Friday, 6 December 2013
After a rather long day that started early and ran well past the regular bedtime, you’d plan on sleeping in. Although I only managed a fitful sleep, at least it lasted until around six-forty-five.
Once I’d surged into action and resumed recharging the iPad, with the cable plugged into the power point on the desk I plugged away at the Travelogue.
But I ran into significant interruptions.
Madam delivered a copy of the English-language Japan Times, and I took time out to scan the contents.
At times like this, you realise how insignificant certain domestic issues are on the world stage, and how little of the world’s attention is directed towards matters that tend to occupy Australian minds.
The most crucial matter Down Under was, of course, the Adelaide Test.
I hadn’t seen or heard a word or whisper about vital matters like the toss or a progress score since I’d woken up the previous morning.
Still, you’d reckon it just might rate a mention in a Japanese English language newspaper. It seemed safe to assume there’d be a certain number of Australian and English expatriates among the readership.
As it turned out, there was some cricket content, but it was limited to a report New Zealand batsman Lou Vincent was under investigation for match-fixing.
My interest piqued, and I use that term deliberately, I turned my attention to other avenues.
I turned on the TV after checking the hotel compendium. There was an English language BBC World Service available, but there wouldn’t be an Ashes update due to news that Nelson Mandela had died.
I spent the next while tapping away with one eye glancing over to the TV in the hope the ticker tape scroll across the bottom of the screen might have some news. I was still none the wiser when I was ordered into the shower.
After the ablutions, it was time to head down to reacquaint ourselves with the Breakfast Viking, yet another example of the way the Japanese take a Western concept, rework and relabel it.
And Viking is, of course, a much easier word to work with than the Smorgasbord they've redefined it to mean.
We were about to turn into the Camelia Restaurant, where guests can look out over the tasteful Japanese garden between forays between the table and the extensive array of foodstuffs. This time, however, we were redirected to the hotel's other catering space, usually reserved for wedding receptions.
We weren't sure why we were redirected, but it probably had something to do with the Luminarie that was lighting up a section of downtown Kōbe between Motomachi and Sannomiya.
On the way back to the room, I noticed signs directing anyone connected to Minamoto jewellery to the Camelia Room. The people filing into breakfast may not have been the Luminarie-attracted overflow that wouldn't fit into the former venue.
The spread for the Viking didn't seem as extensive as it had been. That might have been because it was spread out across a broader space.
After we'd been ushered to our table, we set off in search of fruit juice to serve as a starter.
Right next door to a couple of jugs of tomato juice, I spotted a bottle of vodka and another containing Hughesy's condiment of choice.
Yes, in a relatively confined space we had vodka, tomato juice and Tabasco, the critical ingredients in a Bloody Mary.
Japan, of course, is a drinking culture, but you don't expect to find ingredients for a restorative hair of the dog alongside the fruit juice in the breakfast servery.
The two breakfast trays we ended up with made an interesting contrast, but things didn't quite head on from there without some crossover. Madam informed me that the salmon was particularly delicious, and when I headed off to verify the suggestion, I found out she was right.
For her part, once the Japanese breakfast comestibles were finished, she was over to sample the continental pastries.
There was a steady flow of Japanese looking to break their fasts, which raised another interesting point. Most of them headed straight towards the Western end of the catering, filling plates with hash browns, bacon and chipolatas rather than the Japanese options further down the room.
Now, it may be that they weren't familiar with the layout, or thought that what they saw straight in front of them was all that was on offer, but I don't think so.
Madam, initially bemused by their refusal to do what she'd just done, and head for the Japanese staples, probably hit the nail on the head.
Her suggestion that they'd gone for the Western side of things stemmed from the same source as her own determination to head for the Japanese side of the catering.
It all depends on what you can get in the course of your day to day existence.
Hughesy's breakfast tends to run towards Weet-Bix or toast and Vegemite during the week, which is why I go towards egg dishes on the weekend.
