Saturday, 7 December 2013
When you're looking for a good night's sleep, you need the right equipment, and Hughesy likes two pillows, thank you very much.
Maybe the lack of a second pillow accounted for a fitful slumber. Still, I managed to sleep in until around six-forty-five, and started by checking email and such before resuming Travelogue duties.
We don't want to get too far behind because we'll need all the time we can manage to fill in historical detail when we get home.
I've pencilled in a day by day web page process once we're back. But, inevitably, there will be external disruptions (Christmas/New Year, cricket) and quite a lot of historical material to be trimmed and edited. So we want to have the nuts and bolts of the travel side of things as close to complete as we can get them.
It was around eight-thirty when I took my turn in the shower as Madam investigated the tea and coffee facilities in the room.
A subsequent discovery that checkout was at eleven rather than the anticipated ten meant we left the Daiwa Roynet Sannomiya with the day to day up to date, as of 9:16 am.
Once we'd checked -out we set out in search of breakfast.
That came at Boulangerie Comme Chinoise Honest Cafe, a bakery on the first level of the way into the network of below ground level arcades beneath Sannomiya.
I didn't need a huge breakfast, just something that would keep me going. The prosciutto and gorgonzola baguette certainly did that very nicely.
From there I was after a cap or hat, something warmish to swathe the top of the head in situations where a beanie wouldn’t be appropriate.
The felt cap that had been used for such purposes was sitting back in Bowen. It hadn't taken too kindly to being washed.
We found what I was looking for by sheer luck rather than good management. With my requirements attended to I found a comfortable sofa and grabbed the iPod, figuring a Kinks-based soundtrack was the way to go.
Dedicated Follower of Fashion and all that.
I was able to riff slightly on the same theme as we made our way through the arcades.
I spotted a couple of outfits in trendy menswear outlets that would have most of my acquaintances rolling around in hysterics, first at the sight and then at the price paid.
There was one stunning little cashmere ensemble priced around the equivalent of $A1200…
We were on our way into the upper levels of the station complex when I spotted that little gem.
The spotting may or may not have influenced Madam’s move to steer me into a book shop on the seventh floor of a department store complex, pointing me towards a small, but a rather wide-ranging selection of English titles.
Surveying the selection produced a couple of titles I might actually have looked at buying if I hadn't sworn off further hard copies.
They were the sort of thing that should be useful for my Interesting Times project when I return to it.
From there, it was time for lunch. With the luggage sitting back at the hotel, it seemed logical to eat at the little trattoria a couple of doors down, and the logic of the logistics forms a good part of what follows.
Lunch was pasta and salad, a tomato-based fish sauce for me and a fish and Japanese basil sauce the other way.
Mine wasn't entirely authentic, with an odd flavour element that was noticeable but didn't intrude.
Based on the logical possibility that I might be enlisted to help Madam finish hers, I had a taste. It was immediately apparent that she was on her own in that department.
Having reclaimed The Red Suitcase and The Red Travelling Bag, we headed to Sannomiya and boarded a local JR express to Osaka. After changing trains at ShinOsaka, we arrived at the overnight stop, three stations along the line, just before two.
If you were to locate Kishibe and Station Hotel, you might find the decision to stay here strange, but a couple of things kick in here.
For a start, with tomorrow being the first Travel Day, you want to be up and away reasonably early. You don't want to miss that first train where there are connections involved.
Second, while we're heading off on a Sunday, there will be issues with subways and sets of stairs if we stay in downtown Osaka.
ShinOsaka is towards the edge of the city, as Shinkansen stations tend to be due to issues associated with putting new lines through densely populated areas.
Stay in Osaka, and you're going to be doing a bit of crosstown travel.
The Station Hotel at Kishibe is right beside the station, which is three stops from ShinOsaka, where a lift or escalator will deliver us to the relevant platform for the train to Nagoya.
There’s also a coin laundry, and that allows a load of washing.
Those jeans I'd been wearing since Cairns needed a wash, and there were socks and jocks and under layer items that needed the same treatment.
The laundry wasn't available until four, but there was free WiFi in the lobby, so I checked the email and the cricket score.
England had been bundled out for 176 on what was supposed to be a flat drop-in track in Adelaide, with the supposedly unreliable Mitchell Johnson taking 7 for 40.
From there, it was back to the Travelogue and a read before we headed out to dinner. The dryer in the laundry hadn't entirely completed what we'd set it to do. There were items of clothing with varying degrees of dampness draped over everything that could accommodate something in the room when we left.
While progress had been made when we returned, we left everything in situ rather than doing a check and rearrange thing in the evening.
On the evidence to hand, things should be right by the morning.
There were a couple of possibilities for dinner:
- • a place near the hotel specialising in octopus balls,
- • a sort of family restaurant chain operation,
- • a teppanyaki establishment that might have served the purpose if we were up for a substantial meal, and
- • a fourth place, which I was informed served fried oysters.
The Astute reader might sense Madam's logic in those descriptions. The four also lay in a logical progression towards the other side of the supermarket that fronts onto the station parking lot.
I'm not a big fan of octopus, though I don't mind calamari.
The description of the second place suggested Someone was disinclined to eat there.
We could have gone for the cook at the table option, but I sensed the fried oyster place had particular appeal. It must have been something apart from the fact that Hughesy likes oysters and is quite happy to eat them fried.
I had a platter of four oysters, another of crumbed, deep-fried pork, both of them served on a bed of cabbage with chicken rice.
Before I'd selected anything, however, Madam had grabbed a plate that held a whole fish. It was something akin to a cross between a gar and a sardine that had been given a steroid treatment.
Long enough to be one of the gar family, but fleshed out along the body.
Obviously, I'm not a fisherman.
Madam, on the other hand, is a big fan of whatever it was and announced that she'd been looking forward to this as the self-service trays hit the table.
I was looking forward to an early night, but that didn't quite eventuate. A visit to the supermarket on the way back revealed large cans of Yesibu for ¥288 each.
At that price I couldn't have just one, could I.