We were able to have 20 minutes sleep-in this morning. With the hotel-provided breakfast sandwich quickly despatched we were off to the station to make the short train trip to Okayama station. There was enough time to choose a bento box for our lunch before we jumped on the superfast shinkansen train for the 1 hour trip to Shin-Osaka. From there we caught the connecting Thunderbird Limited Express train to Kanazawa. This was our longest single train trip so far, of nearly 3 hours.
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| An amazing shinkansen on the next track |
First order of the day - lunch. As with all bento boxes we have had so far, they were excellent. With a huge range of meat, fish, rice, pickles, vegetables, omelette and so on, all fresh and light, how could it be otherwise?
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| Amazing range of food for about the price of a pie at a NZ cafe |
We took a JR bus and arrived at our room just as the owner was arriving too. Into the room, and straight out again in the gentle drizzle to visit Shinbidou, an antique shop we had greatly enjoyed 4 years ago. After chatting with the elderly owner (3rd generation) for a while, and saying we'd bought things last time, he invited us out back to sit down and have a cup of tea and chat. Very pleasant. We then had a good look around the shop, and again bought a few things - one nice little glass cup and a few small sake bowls similar to last time's purchases.
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| Shinbidou antiques shop |
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| The current owner's grandfather's collection of pre-Meiji sake bowls that he brought out to show us. These are all over 200 years old. |
The weather was pretty cold and miserable, so we headed back to our room, the absurdly named Vacational Rental Sunny Heights. It is neither sunny nor high, but it is reasonably priced and convenient. What we did discover as we tried to find somewhere to eat, is that of the four places we knew were open in the evenings nearby 4 years ago, one was closed on Tuesdays, two now only do lunches and no longer dinners, and the fourth has shut down permanently. Somewhat disappointing, as we had particularly been looking forward to eating in a funny little downstairs one where we had got on very well with the staff and customers. In the end we couldn't be bothered finding another place, so bought some 2-minute noodles (slightly fancy ones!) to cook in our little apartment. Just the ticket on a cold wet evening, though a hot wee bar-restaurant with a bit of noise and other people would have been more fun.