Madam's regular breakfast at home sits towards the standard Western cereal-based version. The chance to go Japanese represents a welcome change, and one suspects the people who were going for bacon, eggs and hash browns were probably enjoying a welcome treat.
A substantial breakfast will usually go close to keeping us going all day, which sits well with plans for the day. Madam took the subway out to Myodani to leave the blue suitcase with The Mother. Meanwhile, Hughesy got to sit in the lobby at the Okura, tapping out a couple of hours worth of Travelogue that should have things pretty well up to date by the time she gets back.
We re-sorted the luggage, whacking everything surplus to current requirements, like airline blankets and neck cushions into the bag that's on the way out to Myodani. Everything that's going with us went into the Red Suitcase, the Red Travel Bag and Hughesy's backpack.
The first two went into the cloakroom after the porter caught us as we stepped out of the elevator. The backpack is sitting beside me as I type. In around two hours, Madam will be back to steer us towards Sannomiya. From there, we'll deposit most of what we're carrying at the next hotel and set out to sort out tickets for the week's worth of rail pass action.
As it turned I out, I had three and a half hours to catch up on the Travelogue and fill in details of The Frockster Factor. That will be the explanation if we fail to catch a glimpse or anything approaching a decent view of Mount Fuji. I had more than enough time to fill out the details. With things more or less up to date (at, coincidentally, the end of the previous paragraph), so I decided to head into Settings and check out the WiFi situation.
I'd attempted to do the same thing the previous evening, and failed to turn up as much as a hint of a network. But that was up in the room on the 13th floor. Here, down in the lobby, there were signs of a couple with the little closed lock beside them and one called Hydrangea, which looked to be free.
And it was, which meant by the time Madam had made her way back from the wilds of Myodani I'd checked the email backlog. I'd also caught up on the cricket score from Adelaide. Attempts to access the video feed established that it was geoblocked.
By this point, Australia had progressed from an overnight 5-270 odd beyond 550 on the way to a declaration on 570. I was quietly jubilant. At this stage, it looks like the worst scenario has Australia going into Perth leading 1-0 in the five-Test series.
I wasn’t going to be able to follow much more as the iPad went in the backpack, and we reclaimed the baggage and headed off to wait for the shuttle bus. That got us back into the heart of downtown Kōbe, and a brief stroll took us to the next night's accommodation at Daiwa Roynet Sannomiya.
The Perplexed Reader will possibly be scratching the noggin at this apparently wilful relocation, but you can sum it up, in one word: Luminarie.
I still wasn't sure what it was, but it seemed to be the explanation for several things, including changed traffic flow from Sannomiya to the Okura.
In any case, while the Okura is expensive and booking ahead allows you to access any bargains on offer, it was probably booked out on Friday night anyway. With the Luminarie, in town, you'd expect any specials on offer had long since been grabbed.
The Luminarie Factor meant we weren't going to be spending Saturday night in Kōbe. A relatively modest establishment like the one I'm sitting in tapping this out on Friday morning was already booked out when Madam went looking.
Once we'd checked in, there was a spell of trying on the new layers of insulation before we headed back to Sannomiya to sort out the Rail Pass and tickets side of things.
That wasn't quite feasible at the time, given a queue that almost reached out the doors of a relatively small ticket office. Hunger pangs starting to kick in, so we headed off in search of sustenance.
We'd sighted a trattoria that opened at six a few doors down from the hotel, so that was an option. Instead, we headed to the food hall at the Sogo department store, where we could taste some wine and pick up dinner if something caught the eye.
I'd left the reading glasses back in the hotel, so I wasn't about to check fine details. The wine shop we wandered through failed to deliver anything apart from a conclusion that in Japan, Australian wine is pretty much a non-event.
Plenty of labels from France and the Americas, judging by the little flags on the price tags, and a smattering from a variety of other sources, with Australia being one of the also-rans.
We weren't carrying a corkscrew, so that was one reason for avoiding a purchase. I didn't know what was for dinner (yet, so that was another) but, most importantly, I didn't know where to start.
