Oi!

Well, here we are at Day Seven, so just about a third of the way through, and we are slowly getting into the rhythm of the tour and connecting with folks and avoiding others.

As a whole, I think the group is okay, though there is one lady whom I have trouble with. She’s loud and raucus, laughing outrageously at her own non-jokes. Still, we have experienced worse. On a tour of Italy about ten years ago, we experienced the “Ugly Australians.” Contrary to expectations and folk lore, the Americans on that tour were polite, quiet, knowledgeable and well-travelled. A bunch of Novocastrians on that trip were loud and obnoxious, trying to scare people with stories of the drop-bears, spiders and snakes. Tours have the advantage of scale and thus some rather good and affordable deals. I would think that the majority of our group are quite well travelled and take the demands of tourism in their stride.

Day Six and the big event was a trip to Mount Fuji. It really is a stand-out geographic icon and it seems to appear quite suddenly, standing, white-capped, just like all the post cards. As we wend our way off the main highway, we get higher and the temperature begins to cool quite a lot. Because of the heavy recent snows, we will not be able to get to Fuji Station 5 which is at 2300 metres. In fact the only station that is open is One which is a modest 1200 metres but has the Information Centre. Even at 1200 metres there is a lot of snow and ice on the ground, which encouraged a few of our lot to have a little snow fight!

It was very pleasant to stroll in the coolness and drink in the odours of damp earth and leaves from the forest floor. Such luscious moments are not allowed to linger on a TripaDeal tour and we were soon bundled off to some more vantage points to see and photograph probably the most photographed mountain on Earth. You cannot beat the best so we also indulged in a few postcards. We had lunch at the village of Karaguchuko, taking our guide, Jackie’s recommendation to try some Indian food. It was truly nice and we tried a mini-banquet with new friends Steve and Lynn from Bussleton in WA. It was a longish drive to our hotel for the night in the city of Shizuoka, which is merely a stopping place en route to more memorable places. Dinner was very modest as  we bought a sandwich and a small packet of strawberries for dinner. The strawberries are smallish but amazingly sweet. And moreish.

Day Seven, Saturday. Our destination today is the much larger city of Nagoya, but on the way we explored the Oi River Valley with its abundant and beautifully presented tea plantations. There are some quite large fields of tea plants and some pocket-sized ones as well. No square metre is left unplanted or in various stages of preparation, and each plant, regardless the size of the field, is precisely and meticulously trimmed and pruned. It really does look spectacular. Naturally we had to try the produce and experience the many ways that the green tea is prepared and consumed.

The hills are very steep as the river cuts its way from the high alpine regions of central Honshu Island and you are left with the impression that with a few thousand more years the river could slice the island in two. The bus was forsaken for a train on what is called the Oigawa Line.  The first part of the journey was powered by a steam locomotive as its snaked its way following the course of the river. When the steam loco reached the limits of its journey, we swapped to a diesel electric that pulled quite small carriages as it rocked and rolled its way slowly up past the first of several large dams. The scenery was spectacular, punctuated by the not infrequent tunnels along the journey.

We have been blessed with beautiful sunny days for our Fuji and Oi River experiences and we quickly dispensed with jackets and jumpers. The weather forecasters have promised some marginal weather, but so far, apart from a rather wild day in Tokyo, it has been magnificent.

We have now settled in to our hotel. I have done a load of washing and feeling quite virtuous about that. We had dinner at a small café just around the corner. It was a BBQ and we cooked some steaks, chicken and the chef had prepared us very delectable rissole. Jenny complimented him on the rissole and to our surprise, he brought us another. We washed it down with a non-alcohol beer (non-alcoholic mainly because it was half the price of the proper beer.

Our friend Enid from Canberra (a frequent visitor to Japan) recommended Lawsons to buy food and just about everything you need for a journey through this country. Lawson stores are a bit like 7-11, and are just about on every corner. The store next to our hotel even seemed to have a pharmacist on duty and he helped us with some medicinal products. He was no help at all with selecting the ice-creams however and we had to manage all by ourselves. Japanese ice-cream is very delicious!

Well, tonight, apart from doing the laundry, we have been keeping an eye on the Brisbane City Council elections. Fiona works in a political office, and her job depends on her boss being re-elected. Thus we have found ourselves in the uncomfortable position of cheering for the Libs and it feels a bit odd.  As of writing, the result is too close to call, but the Blue Team is feeling slightly optimistic.

Jen has kindly given me some notes from which to crib – much appreciated.

Well, I think that will do for now. Mata ne.

Bill12