Kitakami > Tokyo > Kobe
After surfacing shortly after seven, we had enough time for a shower and a leisurely breakfast before packing and preparing for the long haul back to home base in Kobe.
Looking outside, the weather offered a pleasant contrast to the previous day, being fine and sunny rather than cold and overcast, prompting what proved to be an ill-considered and overoptimistic strategic decision.
In other words we consigned the warmest clothing to the suitcase, although we did briefly consider wearing it as far as the station, then switching it to the back pack.
If we’d risen half an hour later, what came next might not have been a problem.
Once packed, we had about half an hour of spare time between when we finished packing and the optimum time for arriving on the platform at the station, so our host suggested a brief excursion to enjoy some sakura, since there was a nice spot more or less on the way to the station and the flowers were just starting to appear.
Of course, we hadn’t actually stuck our noses outside at this point.
Still, it seemed like a warm sunny day.
The astute reader can guess what came next.
First up, it was much colder than anticipated.
Second, once we’d reached the nice spot on the banks of the Kitakami River, where preparations for the cherry-blossom festivities were well underway (though optimum viewing time would be much later in the week), the snow-capped peaks to the west were a spectacular sight, so we just had to leave the relative warmth of the car and take a stroll to the optimum (and, predictably furthest) spot for a photographic memory of the sight.
Once we’d made it back to the car, reached the station, bid a fond farewell to our host and Grog Dog, and climbed the stairs to the platform it was a matter of a few minutes before the train arrived and we were on our way again.
Once again we found ourselves on the starboard side of the train, and since this time we were headed in the opposite direction that gave us a good view of the mountains to the west. As the shinkansen rocketed along we reached the places we’d visited the previous day in less than half the time the road trip had taken. By the time we passed Kurikoma-Kōgen the mountains had receded westwards and we were travelling over wide plains with extensive farmland and some hills.
The train we’d boarded in Kitakami was a local shinkansen, stopping at all stations, and with a long haul ahead of us, we were going to change to a limited express at Sendai, a prospect which evoked visions of a frantic rush up and down escalators, of mistaken platforms and all sorts of potential disasters.
The reality? We alighted, walked no more than twenty metres and we were standing at the relevant embarkation point for the next train which was due in about seven minutes. The weather had become bleak and overcast after blue skies further north, and the platform at Sendai was considerably colder than Kitakami, which we’d left an hour and a half earlier and had been quite cold enough, thank you very much.
After Sendai, the mountains (or reasonably large hills) were much closer to the line, and in some places we passed virtual oceans of sakura, though the trees were not yet totally in bloom.
At the same time the weather closed in, bringing drizzly rain, the weather that in the hills around Hakone had seemed mystic and mysterious, but in the lowlands was merely dreary and dismal.
I noted with interest that in some areas of the cities we passed through where there weren’t too many buildings over two storeys high, the landscape was dominated by the nets surrounding the golf-driving ranges, structures I’d been noticing for days without realising what they were till we passed one in the car the day before and the mystery was solved.
Arriving and alighting in Tokyo we ran into the couple we were meeting for lunch straight away, more by good luck than good management, wandered off for a decent Italian lunch at Papa Milano, beside the station, and returned for the final shinkansen leg to Kobe.
The major question, of course, was the possibility of sighting Mount Fuji, and we had momentary thoughts of trying our luck and seeing if we could grab a starboard side window seat in one of the non-reserved carriages, but that would have involved queuing in conditions that were even colder than we’d experienced further north at Kitakami and Sendai, so we took the soft option, standing in the heated waiting room on the platform while the cleaners prepared the train for departure before taking up our reserved seats.
We had seats 15B&C in car 14, with 15A vacant, but, given the number of passengers on the train it seemed highly unlikely our luck would last.
The spare seat remained vacant when the train pulled into Shinagawa, and as we left the Tokyo high-rise behind, looking away to the right there was no sign of any mountains whatsoever away to the west.
At Yokohama the vacant seat was occupied, and Madam’s interest was sparked as mountains came into view to the west, but the conditions limited visibility as we sped past Odawara and into Atami.
The mountain gods, it seemed, had still not relented.
As we continued southwards the weather improved as we passed what could well have been (judging by the angle of the lower slopes) the bottom of Mount Fuji, though the top was shrouded in the sort of mist that meant we couldn’t be sure.
“Never mind,” we told ourselves. “Gives us something to look forward to next time.”
Back in Kobe we made our way to the Crowne Plaza Hotel, conveniently situated next door to Shin-Kobe station, checked in and headed into the neighbouring shopping complex for dinner before heading back to the room where free access to the internet from within the room (in most other places you had to stand up at a terminal in the lobby) gave me a leisurely opportunity to clear some of the backlog of email that had accumulated since we’d left home.