I'm not inclined to head off and buy a bottle of something familiar just to have something to drink. We were going to the Luminarie after dinner, so that was a fourth reason to stick to beer.
In the food hall, several items caught Madam's eye.
That was game, set and match in the decision-making process.
I ended up with a bento tray with Kōbe beef, rice and pickles on the side.
The convenience store beside the hotel provided a tin of excellent Yebisu beer, so that was dinner.
After dinner, rugged up, we hoofed it over to the perfect example of the way Japanese authorities handle events that attract significant crowds.
Your average Australian, in situations like this, would wander towards the event looking for a way in.
That's fine if you've got around a hundred thousand people looking to get into the Boxing Day Test at the MCG, a venue where there are many entry points.
With 183 000 people queuing up to file under a spectacular light display on the first night, some procedures need to be put in place. That was the first night of the Luminarie.
This was Friday, guaranteed to attract an even larger crowd.
We headed towards the actual display, found the barricades put in place to direct the flow of pedestrians, and were directed towards the point where we could join the flow.
That involved making our way back, almost as far as the station at Motomachi. On the way we [asses a steady flow of people headed in the opposite direction and wondered how much further the entrance to the queue might be.
We found it and eventually made our way back to where we'd been redirected, which was, effectively, the first curve on an extended and reverse letter S.
The Inquisitive Reader should, at this point, grab a pen and paper and start a printed S.
Never mind the reversing bit, we’re just looking at the concept, not the actuality.
Stop at the first curve. That's the point we were redirected. The start of the letter is the point of entry and would have to be a good kilometre away. Now, continue your S, adding another loop at the end.
The last half of the last line contains the couple of hundred metres of spectacular illumination. It probably pulled in around two hundred thousand people that night and had booked out the hotels in Kōbe on Saturday night.
If two hundred thousand people are going to file through, you can rest assured there’ll be an orderly progression to deliver them there. That explains our letter S with the extra loop.
Getting those numbers there means streets have been blocked off to traffic, and that in turn creates issues if people want to cross the street.
An opportunist gatecrasher might rate one of these crossing points as a place to jump the queue and join the flow. But each crossing point had a wall of uniformed police on either side of the pedestrian flow, which could be halted when there were enough crossers to justify the disruption.
And, from a distance, I saw the disruption in action.
A placard was carried into the middle of the flow, the uniforms presumably moved across the flow, quite possibly moving the barricades as well.
The crossers crossed.
After a minute or two things were moved back the way they were and the progression towards the display resumed. As you approach the display, uniformed officers carrying megaphones urge you to keep moving, which I suppose has to be said.
You're not going to get a decent photo, or a series of decent images, while you're moving, so everyone stops.
But not for very long.
You might be ignoring the bullhorn instructions, but you know why they're being issued and follow the spirit rather than the letter.
After all, a considerable number of people behind you are patiently waiting to do what you're doing.
Once you're through the illuminated arcade, stalls offer a range of food, drink, lotto tickets and commemorative stamps. We started to wend our way back towards Sannomiya, which raised the interesting question of what to do about rail passes and tickets for the first few days' train travel.
What turns up in the mail when you've bought one online isn't your actual rail pass.
It's an order form that has to be converted into the document that gets you your actual tickets, so the first thing that needs to be done is the conversion.
You hand over the order and your passport, and, initially, you get a form to fill out.
Once you've done so, that gets checked against your passport, and part of it is attached to the Pass, which features a laminated ticket detailing the document's validity.
Once you've got that, you can collect your tickets.
The Astute Reader will realise, this process is somewhat time-consuming. When you're in a crowded ticket office with a queue behind you, a sensitive soul will avoid buying the tickets for an extensive itinerary.
We collected tickets that would take us from Osaka to Matsumoto, and on to Niigata, and made room for other travellers with, possibly, more urgent needs.
From there, with everything that needed to do done duly done, we headed back to the hotel. I paused en route to pick up more beer, and that, effectively, after a little more tapping and perusing of email, was that.