Saturday, 14 December 2013
On the last day of the seven-day rail pass, the plan involved getting back to Osaka, with lunch in Nagoya en route.
The critical question, however, involved views of Mount Fuji. As I typed this, heading out of ShinYokohama, the omens looked favourable.
It seems the Frockster Factor has finally been overcome.
Breakfast downstairs at the hotel had offered the usual healthy array, but significantly omitted the chicken salad which had been the highlight the previous two mornings.
Just when I was starting to regard it as something to look forward to amidst the array of Disgustingly Healthy Offerings.
Upstairs, we packed and headed off to Roppongi Station, thence to Ebisu and Shinagawa, where we joined the Shinkansen line.
It's not that far from Tokyo to ShinYokohama. We'd shortened the distance by boarding at Shinagawa, and we knew you can see Mount Fuji from a westward-facing room at Yokohama's New Otani Inn.
On that basis, it should come as no surprise to learn it wasn't long after we left ShinYokohama when the Frockster Factor was finally overcome.
That initial sighting of Fuji-San was the signal for Hughesy to put the iPad to rest. For the next little while, we enjoyed the view and worked through the difficulties associated with taking a decent photo from a speeding Shinkansen.
Variations in the surrounding landscape, and, particularly, power lines and such strung along the train line added to those difficulties.
So the photos mightn't be the best, but they're there to prove a point.
Actually, two points.
First, we actually did get a good clear view of the mountain, far better than I'd been hoping for.
That's because of the second, Frockster-related point.
These photos show exactly how close the mountain is to the main Shinkansen line.
I'd seen photos that suggested it was but was aware they may have been Photoshopped or otherwise digitally modified.
We'd been along this stretch of railway three or four times and the mountain had been, to all intents and purposes, invisible.
Maybe there was something in that Frockster Factor after all.
Eventually, with Fuji-san receding, I turned back to the iPad to finish off last night's concert review.
The job needed to be wound up while details were fresh in my mind.
In any case, the run into Nagoya across the central plain doesn't offer a lot of visual interest once you've been over it a couple of times.
Still, it's pleasant to recline the seat, and just let the visuals wash over you once you've got more pressing matters, like concert reviews, out of the way.
We stopped in Nagoya for the dual purposes of lunch and catching up with one of The Notorious Drinking Girls, who Madam hadn't seen for twenty years.
This dynamic duo, on their travels around the Australian countryside, apparently had a penchant for soaking up the amber fluid that would have amazed and impressed the average Aussie. These things invariably go on the back burner when you acquire husbands and young families.
The presence of young kids in these circumstances, apart from cramping your drinking style, tends to influence your choice of lunch venue.
We ended up in an outlet of a chain that caters for ankle biters by offering buckets of plastic-wrapped toys to amuse kids while their parents eat and drink.
I watched a six-year-old absorbed in what appeared to be a rather basic mobile phone video game. Meanwhile, a five-year-old explored the possibilities of a plastic crab, Madam and the Former Drinker chatted away, and I waited for my serving of fried oysters and Yebisu.
Back on the train, I jotted down a few further notes and settled back to let the landscape wash over me on the hour and a bit run into Osaka.
Off the Shinkansen and onto the subway system, what we encountered reinforced the notion that you need a three-level understanding of a large Japanese city's geography if you want to get around.
You need a fair idea of the physical geography, the various districts, and what you're likely to find in each.
That interacts with the infrastructure that operates on the surface, the bus routes and train lines.
Those, in turn, intersect with the third element, which is, of course, the subway.
Once you know where you are and determine where you want to go, it's the intersection of the last two that delivers you from point A to Point B.
In this case, Point A was ShinOsaka, while Point B was the night's hotel in Kitahama, the old merchant district. From there, we needed to reach Point C, the former working-class area of South Osaka that our host for the evening is keen to promote to all and sundry.
That meant off the Shinkansen, down into the subway, two stops along this line, change, and one more to Kitahama.
We'd stayed at Brighton City Kitahama last time. We were very impressed by large rooms, with good bathrooms that include an actual tub. We look like making it the default stop in Osaka if the price is right and other factors don't intervene.
But, of course, they do.
Which is why we stayed at Kishibe on the night before the rail pass leg began.
During The Principal's guided tour of South Osaka, we learned several hotels in the neighbourhood offer conveniently located accommodation (one stop from ShinOsaka) at very reasonable prices. But the area has, over the years, acquired a reputation.
That reputation might have been justified in the past, he explained. Meanwhile, a less than supple and overweight foreigner tried to come to terms with the on the floor seating in a popular side street hotpot eatery. But the population that created the reputation is ageing, and the area has become densely populated by backpackers and Chinese (both mainland and Taiwanese).
Walking the streets between locations suggested a rundown area that has seen better days. It is probably on the verge of gentrification, the same way so many equivalent districts in cities around the world have gone.
The contrast between tradition and the new generation was reinforced at the next stop, an eatery specialising in deep-fried things on skewers that featured a VW Kombi van as part of the decor.
And, yes, you can eat in the van.
That was about it on the food side of things, though there were nibbles along the way as we made our way through a couple of Chinese karaoke bars in the district.
Our Host is learning Chinese, and the karaoke interactions with people behind the bar seem to help.
The karaoke places we visited weren't quite what I'd become accustomed to in Australia
Not that I frequent such places. I've been to enough to get a good idea of the standard Australian version, which tends to employ someone who can sing. They fill in when no one in the audience is game to get up and have a go.
Fair enough if that sort of thing floats your boat.
The places we visited here were a case of being handed a microphone as you sit on your bar stool, singing along to a radio station selected by the customers.
No stage, no queue, just indicate you feel like a sing, select a song, and away you go.
Hughesy's take on The House of the Rising Sun went down well with the clientele, though things came unstuck on You've Lost That Loving Feeling. I just don't have the range.
Maybe I should have gone for I Was Born Under a Wandering Star.
We wouldn't have got to the second place if The Principal hadn't picked up on a potentially nasty vibe and got us away from the first venue reasonably smartly. But the whole experience delivered an enjoyable night.
I could have done with one or two fewer beers and a more comfortable seating arrangement at the hotpot stop, but enjoyable.
Very interesting, and no one needed much rocking once we were back at Brighton City.