Monday, 9 December 2013
On what was going to be a significant travel day, I knew I needed an early start, and was out of bed shortly after five-thirty, tapping out the next tract of Travelogue.
Hardly surprising, really.
If I was awake, that was the default task, but in this case, there was an extra element that needed to come into play.
The right side corner of the balcony at the front of the hotel room contained a bathtub. I had visions of giving myself a long hot morning soak and watching the sunrise hit a reasonably spectacular view across Matsumoto towards the Japanese Alps.
On that basis, I definitely wanted to be on deck early, and the Travelogue tapping served to fill in time until it was time to fill the tub.
It was just after six when I roused Madam.
If that sounds a bit rough, I was under strict instructions not to set out on the operation without assistance or supervision.
I'd managed to get the Travelogue (note form, detail to be padded out later) up to date before that. With the horizon still in darkness, I resisted the temptation to get an early start on the tub task and let sleeping partners lie.
I'd been intrigued by vinous matters the night before and wandered into the resort's retail section looking for the red and white they'd been serving in the restaurant. I'd managed to identify them as Concord and Niagara, and having shelled out for an expensive and authoritative reference tome thought this was the perfect time to bring it into play.
And, of course, it meant Madam got a good ten minutes extra sleep.
Ten minutes might seem an overgenerous time allocation. While I could remember the Concord, the search was complicated by the fact that I couldn't remember the name of the other variety.
The Jancis Robinson tome, however, had the grape varieties listed in various configurations, including country of origin, and I had vague memories that the white definitely sounded American.
As it turned out, t'other one was Niagara, which fitted nicely with those vague memories.
My research revealed both were grown for the table as well as the winepress. The process brought back memories of references to something called Sparkling Concord somewhere back in the seventies or early eighties.
For some reason, the name had lodged itself in the memory bank in the exact way that the much shorter term recollection of Niagara hadn't.
And while I managed to sort that out the process lasted a little longer than it should have, so the day had already started dawning outside when I roused Madam to assist with the bath.
As it turned out, I could have managed quite well on my own, but we were on the eighth floor of a large establishment. There was, I guess, a significant possibility of creating a minor disaster if I turned something the wrong way.
Or something.
In any case, once the water was in, the long slow soak was wonderful and could have been better.
Hang on there, Hughesy, I hear The Critical Reader interject. You can't have both.
Actually, I can and tender photographic evidence, m' lud.
Had I been able to watch this magnificent spectacle emerge from the darkness, it would have been better. But the alignment of the bath in its little cubicle along with a wooden structure outside meant you couldn't quite catch the best of the view from the bathtub.
What you could see from there, under ordinary circumstances would have been magnificent. The late start to filling the bath meant I knew there was a better view tucked away on the other side of that inconveniently located wooden structure. And I couldn't quite see it.
From the chair where I sat while I was tapping this out, yes, fine. But not from the bathtub itself.
Still, there was plenty to look at and ponder on.
Across Matsumoto's sprawling suburbs, there were plumes of what at first seemed like smoke.
Possibly some round the clock industrial operation, you might suggest if you hadn't seen wisps of steam emerging from the enclosure beside me when Madam had her long soak the previous night.
No, I reckoned they were onsen plumes, and when Madam returned from her early morning dip in the communal facility, she confirmed it.
We headed down for breakfast Viking shortly afterwards with Madam suggesting a heavy Japanese bias in what was on offer and expressing concerns as to whether I'd be able to eat.
On the ground, however, tucked away behind an almost bewildering display of breakfast options were bacon, scrambled eggs, Vienna sausages and a couple of interesting possibilities.
There must be people out there who are up for Japanese curry for breakfast, but much as he likes the stuff, Hughesy's not one of them.
In any case, we had other fish to fry. They mainly involved packing and getting ourselves down to the lobby to access the WiFi once the checking out procedure was completed.
There wasn't anything of particular note in the incoming, and we headed out to the courtesy bus around ten to nine for the twenty-minute run into Matsumoto station.
With a 10:07 departure that left us with plenty of times up our sleeves and we killed the first couple of minutes by getting tickets Madam had forgotten. We're stopping for lunch in Nagoya on the way back from Tokyo on Saturday, and she'd forgotten about the Nagoya > Osaka leg.
There were a few other time-killing strategies employed when we got to a rather crowded waiting room with a good half hour to spare. The air outside was chilly, so no one seemed inclined to wait out on the platform, and the result was a waiting room where seating was at a premium.
Madam went looking for souvenirs, returned and directed me to New Days to check out some local wines. Not that there was any tasting or purchasing involved, you understand. It was all about taking a look and killing a little more time.
The investigation produced sightings of the Concord mentioned above and Niagara as well as Black Queen, another variety that had piqued Madam's interest when she'd gone looking.
Checking Black Queen in the handy Jancis Robinson reference tome revealed a Japanese variety. Showing the details demonstrated that Hughesy's birthday present (a $50 iTunes voucher) had been put to good use. Score one for diplomacy in the course of killing time.
With the train due to leave at 10:07, we wandered out just before ten. I managed to create a little drama on the escalator heading down to the platform as an attempt to coordinate feet, steps, hands and red suitcases sent me sprawling.
I'm still not sure exactly how I managed it, but it seemed to take place in slow motion.
The train we boarded was, effectively, the rest of the service that had brought us up to Matsumoto from Nagoya.
It was only thirteen months since we'd made the trip in the opposite direction. The early onset of winter delivered impressive displays of snow on the highest peaks, and a dandruff-like sprinkling lower down.
From Nagano, we were back on a Shinkansen line that would take you into Tokyo if you were going that far, which of course, we weren't.
Yet.
