So many rude Italians. They can’t queue, they shout while they are eating and they do not act appropriately in a temple.
I feel better for getting that off my chest.
Breakfast was the same as yesterday and I had to bribe the children with promises of coffee shop cake to get then to eat their rice.
It was also as noisy as yesterday’s tea. Because of the aforementioned Italians.
The coffee shop wasn’t open yet so we went for a little walk first. We were going to be stuck on a bus or train all day, so some fresh air first thing seemed sensible. Cemetary time (again!!). This time it was cloudy/misty and it looked quite eerie….time for some more photos!
The coffee shop produced delicious cake and coffee for the price of a liver and two kidneys. Daylight robbery. But tasty.
While we drank our tea and coffee (made from ground diamonds and sprinkled with gold leaf) we got chatting to the tourists sitting next to us. It transpired that although they were Italians, they were quite nice. Probably because they had relatives living in Leeds, and weren’t part of the coach trip.
After our second breakfast, we collected our bags and checked out of the temple accomodation. I wrote a quick postcard to our lovely, lovely hosts at the Watanabe ryokan and then we hopped on the bus back to the station. It was busy and once we had got on we realised that we would have to be crafty. Our two day bus tickets had run out the day before. I sneakily covered up the date as we got off and the bus driver didn’t notice. Phew! My assumption was that we had paid for the journey in both directions, we just hadn’t validated the return part which would have covered the bus bit as well. Anyway, we pulled it off!
The return trip to Osaka was much the same: beautiful, crazy views with many, many trees, except Mila felt travel sick. She did exactly the right thing: she lay down on the bench seat on the train and went to sleep. When she woke up she felt much better.
Obviously, as she is a pre-teen, she wouldn’t take any hard won advice from her mother like: suck a polo, eat something, have a drink of water and all such suggestions were met with the utter disdain they deserved. I perceive the next few years are going to have their own unique set of challenges. And my mother is going to enjoy every minute. I believe she calls it payback.
We had to keep changing trains and buying more food as we were all starving, but the journey was largely uneventful and allowed me to read my book in relative peace. Keith sat next to me watching The Grand Tour and shaking with laughter.
Mila didn’t even realise we had arrived when we came out of the station at Shinawa station. She asked me which train we were getting on next!
The hotel was easy to find (follow the big flashing arrows to the red light district, which is not nearly as subtle as in Soho!) and look behind the Godzilla climbing down a building.
It was lovely inside and the rooms were nice but the configuration made life tricky. The kids were on floor 24 and we were on floor 19 (up different elevators from the hotel reception on floor 8). We decided it was only one night and they could always phone us if there was a problem but I think it made us all a little anxious.
I had successfully requested the hotel to book us a fancy bbq restaurant for tea by email. They had emailed me confirmation and printed out directions for when we arrived. That’s what I call service!
The restaurant was epic. I think places in the UK should adopt the practice of little blinds that can be pulled down between tables to give you some privacy.
Each table had a gas burner sunk into it with a griddle on top. The menu was in English but still almost incomprehensible. Our excitement was limitless when we realised that there was a vegetable selection!!!
We ordered pork, chicken and some of the cheaper beef cuts (the most expensive works out as about £200 a portion… and frankly the kids said it looked fatty!!), two salads and the veg for barbequeing.
The benefit of this type of restaurant is that you don’t have to wait very long to be served as it is all given to you raw. The downside is you have to keep the tongs away from the pyromaniacs in the family and try and make them wait until the chicken is cooked!
The food was delicious and I particularly enjoyed wearing the little bibs they gave you to protect you clothes from the sizzling fat. Very classy.
To give you an idea of how precious vegetables are in Japan: it was the same price for a bowl of courgette, onions, mushroom and sweet potato (about 4-6 pieces of each) as the plate full of bits of chicken thigh. The tomato salad was lettuce and a bit of grated carrot with a whole peeled tomato in the middle cut into 8 pieces. No-one can be able to afford to eat 7 pieces of veg a day here unless they grow their own. We are all craving apples and the only oranges we have seen were on an offering plate in a temple. I had to restrain the children. Bananas on breakfast buffets are cut in half.
Right, rant over.
When we had eaten our free ice cream (vanilla and matcha) we paid and headed to our next appointment for the evening… not karaoke as my family are all to repressed (actually we were all exhausted and I didn’t even bother suggesting it), but a quick trip to the underground to cash in the Pasmo cards and then a trip to make an offering of our own at the temple of stationery: Muji!!
Pure bliss. The kids had a budget, but I just bought random stuff.
After that we negotiated the drunken masses who fancied a bit of “how’s your father” in one of the many dubious establishments, and the invitations to the type of party you don’t take your children to and made it back to the hotel. We washed the children and put them to bed with the bare minimum in their rooms so we could get them up quickly in the morning. Then we repacked again.
Keith was not at all sure the cases would make it from Miyajima, but the system worked like clockwork and we didn’t even have to ask the hotel for them: they were just produced like magic.
Packing done, final photos taken of the view out of the window and alarm set for 5.15am we settled down to our last sleep in Japan.