleep in a cramped room where the bed was only accessible from one side.
Thursday, 17 April 2008
When we headed downstairs in the morning, we were surprised to find the breakfast room contained a higher foreigner quotient than we'd become used to.
That gave us something to discuss once the final run-through of the plans for the day had been completed.
I suspect the phenomenon had something to do with the hotel being part of a Western-style chain rather than one of the privately-owned Japanese business hotels we'd been favouring.
It was difficult, given the overall level of ambient background noise to detect where all these westerners had come from.
The couple at the next table were definitely speaking French.
A young woman on the other side of the room expressed very definite opinions about the relative virtues of the sights around Nara in a voice that carried right round the room.
Don't get me wrong.
There's a possibility that Miss America had qualifications that entitled her to express the forthright opinions she was putting forward.
But as I listened, I couldn't help contrasting her attitude with the older Americans we'd passed during our wanderings around the picturesque garden at Ryoanji.
Their expressions of joy, pleasure and wonder made me half-inclined to approach them to inquire if they'd been to Toriimoto (our destination the day before). I would have suggested that they might enjoy a trip there.
But, for some reason, I didn't.
As I listened, without much choice in the matter, to the advice being dispensed from across the room, I was glad I hadn't foisted my ultra-novice opinions on an unsuspecting audience.
The reader might suggest I'm doing precisely that right here, but anyone who has read this far can hardly be described as an unsuspecting audience.
With the now-familiar we're leaving the hotel ritual (pack, check out, cloakroom ticket) negotiated, we headed to Todaiji temple, the home of the eighth-century Virocana Buddha. Once we'd boarded the bus, numbers of vaguely familiar-looking students in school uniforms suggested a repeat of the Kyoto crowd scenes was on the cards.
That is more or less how things panned out once we joined the crowd moving through the drizzle down the tree-lined avenue towards the temple.
Along the way, we encountered the first of the famous Nara deer.
I found myself, for some reason, humming a bastardised version of Tiny Tim's minor hit (Tiptoe through the deer poop with me) as I watched an attendant sweeping up the detritus. Meanwhile, some teenagers tried to work out a strategy to deal with demands for food from a particularly persistent deer.
Inside the complex, we headed towards the Great Buddha Hall, which, 57 metres across, 50 metres back and 49 metres high, is the largest wooden structure in the world.
Impressive figures.
All the more impressive when you learn the structure is 33% smaller than the eighth-century version. It was rebuilt after the first and second incarnations were destroyed by fire in 1180 and 1567.
Inside the building, the fifteen-metre Buddha, which had almost bankrupted Japan's economy by the time it was completed in 751, takes your breath away. It towers over you, surrounded by smaller statues of other Buddhist figures.
Outside we took an extended ramble around the complex with structures dating back as far as the seventh century before moving through Nara Park to the nearby Kasuga Grand Shrine.
By the time we finished, we'd had three hours of temple and shrine-viewing, so we headed back to the city centre, where we found a teppan-style eatery for lunch.
Madam had a pancake, and I settled for beef noodles, both cooked on an iron hot plate in the middle of the table.
We were seated on the Western-style right-hand side while opposite us people sat at low Japanese style, no shoes tables.
From there, we passed through alleys lined with small shops, becoming more than a little disoriented as we attempted to find our way back to the hotel to reclaim the baggage.
It took us an hour to make our way back to Kōbe, with the last leg a limited high-speed express after a change of train in Osaka.
Arriving at the Okura Hotel, we opted for a rest before the night's appointment with Diamond Chef and Drinker Dude.
We caught a shuttle back to Sannomiya, and Madam headed off to replenish the finances at the Post Office while I went for a browse in Tower Records. I was hoping I'd find the new album by the reformed, but sadly Stanshall-less Bonzo Dog Band.
As she headed off towards the Post Office, Madam expressed the opinion that I was highly unlikely to find what I was looking for. In her considered opinion, it was far too obscure an item for a Japanese music emporium to have in stock.
As it turned out, the Bonzos album was nowhere to be found.
But a brief browse through what was on offer revealed the equally-obscure Doctor Strangely Strange, the first album by the J. Geils Band and an album by Ed Sanders called Beer Cans On The Moon.
I seem to recall the latter met an almost universal thumbs down when released in 1973.
