Densha no hi

Monday 4 July 2016

A day of train travel as we left Hiroshima and the southwestern coast, heading for Kanazawa near the northern coast of central Honshu. We rocketed along at around 270kph on the Shinkansen to Shin-Osaka, then changed to a smaller and slower JR Thunderbird (which trundled along at a mere 130kph) for nearly three hours heading north to Kanazawa. 

Ekiben for a late lunch on the Thunderbird was enjoyable; Kerryn and I shared the treats from a Special Makunouchi Bento, trying our best to guess what we were eating – most of the time we had no idea but it all tasted great!

We also enjoyed the changing scenery as we passed through the central Honshu countryside – from the medium-size cities, smaller towns and rural areas, rice paddies and vegetable farms to the lush green hills - it was constantly changing, interesting, beautiful and different to Tokyo and the other big cities we had visited in Japan, and much different to Australia. 

Also a good day to catch up on my blog posts……

We arrived in Kanazawa around 5pm and it was a short walk to our accomodation - the Hotel Pacific (I liked the irony as Kanazawa is quite close to the Sea of Japan, not the Pacific Ocean). This is a change from the apartments stays we had in Kyoto and Hiroshima! At the Pacific, we have two rooms: a traditional Japanese room, with tatami mats and futons for the kids and a "western-style" room for Kerryn and I, which was about the size of a small caravan!!

Cooking facilities consist of a small electric jug and ocha cups, but the hotel manager was very friendly and, in a mix of English and Japanese, explained via google maps where his favourite restaurant, Ryu, was located. We bravely gave it a try, despite some trepidation with the lack of pictorial menu outside the restaurant and no English menus inside. We did well to order, via pointing and a mix of Japanese and English, delicious ramen for dinner. I managed to give some complements to the manager, in Japanese, after asking for the bill (o-kanjo kudasai) and with lots of bowing he walked us to the door (or perhaps he was just glad to get this crazy osutoraria-jin family out of his restaurant).

PS: I had an email conversation with our GP back in Australia, including sending some photos of Joel's injury. All good - Joel will have sutures out next Monday. Joel is fine just a bit embarrassed by the big gauze bandaid on his chin...