Mostly Travelling

The station in Kurashiki is a mere 750 metres along a flat road from the hotel.  

So we walked. And took the train from there to Okayama, where we had tea and cake to fortify us for the rest of the journey.

We met Anpanman at the Okayama station

I had booked reserved Shinkansen tickets online on Wednesday and we had QR codes for the train. We had to get seat tickets from the gates, though. We also had to change trains in Kyoto and had separate QR codes for the two legs of the journey. The lady in the information centre at Okayama said we had to go out the gates in Kyoto and then come straight back in for the train to Gifu-Hashima.

In retrospect, we should have ignored this advice. The train left from the same platform. We had a 13 minute turn around. I sent Lindsey to go through and back while I watched the bags, then I was going to run through as well.

Lindsey completely vanished!!!!!

I got a message to say that it was very complicated. I couldn't quite see why. In the meantime, she was now on the other side of the gates and couldn't get back in. And I had all the bags.

Somehow, very slowly and with brute determination I managed to get all the bags to the platform gates. I swiped my QR code. On the second attempt it let me out.

I manoeuvred the bags through.

I could not find Lindsey. Lindsey could not find me.

Eventually we managed to reunite. I was at the gate where we had gone through on Tuesday. Lindsey had ended up at a completely different entrance. I'm not sure what had happened with her QR codes, except that her phone wanted to use her Suica card and not her QR code. The helpful station staff seemed to make matters worse.

We had comprehensively missed our train.

We booked new tickets for the next available train and contacted Austin who was planning to pick us up. We got on our train with no further problem. We were only an hour later than planned, which wasn't bad considering all the drama. And Austin was waiting for us, having spent the time in Plant 6 while we moved from Kyoto to Gifu.

I might not buy the tickets online in the future. We had plenty of time at the Okayama station and could have bought through tickets.

We went to the sushi place for dinner, with Kaori and Tatsuki. Much less traumatic.

Our friendly server

Kurashiki - Bikan

We had a lovely wander around the historic Bikan centre yesterday morning. We checked out the tourist shops and the local craft shops. We wandered the laneways and pottered around. We found a tourist Lawson (which is an omnipresent convenience store with a blue logo and does not usually contain local souvenirs). We had curry for lunch and then returned to the hotel to offload our purchases and to have a bit of a rest.

We ignored the rain, though we couldn't have a canal boat trip because they had been cancelled for the day because of "bad weather"

In the afternoon it had more or less stopped raining and  we visited Ohara House and the Honeiji Temple.

Then Lindsey went running up a hill to look at a shrine. 

I had no wish to be running up hills or steep stairs so I stayed at canal level and went for a mooch around.

When we were having dinner in the restaurant on Tuesday evening, we noticed gardens and buildings through the window. I went to see what they were, and found a lovely little Zen garden next to the Art Museum

I sat there of a while, in a small shelter, and enjoyed the peace and the water - and the fact that I was undercover from the rain, which had returned.

I notice that I have been particularly interested in the trees and water and gardens this visit. Perhaps my gardening mojo is belatedly making a reappearance.

I had better start getting organised. Today we are moving from Kurashiki to Austin's place. and we need to be out of here in 25 minutes!

Lindsey finally found some bacon that
hadn't been stewed.
And I had some corn soup.
Happiness all round

Moving On

We had a lovely morning yesterday, pottering around in the outlet centre and shopping mall across the road from our guest room. The sun was shining, the temperature was mid-20s. It was great weather for wandering around. We had lunch in a coffee shop and went for a potter in the little park beside the shops.

Then we packed, tidied up and got ready to leave. Lindsey bravely used the Japanese equivalent to Uber for the first time to summon a taxi to take us to our new hotel. It had the significant advantage that we could type the address in and summon the taxi without having to speak to anyone.

We said a friendly goodbye to our little room. It was so close to perfect in so many ways but the small imperfections rendered it impossible for us. My back and hip are still very grumpy. Even Lindsey struggled to get up from her futon mattress and the chair. I didn't even attempt the chair, although by the time we left I had found a way of getting up from the bed which more or less worked.

And this is where we are now - the hotel Kurashiki Kokusai in the historic Bikan area. 

We have beds, one each:

And chairs with legs, one each:

And a supplementary desk chair, which I am sitting on right now.

The hotel has interesting things dotted around it:

It also has a little cafe and a restaurant, and other things that we haven't explored yet.

We did explore our immediate neighbourhood, briefly:

We're going to explore more today, check out the shops, explore the laneways, maybe have a boat ride on the canal.

It is, of course, raining this morning ☔

Kurashiki

We spent yesterday morning pottering in the 3 Coins and Donki stores at the station.

We spent most of yesterday afternoon making our way by train from Kyoto to Kurashiki, which is a town with a historic quarter just beyond Okayama.

We are in a guest apartment not far from the station, across the road from an Outlet Centre and a shopping mall. The location is excellent, although it is a bit of a distance from the historic quarter.

The guest apartment is very cute, absolutely immaculate, very well kitted out. There is a washing machine and a verandah for hanging the clothes out. There is a gas stove and a microwave. The kitchen is well appointed. It's lovely. 