Given the time for a careful survey, I would have managed to uncover even more weird and wonderful obscurities.
As it was, however, the browsing was interrupted by the arrival of ‘Er Indoors who announced the night's dinner and drinking companions were waiting for us under the railway.
That set us off at a fair clip towards the area in question. When the rendezvous had been made, we plunged into the maze of alleys and side streets that make up the downtown eating and drinking quarter.
Arriving at an almost inconspicuous Chinese restaurant, Diamond Chef looked after the order while the rest of us directed our attention to beer, fortunately, available in Dynamo-sized glasses.
What followed was a range of dishes, all of them excellent, including the without-a-doubt-best lemon chicken I've had in a long time. It was actually the only lemon chicken I've had this century, and much better than any version I'd encountered previously.
Interestingly, when the first platters arrived, and the jellyfish pointed out after I'd sampled one of the surprisingly-crunchy little morsels, no one seemed inclined to partake in the remaining supply.
I'll be happy to avoid jellyfish in the future. But another item on the same platter, a pickled cucumber, was easily the best preparation of that particular vegetable I've encountered.
Once dinner was out of the way, we headed into the side streets and back alleys on the way to Piccolo, an intimate bar that had been described as somewhere I would love.
The only identification in an obscure back alley is an illuminated sign. A narrow staircase with a U-turn midway leads to an ultra-small cramped area with seats for no more than a dozen drinkers and a total capacity of about twenty.
There's almost as much room behind the bar as on the drinkers' side. But I guess that amount of space is needed to provide access to the shelves of vinyl LPs that the bartender, an apparent survivor of late-60s or early 70s time warp, will play on request.
My request for Little Feat produced copies of Dixie Chicken and The Last Record Album. We managed to get a couple of tracks in before the Feat were superseded by other requests.
After we were well and truly settled in, having scored four seats at the bar, Diamond Chef and Drinker Dude were keen to learn my rating of the place.
My response?
I came all the way from Australia to drink at this bar.
Which was, more or less, true.
We managed to drink and talk till well after eleven. By that time, the last shuttle bus back to the hotel had well and truly left. So we were forced to catch a cab home to crash for the last time on this venture onto Japanese soil.
Friday, 18 April 2008
I awoke just after 7:30 without any daylight seeping into the room. It took a few moments to register that we were well into our last day of the overseas portion of the trip.
Not that this had anything to do with the events of the previous evening, you understand.
Absence of daylight when I woke up was something I'd noticed everywhere we stayed.
Curtain or shutter arrangements guaranteed unless you set an alarm you were not going to be aroused before you were well and truly ready.
We had intended to head downtown for breakfast (a free shuttle bus encourages things like that), but a glance out of the window prompted a revision to the planned activities for the day.
It was raining, and while we could probably have stayed dry if we stuck to Plan A, we decided to opt for a leisurely morning. That involved a late checkout, lunch and a spot of shopping before we headed out to Myodani to pack and wait for the shuttle service that would ferry us to the airport.
Poking my nose out the door, I discovered that the morning English language paper had arrived, and I settled down for a chance to catch up on events in the world at large.
We'd managed to avoid news bulletins for the last two weeks, and anything we had heard was in Japanese. Which meant, of course, that it was Greek to me. (Thank-you William Shakespeare).
You wouldn't expect much Australian news in the International Herald Tribune, in association with the Asahi Shimbun. But a front-page article with the headline "Australian drought dooms rice farms" dealt with the international ramifications of the collapse of Australia's rice production.
After I'd taken my time over the paper, there was time for a long soaking bath while Madam took a phone call from The Sister. Then we packed and checked out just after eleven.
That allowed us to take the 11:15 shuttle to Sannomiya, where an early lunch seemed to be a good idea.
‘Er Indoors had spotted references to a couple of possible options, including an Indian curry house somewhere nearby. We'd initially planned to head in that direction, but she mentioned "a nice bread place" as an alternative before making a major strategic mistake.
I'd completely forgotten the existence of a Kōbe equivalent of the Gumbo & Oyster Bar where we'd had lunch in Kanazawa. But when she pointed out that it not only existed but happened to be located right in this very building, the decision was easy.
The order, once we'd arrived and been seated, was equally straightforward. Oysters and gumbo for Hughesy, the lady's set for Madam plus the obligatory glass of Chablis to go with the oysters.
