Glancing across, someone on the port side of the carriage had raised their sunshade and I caught sight of the snow-capped mountains of the central range. The mountains away to the east must have been considerably lower, or under the influence of warmer conditions near the coast since there was no snow to be seen in that direction.
We also noticed that we were moving back into areas of cherry-blossom, and on the edge of Sendai I caught sight of one of the few freight trains I’d spotted since I’d first boarded a train in Japan, showing how clearly the commuter lines are separated from the corridors that carry the vast quantities of freight that an economy the size of Japan’s must generate.
We arrived in Kitakami, our base for the next thirty-six hours or so, comfortably after dark and immediately settled into the routine of booking the next leg of the trip, which took some time since Sunday’s travel involves two changes of train on the long haul back to base in Kobe. An additional complication reared its ugly head as ‘Er Indoors requested a starboard-side window seat on the final leg, a final despairing attempt to catch a glimpse of Mount Fuji in the wake of Triple-F’s fantasising. Unfortunately the only available reserved seats were in the smoking section of the train, so we decided to cut our losses and declined.
While these negotiations were in train someone who I guessed was our host for the next day and a half arrived, mobile in hand and obviously looking for someone. Having established that she was, in fact looking for us we all waited till negotiations had been concluded and the tickets processed before greetings had been exchanged and then headed off for my first encounter with a modern Japanese house.
Apart from a couple of visits to The Mother’s apartment, which is some forty years old, we’d only seen the external aspect of the Japanese house.
We arrived outside a small two-storey house occupying a small block and guarded by a small hairy dachshund named Kotaro.
Once inside the canine was transformed from watchdog to lapdog, attempting to protect the property by a vain attempt to lick all and sundry to death, prompting the new nickname of Grog Dog for a creature that is obviously a major league Licker.
With the preliminary pleasantries out of the way, we sat down to supper, talking till ten while seated on atami matting as a small brown dog embarked a strategy of subjugation by dissolution.