Thursday, 5 December 2013

Thursday, 5 December 2013

While it's nice to sleep in, I wasn't keen to return to disturbing dreams about intricate manoeuvres across a landscape that resembled a rectangular Tonle Sap after an early morning drink of water.

I tried, but around four-thirty, with no sign of sleepiness, I turned my thoughts to The Whys and Wherefores of this little excursion. Sometimes it works, and you find yourself nodding off again, but when it doesn't, at least, you're in a position to deliver a coherent narrative.

Tapping that out, once I'd surrendered to the inevitable around five, took me past six-thirty on a morning. Next up, with The Supervisor on deck, we had to reallocate the contents of two suitcases around a backpack, a carry on bag and the two items that had previously carried everything.

With the travelling clobber in the backpack replaced by a jumper and a travelling pillow, I took a turn through the shower. Then I waited until Madam had done the same.

A bit more moving and stowing and fussing over detail wasn't enough to get us to departure time. A tag-team approach to the complimentary WiFi was needed before we checked out.

The Possum had been booked into a medium-term car park. We were supposed to lob there around nine-thirty, which explains the need to kill time. We started to head out around five past, starting by ferrying everything to the car, checking out and negotiating our way out of a rather tight fit in the car park.

From there we set off to head along Lake Street, having forgotten the detour we’d encountered the previous afternoon. That produced a one block readjustment to the route but failed to create any problems whatsoever when it came to finding the long term parking.

There’s always a suspicion Fate is lurking around the corner fitting the lead into the boxing gloves. When you’ve had no hassles booking The Possum into temporary accommodation, and an immediate transfer to the airport you expect something will interrupt the steady flow from point to point.

On the way up, The Driver had suggested we’d avoided the worst of the Japanese School Excursion traffic.

Once we walked into Departures, it was apparent we hadn’t.

They were checking in passengers to Darwin and points beyond, Kansai and Tokyo’s Narita and the area was chockers. There was a massive queue in the Japanese section, many of them seemed to represent the rump of the homeward bound school excursion parties.

You need something to occupy the mind while you’re standing in a lengthy queue.

Madam attempted to kill some time figuring out whether the turmoil of teenage school kids was on our flight by trying to pick up the use of either Kansai or Tokyo dialect. As it turned out, they were on the 12:05 flight to Narita rather than the 12:25 to Kansai, but that didn’t mean there was much room to spare on our plane.

Once we had checked in the process of passing through Passport Control and Security ran pretty smoothly. We killed the waiting time by setting out in search of a merino jumper for Yours Truly. Once we’d accomplished that, shelling out a substantial number of ducats for a rather stylish number, a light brunch filled in a bit more time.

It also filled in a big of a nutritional gap. Our arrival time in Kansai, the shuttle bus transfer to Sannomiya and the courtesy bus across to the hotel would mean we wouldn't be having dinner.

The boarding call came on schedule, and once we filed into the fuselage, I found myself in a window seat on the left, or Cape York, side of the aircraft. That meant I would have something other than the Coral Sea to look at while we ascended to cruising altitude.

While I was looking forward to watching the passing coast, I was distracted by Customs paperwork. 

After one too many mistakes in the first lot, I needed another set of papers. That's what happens when you attempt to fill out forms and watch the coastline at the same time.

While I missed Cooktown and the Endeavour River, I caught a glimpse of the dunes being mined for silica sand at Cape Flattery, two hundred kilometres north of our departure point.

News that lunch was on the way diverted my attention away from the Travelogue, and an anticipated post-prandial nap failed to eventuate. There was a further snack served as we headed past Taiwan, though we were well east of the island. So we were more or less sated as the aircraft approached the Land of the Rising Sun, which was, given the onset of winter, hidden by the shades of night as we neared.

As far as I’ve been able to figure out JetStar (or the aviation authorities) must have changed the flight path between our 2008 visit to Japan and the follow up in 2012. 

The first flight made landfall somewhere along Shikoku and then ran along the archipelago. In 2012, and again this time we made the approach over the bay rather than along the archipelago. So there were no lights et cetera right up to the final approach.

It was hard to tell where we were in the dark. The approach was across the water, but there was a spangled display of twinkling fairy lights over on the left as we descended into Kansai International. An uneventful landing was followed by the regular lengthy taxi to the terminal.

Disembarkation, the transfer from air bridge through the terminal shuttle towards Immigration and Customs, and the administrative procedures that grant you entry all ran smoothly and totally without complications. Once we were through Customs an attempt to phone The Mother to advise of a safe arrival was unsuccessful because the payphone Madam was used to wasn't there any more.

There’s no use crying over spilt milk, so we headed outside to catch the Limousine Bus transfer to Sannomiya, had no hassle getting the tickets this time around. There were issues last time, and since the actual bus hadn’t materialised Madam headed over to a nearby external payphone for another attempt at the phone call.

That meant the bus arrived right on cue, though once we were aboard it took its time departing. 

That time, of course, could have been used for the phone call, but there you go. 

Or not, as the case may be.

The signs say sixty-five minutes for the trip to Kōbe. That must take the volume of daytime traffic into account. We were disembarking at Sannomiya after about fifty minutes, heading across to join the queue for the courtesy bus to the Okura and the nearby Meriken Park Oriental. 

It was relatively late, the queue was substantial, and the possibility of picking up a beer or two was floated while we were waiting.

There was a vending machine just over there, and the Okura is the sort of place where those handy devices are conspicuous by their absence. That doesn’t mean you can’t buy a drink there, but there were likely to be issues with dress standards and substantial markups.

Did I want a beer? It was a tempting question. But I was starting to fade. I was still being tempted when the bus arrived. 

Once we’d landed on the doorstep, the check-in procedure was accompanied by the regular formalities. Once we were in the list heading upwards, the Trainee Porter turned out to be rather chatty, having spent a holiday on the Gold Coast when she was little.

Remarkably (or probably unremarkably, given the courteous service that’s par for the course in the country) she was on duty and remembered us when we checked back in just under a fortnight later.

As it turned out, I didn’t need a beer, hitting the hay while Madam took a long soaking bath. While the night’s sleep could best be described as fitful, I wasn’t up with the larks the following morning.

© Ian Hughes 2017