Finding our feet

About to hit the sack in Akita on just our second night in the land of the rising sun, but it has been so eventful that it feels like we have been away from home for weeks.

After squeezing all we think we really need for nine weeks away into our two “official Qantas cabin luggage size” suitcases, we headed off to spend Sunday night at an airport hotel rather than get up early on Monday to make our 9:30am flight. The trip out to the airport is always bittersweet. On one hand you are excited about the holiday to come, but on the other hand your head is riddled with fears that there are important things you have forgotten to do or bring, and anxiety leads a merry dance. The night at the hotel may seem like lazy decadence, and perhaps it is, but we excuse ourselves on the basis that it allows our initial holiday anxiety to abate and we can board the plane unflustered. A good theory, which was working fine until we got a text from Qantas to say our flight would be delayed an hour. Not such a bad thing, except that we had organised to pick up rail passes, train reservations and a Japanese phone plan at Narita airport on our arrival, and a one hour delay was going to have us arriving at those pick up points perilously close to closing time. In a flash, all of yesterday’s purged anxieties were replaced with a new set, and then amplified somewhat when the actual delay was closer to two hours. Happily though, the travel angels were with us. The flight was very comfortable and the pilot put the pedal to the metal and clawed back some time, so despite our exceedingly clumsy negotiation of the Japanese administrative processes for allowing tourists into their country, we managed to perform our little errands just in time.

Now it was just a simple matter of making our way by train to our Tokyo hotel to put our feet up. Apart from confusion with the ticketing system, temporarily losing my passport, boarding the wrong train (thankfully a lovely local came to the rescue), being befuddled by the labyrinthine Tokyo station, and then trying to check into the wrong hotel, that all went very smoothly.

Our hotel room, when we eventually got there, was quite compact. The bed, which was not very large, filled the room, but that was ok, it was comfortable enough, and we need have no fears of falling out of bed. Slightly more concerning was the bathroom. The toilet, although equipped with a warm water bidet (or rear end cleanser as referred to by the operating instructions) and heated seat, was so close to the wall that you almost needed to mount it side saddle, which somewhat diminished the little warm luxuries. The shower, which was over the tiniest bath you could imagine, elicited gymnastic manoeuvres and contortions which I would have thought beyond my capabilities, but somehow ablutions were successfully carried out.

Unfortunately, the train to Akita which we were aiming for this morning was cancelled, so the very nice JR staff assigned us seats on a less direct train an hour later. This was actually a blessing in disguise, because it gave us a chance to have a little look around the Ueno district of Tokyo which is where we stayed last night. Ueno was quite intriguing with its vibrant street markets and eating districts tucked under the massive railway viaduct. Vibrant, but not with the clamour, grunge and disorder you might normally associate with Asian markets. Market wares were laid out decoratively, but very neatly, and although it was early there were people aplenty, and they went about their business in a very polite and gentle manner. Even the large queues of (mostly) men waiting for the gaming halls to open were incredibly ordered.

Despite our less than ideal non-adjacent middle seats, our first Shinkansen (bullet train) ride to Morioka en-route to Akita was very pleasant. The one hour stop over in Morioka gave us a chance to buy lunch and break one of the large denomination Yen banknotes which was all we could get from the currency exchange in Melbourne. We sat and ate our lunch leisurely, knowing the exact time, platform and even platform segment for our ongoing journey, so just in time would be fine. Just to be safe though we made our way to the platform with 10 minutes to spare only to find it disarmingly devoid of people, particularly at the remote end of the platform which was our designated boarding point. The information display assured us that we were in the right place, but something didn’t seem right. We sought guidance from a young man also waiting for the train. He struggled with our pathetic attempts to communicate so referred us to a young lady passenger, who could speak a little English. She assured us that all was fine and even ushered us to our boarding point at the distant end of the platform. With two minutes to departure a station announcement was made which was lost on us, but the frantic beckoning towards us from our young advisors in the distance, suggested that we needed to follow them urgently to another place. We followed them, at pace, up and down stairs to the very opposite corner of the station where our train awaited. As it turned out, the train waited a little while longer and the urgency of our dash was perhaps unnecessary, but nonetheless it was so nice to have some young people going out of their way to help perfect (or perhaps in this case very imperfect) strangers. Warms the cockles of my heart.

Our onward journey to Akita in the far north west of Honshu (the Japanese main island) takes us through some quite beautiful landscape of snow covered fields, forests blanketed in snow, distant snow capped mountains, and trackside cottages with a metre thick slowly melting dollop of snow atop. We have been watching the weather forecasts for this region, because in a couple of days we commence a walk along the Michinoku trail. Those forecast have varied between bright sun a blizzards and have done little to dampen our enthusiasm, but they did encourage us to squeeze another layer of clothing into our bulging cases. The amount of snow laying about makes us glad we did.

In our planning Akita was just a bed for the night and entry point to the scenic Gono coastal railway line which is tomorrow’s adventure. But it is of course much more than that and our few hours here do not do it justice at all. We took a lovely evening walk (unencumbered by tourist hordes) along the river and up to the castle overlooking town. It was delightful. Importantly, despite the remnant snow, the weather was quite mild. After our stroll we had dinner in town and retired to our hotel room (very spacious and luxurious this time) to eat the delightful pickled Sakura leaf and red bean paste desserts gifted to Beth by a local lady she befriended on the train (those cockles are still warm) and to rest our weary heads.