Travelling

Yesterday was a travel day, although a lot of it was spent waiting.

I had a vegetable wrap and some hot offerings from the buffet for breakfast.

There were two halves, but I ate 
the other one before I remembered the blog

And here is my egg Benedict from Tuesday:

Both very delicious.

Checkout wasn't until 12 so I really just sat around until it was time to go, pottered a bit, read a bit, pottered a bit more.

I had intended to go back to Tokyo Station to catch the Shinkansen to Gifu but Austin pointed out that if I went by train, I would go through Shinagawa, only to go back through Shinagawa on the Shinkansen. Might just as well go to Shinagawa, then. Quieter, much smaller and easier to navigate than Tokyo station

I went by taxi. The repair to the Pink Suitcase's wheel has improved but not fixed matters. I couldn't bear the idea of struggling down to Shibuya station, lugging it around the station, finding the platform for the direct train to Shinagawa (and yes, it does go directly through to Tokyo station, but obviously not from the side that I was on on Sunday) and battling the crowds on the train. Taxi it was.

I had a bit of a wait at Shinagawa until my train was due and then spent a pleasant couple of hours gazing out the window until I got to Gifu. I did wonder if I might be stuck on the train all the way to Osaka, though. The man sat in the same row as me, but in the aisle seat, went to sleep as the train departed and showed absolutely no sign of waking up again, until I started gathering my things together as we approached Gifu when he woke up and got up so I could get out. 

Austin was waiting at the station and we made our way to his place, via Liquor Mountain

Always the first stop

I have offloaded all the boxes of tea, snacks and other things that Austin asked me to bring over. Provided I don't replace them with an equivalent amount of Japanese snacks, I should be able to persuade the suitcase to accompany me home on Monday without too much grumbling