Aboard the train we were seated on either side of the aisle rather than in contiguous window seats, which coincidentally meant we didn’t have access to the handy electrical socket that comes with said seats.
I’d been hopeful of getting access to the power point along the way since I figured there’d be a turnover of seats along the way, but while the seat beside me was vacant when I boarded it was occupied at one of the first stops by a bloke who appeared to be an academic rather than an itinerant salaryman, and when he got off in Okayama the seat was immediately claimed by another dude who remained aboard until Kobe.
Still, although it ran the batteries on the iPad and the iPod down considerably, I was able to tap away at the travelogue while listening to my own personal playlist, and the four hours passed remarkably quickly.
Arriving in Osaka the contrast with where we'd been was noticeable. Actually, it was more than noticeable, it was remarkable. There'd been plenty of room to move in Kagoshima-chuo, and the shinkansen is a fairly tranquil means of transfer, but having grabbed the Little Red Travelling Bag and made our way to the doorway, two steps later we were in the antbed turmoil of ShinOsaka. Fortunately there was a mere one stop train ride and a single stop subway transfer to get us to the night's hotel, so we had an opportunity to catch the breath before the evening's appointment with the inimitable Diamond Chef.
That started with a visit to an establishment that delivered a range of little platters which went rather well with beer, a visit to a jazz club where Madam found the featured vocalist was an alumni of her old university. From there we were on to a single malt club and things start to become blurry...