Still there was plenty to look at and ponder on. Across the sprawling residential districts, there were plumes of what at first seemed like smoke. Possibly some sort of round the clock industrial operation, you might hypothesise if you hadn't seen the wisps of steam emerging from the bath enclosure beside me when Madam had her long soak the night before.
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 the 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, mainly 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 about yesterday morning. 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 a range of 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 aforementioned Concord and Niagara as well as Black Queen, another variety that had piqued Madam's interest when she’d gone looking.