We'd also done the bottom part of this leg travelling between Sendai and Kurobe on our last trip, and we'd disembarked to change trains at Echigo-Yuzawa. There were plenty who did the same this time around. The stop is the intersection of the line to Tokyo and another to Toyama, Kanazawa and points in between.
That might change when the Kanazawa Shinkansen line commences operation in 2015.
We changed trains a little further along, once again on a Shinkansen line that took us up to Niigata, higher up the west coast. It was one of the five ports opened for international trade in the 1858 Treaty, though shallow water in the port delayed the actual opening until 1869.
Niigata also served as a base for salmon fishermen who roamed as far north as Kamchatka and was one of four cities picked as targets for the atomic bomb.
Weather conditions and its distance from the bomber bases in the Marianas meant it was removed from the list of targets. Nagasaki was bombed instead.
Dominated by the steep snow-capped Echigo Range, Niigata Prefecture is liberally sprinkled with ski and onsen resorts. The prefecture is home to many saké breweries due to the availability of high-quality rice and clear, fresh water.
From Niigata, we moved on to the local lines. First to Niitsu, then to a line that wound its way up into the mountains to Tsugawa.
As you'd expect, there were spectacular views along the way, given the coincidence of high mountains, snow, a clear day and an expansive river valley.
Earlier legs on Shinkansen lines included more than their share of tunnels. Here, heading into the back blocks, there wouldn't have been the budget to go through things unless it was really necessary.
Twists and turns as the line snakes up the river valley towards the source have obvious scenic benefits.
In Tsugawa, we were met by someone from the onsen, who might have taken umbrage at Hughesy's surprise at the presence of traffic lights at an intersection just across the river from the station.
The place hardly seemed big enough to warrant them. However, the station is actually on the wrong side of the river from a fairly substantial town that must generate its fair share of traffic.
Not that there was too much of it on the roads as we went through.
The onsen, when we arrived, was a classy establishment, with breathtaking views across the river towards snow-capped mountains.
It offers outdoor baths, one for the gents, one for the ladies and one for family groups that look out at the same vista as the one we could enjoy from the room.
That spares you the effort of dragging the camera along to the onsen to record the view.
The view from the room, and I speak from experience, is clearer due to the absence of rising steam.
We had two items on the agenda for the rest of the day.
One was the predictable session in the onsen, which in this case was slated for eight, a private go at the outdoor family one, which would come after the Japanese banquet.
That, of course, was the other and promised to be similar to last night's, a set of localised variations on a well-established theme.
While I say we had two items on the agenda, Hughesy had three, Madam had four, and a fifth lurked around the corner.
I'd been close to nodding off a couple of times en route and wanted a chance to take a power nap. That sat nicely with the first of Madam's intentions, which was, of course, to get into the heated waters ASAP.
The second, of course, was to get Hughesy into the same setting as many times as possible.
She returned with the news that the gentlemen's outside onsen seemed to be vacant. I could go there and enjoy the place on my own if I looked sharp about it.
There was, I was told, no need to change into the standard robe etcetera.
Bowing to the inevitable, I was led down to the relevant chamber, which turned out to be empty.
You could tell by the absence of slippers outside.
So, in I went, and got the mountain view along with a fifteen-minute soak in the soothing waters.
It probably wasn't actually fifteen minutes - perhaps more like ten or possibly even five, but it certainly felt like fifteen.
In any case, I had been there and done that, so I was justified in asking about wireless broadband. Madam checked, and it seemed to exist, but only in the lobby.
We headed down to check, couldn't connect to the server though the network seemed to exist and headed back upstairs, where I attacked various electronic issues in non-network mode.
There were issues to settle as far as dinner was concerned.
The most important involved what Hughesy was likely to eat, or, more accurately, what I wouldn't be inclined to have a go at.
I explained to the helpful maid, who had reasonably good English thanks to a year working in New Zealand that I would have a go at most things. That seemed to be the most appropriate and reasonably accurate answer.
With a session in the outdoor onsen booked for eight, we weren't going to be drinking much before we went. However, the 100% French wine list had a half bottle of Chateau Reysson from the Haut Medoc, a Merlot that was definitely interesting.
We pottered about until dinner, which came with the familiar spread of little plates for starters, followed by more of the same through to the centrepiece. That was a shabu-shabu hot pot where the simmering liquid was soy milk rather than water or stock.
A more diligent recorder would have captured all this on camera, but we were too busy interacting with the maid to do so before we started eating.
Once we started, and the array had been spoiled, there were used plates that hadn't been removed, so the photographic evidence is limited to the first course.
We needed to kill a little more time before the onsen, and one could have been tempted to sample the Merlot. It had been opened and was quietly breathing in the annexe near the bathroom, where it wouldn't cook the way it would have done in the heated main room.
Madam came up with one possible time killer, in a suggestion that with dinner underway the network was probably experiencing less traffic than it had been earlier. So we might be able to access it if we wandered downstairs.
We did, but we couldn't, so we headed upstairs.
I noted an anomaly after we'd had our turn in the onsen, where the contrast between the external chill and forty degrees in the water was interesting, to say the least.
We were booked in for three-quarters of an hour but barely managed fifteen minutes, which accounts for earlier remarks.
Given the darkness outside I'd changed seats. I was in between switching apps on the iPad when I suddenly noticed forty emails that hadn't been there when we went downstairs.
A bit of further investigation revealed that everything seemed to work, but only in that spot.
Strange.
In any case, having scanned the backlog, it was time to pour a glass of Chateau Reysson.
It turned out to be deep-coloured, reasonably straightforward, fruit-driven, full-bodied and pleasantly balanced without hitting any high notes. No wow factor and I definitely wasn't expecting any, but perfectly acceptable late-night drinking, poking out into the inky blackness that had swamped the view across towards the mountains.