You would think it would be absolutely perfect. Except it is more a guest room than an apartment. There isn't really enough room for both Lindsey and me, although we could manage for a couple of days.  It is supposed to have a bed and two futons. The killer is that the "bed" is what we would call a futon and is very low to the ground. There is only just enough room to put a futon mattress down next to the bed. We have no idea where you would put the second futon. The chairs are uncomfortable and are more or less hard cushions on the floor with a short back. 

None of this is good for me. My back is not enjoying bending down to do things or getting up and down from floor level. There is nowhere suitable for me to sit, so I either lounge on the "bed" or I stand. If I were ten or even five years younger this would indeed have been perfect. Maybe if I do my pyjama pilates and my yoga exercises more often it will be perfect again. In the meantime, we are going to enjoy the day pottering around the local shops, parks and gardens in the sunshine and then later this afternoon we will cut our losses and relocate to a hotel in the historic quarter.

Ine Funaya, Amanohashidate and Miyama

We went on an adventure yesterday. A coach trip to new places we hadn't hear of before. It left from the other side of the Kyoto Station at 8:00 and we needed to be there by 7:45.

We took a taxi.

The coach was full. There were people from various bits of China, India, a smattering of people from Western Europe, 4 Australians (including us). No Japanese people and, interestingly, no Americans.

It took a couple of hours, driving north west through the mountains, to get to our first stop, Ine. Ine is a traditional fishing village, made up of two storey wooden houses. People live upstairs, boats live downstairs. We started out on a 30 minute boat trip around the bay, feeding prawn flavoured potato straws to the seagulls. I have a bit of a problem, feeding prawn flavoured snacks to wild birds. The wild birds in question had no such problem. And neither did the black kites who accompanied them.

Lindsey's fingers got a bit squashed by the claws of a black kite who wanted the prawn straw she was holding out to a seagull! The seagulls take the chips, apparently gently, in their beaks. The kites do not!

Then we went round to look at the fishing village itself.

Back on the bus and off we went to Amanohashidate which is famous for its dragon shaped sandbar, its temple complex and for the magnificent view from the top of the mountain. It was Sunday. It was a beautiful day. It was crowded. It took nearly 40 minutes to queue for the chairlift to the top of the mountain.

We didn't have much time to play with and we wanted lunch, a loo stop and a look at the bridge, the sandbar and the temple. Time was going to be very tight. So we went to the top, admired the view and then queued to come back down again.

The chair lift is steep, but it is not very high. It you fell off your chair you probably wouldn't come to much harm. The chances of you falling off, though, are very slight. Apart from me, coming back down, getting on. My bag got stuck behind me as I went to sit down, the bloke supervising slowed the chair down slightly. The combination meant that I nearly missed the seat. Fortunately, I didn't but I was a bit hunched over on the way down. Lindsey nearly missed her seat altogether. She was behind me and was watching me almost failing to sit on a perfectly nice chair - and forgot about her chair 🤣

Going up

View from the top

Coming back down

You could use the monorail instead.
Some people went up in the chair
and came down in the monorail

We had lunch in a cafe down at sea level. I accidentally ordered two lunches. I asked for the crumbed pork and the picture showed pork slices and salad. I thought it needed some rice and maybe some curry sauce, so I ordered that too. Alas, when the food was brought out it turned out the pork was part of a set, with rice, pickles, miso soup, katsu sauce, other tasty morsels. I really didn't need the curry rice. Really didn't. But Lindsey and I used the curry sauce since it was there and paid for, and very much enjoyed it.

We had a quick look at the bridge to the sandbar and around the temple complex. I would have liked more time there. We didn't get to the sandbar at all and didn't have a proper look at the temple.  I would have liked to spend more time at the top. It is easy enough to get to by train, though. If I find myself in Kyoto again with a spare day I might just go out and spend it there

By this time I was ready to call it a day and head back to Kyoto. But we still had Miyama to visit. Miyama is an out of the way traditional thatched village about an hour and a half from Amanohashidate. 

I stopped in the shop to buy us ice creams. Lindsey disappeared. The lady in the shop warned me that the black kites might fancy my ice creams. I tell you - if a black kite wants my ice cream, it can have it. I am not arguing with a determined kite. Fortunately, no kites appeared demanding I give up my snack. Also, no Lindsey appeared.

I ate mine while I was looking for Lindsey. Her ice cream was melting, melting, melting and dripping all over my t-shirt and. my trousers. Eventually I ate what was left of that one too. I didn't really have anything else I could do with it. Japan does not have public rubbish bins sitting about and it's a bit rude to throw your melting ice cream into the river or the paddocks or onto the path.

Lindsey had to buy her own ice cream when she returned from her walk around the thatched village. She would have liked more time there to explore properly. I'm not sure how we would get there on our own. I think you need to be on a tour or in a car. It is an actual village with actual people living in it but it is a bit out of the way, there is no train and I didn't see a bus stop. Although I wasn't looking for one so I may have missed it.

We got back to the Kyoto station around 6pm. We had a wander around a very busy Don Quijote before taxiing back to the hotel. We visited the local Family Mart for some sandwiches and snacks. It was a good day.

I have finally found some corn soup. It was available at breakfast in the hotel today. It was Maggi's finest out of a machine, so not "proper" soup. But it was good enough to count as a win for me.

We are moving on today. A bit of a pity. I like it here. But I'm sure I'll like the next place too. I haven;t been there before. Another adventure.