Twice, along particularly picturesque stretches of coast, the train slowed to a crawl to allow maximum enjoyment of photographic opportunities.
There were frequent stops along the way, as befits a train servicing a resort area, with frequent comings and goings as passengers moved from one venue to another, but after the Sun had slunk below the horizon there wan't much to see, and I settled back to rea, tossing up between the Neil Young autobiography andthe latest issue of Uncut, digitally downloaded in Kakunodate.
An announcement over the train's P.A. System brought an unexpected flurry of action at Kawabe since the Resort Special took itself forward one more station, then retraced its path en route to Aomori. The announcement advised the impatient aboard our train to switch to a local train at the next station, which would get us into Aomori some twenty minutes earlier than originally planned.
Needless to say a mad scramble ensued, first involving the hasty stowing of the iPad in the back pack, then a frantic hauling of the Black Monster up the station stairs, across the bridge to the neighboring platform and back down again in a situation where you'd have been reluctant to use the escalator even if one had been available.
The line into Aomori would seem, on the evidence available, to be a single line, given the lengthy delays in a number of stations to allow trains higher up the pecking order to travel,in the opposite direction.
The second last stop was ShinAomori, the Shinkansen stop, located well out of the city to allow easier construction of the next stage of the network, a new underwater connection to Hokkaido.
Back on the ground in Aomori there was a brief spell of confusion as to the actual location of the hotel, which was a bit further away from the station than we'd thought, and once the checking in was complete we checked out the laundry facilities on the way to dinner, which comprised a healthy in one sense but hardly likely to attract a tick from the Food Police serve of deep fried scallops, accompanied by the usual trimmings in the form of rice, miso soup and assorted garnishes.
You couldn't have complained about the quantity or the quality, but after around a week of three hearty serves a day Hughesy wasn't keen on the bulk. I made as big a hole as I could in everything else, but was careful to ensure there wasn't a skerrick of scallop in evidence on the plate.
Next time I intend, as I pointed out to Madam, maxing out on the scallops with no accompaniments at all except, possibly, a beer to wash them down, and I'm not even sure about the beer.
Back at the hotel one washing machine in the laundry was available, though it required ¥400 to operate so you can't say it was free, and since it was a neat combination of washer and drier it meant we could avoid the up and down checking to see if the drier needed another cycle or two routine.
Still, that meant a two-hour cycle, so Madam poured herself a full Japanese bath of the filled almost to the brim and then immerse yourself variety, spent a good quarter of an hour therein and subsequently insisted Hughesy do the same. There's a fair bit more body mass where Hughesy's concerned, and I was fairly Clancy conscious as I set about the immersion process. Still, regardless of the substantial overflow (and Japanese bathrooms seem to be constructed to cater for it) it was a rather pleasant way to relax