Unfortunately, the oysters arrived as ordered rather than the double helping we'd had in Kanazawa. But they were big, plump and excellent au naturel with a touch of chilli and tomato sauce.
I enjoyed the gumbo.
Madam's lady's set (nibbles, seafood pasta and chocolate cake) looked as good as the morsels I managed to sample tasted.
My only (minor) complaint involved a lack of New Orleans music in the background.
But you can't have everything, and it would be unreasonable to expect it.
Both the Kanazawa and Kōbe establishments are part of a nation-wide chain, so I have a feeling I'll be revisiting G&O from time to time over the next few years.
After lunch, I headed to Tower Records to pick up a couple of items, then headed across to buy Madam's new suitcase and a book about translation matters. Then it was down to the subway and off to Myodani.
A visit to the electrical store for a digital camera was the next item on the agenda, and I sat with the luggage and geriatric Japanese while Madam completed the purchase.
From there, we caught a cab to The Mother's and got stuck into the final packing, which was straightforward as far as I was concerned.
Clean clothes in the upper compartment, everything else except for the things I needed for the flight down below.
Madam's procedure was more complicated.
While she continued packing, I got out of the way.
While I wrote up the notebook, I had the chance to finish a half bottle of Brown Brothers Patricia Noble Riesling 2000 that had been in the fridge for the past three or four years. It proved to be a delightful drop.
With the packing done, there was nothing to do but sit back and wait for the taxi shuttle to collect us at 4:50.
It arrived on time, so we had just under two hours to enjoy the views as the driver navigated his way through various pickup points. He eventually deposited us outside the departures section of Kansai International.
Checking in involved a lengthy queue. Two flights were scheduled to depart simultaneously, one to Cairns, the other to Brisbane and Sydney - and both seemed to be rather heavily booked.
Then, once the luggage was off our hands, it was a matter of killing two hours before boarding.
The first bit was fairly straightforward.
A stroll through the duty-free shopping, a survey of the meal options and a decision that Madam would head for the sushi/sashimi outlet while I wolfed down some pasta with a glass of red.
Since we had eaten, there was not much else to do but head for Departure Lounge 6 and settle down to wait for boarding. Both of us had something to read, and I had the iPod, so the wait didn't present any significant problem.
For some reason, the initial boarding call was in English rather than Japanese, which gave us a head-start on most of our fellow passengers.
Not that it did anything to expedite our departure.
But, at least, we were seated with hand luggage safely stowed well before the majority of passengers made their way onto the aircraft.
The flight itself was relatively uneventful, and sunrise saw us tracking down Australia's east coast. In the window seat, ‘Er Indoors tried to catch a glimpse of Bowen once I pointed out that we'd be passing reasonably close. Admittedly close is a relative term when you're travelling at 38000 feet.
She claimed to have been successful though our position over the wing made it difficult for someone sitting one seat away from the window to verify the sighting.
We were on the ground in Brisbane on schedule when the fun and games, such as they were, began.
Unknown to the majority of those on Flight JQ 1, during the descent into Brisbane, the auxiliary power supply decided to pack it in. Not that anyone would have noticed since the incident didn't pose any problem (as far as I could gather) while we were in the air.
If the pilot hadn't brought the matter to our attention as the aircraft taxied to the terminal, I doubt that anyone apart from the aircrew would have been any the wiser.
Unfortunately, the failure meant that, once the engines were turned off, the aircraft would be plunged into darkness unless they could arrange for some other source of electrical power.
Which, in turn, meant the engines wouldn't be switched off in a hurry, and that, in turn, meant no one was going anywhere anytime soon.
No sooner had they made alternative arrangements than another gremlin appeared in the system. There was a problem, believe it or not, opening the doors, which meant that everyone who had stood up when the engines were switched off stayed standing for quite some time.
Eventually, of course, they succeeded in opening a door, and we filed off through the front doors hoping that nothing else would go wrong.
Then, for some reason possibly related to the previous difficulties, unloading the baggage took an inordinate length of time. But eventually, some operator flicked a switch, and the conveyor belt surged into action.
When our baggage finally emerged, we headed through Immigration and Customs.
With those formalities out of the way, we were off to the Gold Coast for rest and recuperation before the homeward leg.