Skip to main content

Sakura

Sakura is Japanese for cherry tree and is also the name of the Shinkansen that brought us to Osaka.

A tram brought us to Suizenji Koen, a strolling garden in Kumamoto. It is landscape to represent the 53 stations of the Tokaido Road, including a reduced size (but easily recognisable) Mount Fuji. It's quite a lovely garden for a stroll, with bridges, ponds, shrines and a tea house. Alex thought that it was good for running around chasing birds.


There were families sitting on the ubiquitous blue tarpaulins under the cherry trees, the petals falling like snow in the wind. I cannot get bored of watching the sakuras in bloom and it is a national obsession here, complete with forecasts from the weather agency.


Sadly, we didn't have all day to lie around and relax under the trees. The decision on our next destination was only made as we collected our bags from the hotel and walked to the train station. I wanted Takamatsu, on the island of Shikoku, home to the beautiful Ritsuen Gardens and with an easily bookable (and locatable Toyoko Inn). B wanted something more permanent for the final three days. So Osaka it was.

The Shinkansen line all the way from Kagoshima in the south of Kyushu to Hakata was only completed on March 12 this year. Previously there was a break from Shin-Yatsuhiro to Hakata (when we caught it in 2009). Now it's possible to catch Shinkansen all the way from Kagoshima to Aomori at the northern tip of Honshu.

Our train, the Sakura Shinkansen ran direct from Kagoshima to Shin-Osaka, so we didn't have to change trains at all during our 3 hour 20 minute trip. Alex was a real handful, constantly demanding to go to the train toilet, but only so he could play with the door and taps. Lucky the train has no lifts and the vending machines were in a different carriage. He has invented a kind of song "Bags coming out of the X-ray machine. Bottle coming out of the vending machine. Tickets coming out of the ticket machine."


Accommodation seems hard to come by in Osaka and Kyoto at the moment. I had booked a room at a brand new Toyoko Inn near Shin Osaka station, well away from the action of the city. Unfortunately, I didn't save a map and because it was so new it wasn't listed on anyone else, not even in the Toyoko Inn brochure.

Out of desperation we walked into the cold, dark evening to the two other adjacent Toyoko Inns that were visible from the station. They had no suitable rooms, but we managed to find something nice enough at a nearby Washington Hotel.

This spot is dead, really dead apart from the busy station. At least we should be able to quickly strike out to other destinations around the place.I still want to take Alex on the Ampanman train...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

IKEA Museum

We have a packed itinerary today. Flat packed and assembled with an Allen key. There are patches of snow on the ground that weren't there the previous evening. We are a bit sad to leave the Duxiana after the comfy beds and the breakfast of cold cuts, fruits and hot waffles. I tried the Swedish caviar on my boiled egg. It was... Interesting. I was very disappointed to realise that, after talking it up for months, I had forgotten the Disgusting Foods Museum in Malmö yesterday. Too late now. We catch another Oresundstag train, for a bit over an hour. Past yesterday's Lund, past increasingly white fields and towns to Älmhult, home of IKEA. The conductor warns us that the train will split in two so we have to move carriages forward. Unfortunately, there we no spare sets of chairs for all of us. The IKEA Museum showcases the history of the furniture company, along with temporary exhibitions. One of these was "Hacking IKEA," about using IKEA ob...

Asagaya and heading home

How can I be happy? I am about to return to a country where the toilets have at most two buttons and no seat warmers. But the tickets are booked and there are no cyclones, typhoons or other disasters standing in our way. It's almost time to go back to my first home. First B wants to do some "local shopping". So we catch the Chuo Line up a few stations to Asagaya, a residential area with a number of Shotengai, covered and uncovered arcades leading away from the station and narrow alleys lined with bars. It is an interesting area for a wander around. We are mainly looking, do some shopping for toothbrushes and sweets from Seiyu, a Wal-Mart owned supermarket/minor department store. We skipped breakfast and lunch is ramen and gyoza at a small restaurant near the entrance to the Pearl Centre shotengai. With the help of a staff member, I manage to purchase tickets at a branch of Lawson to the Ghibli Museum for a friend travelling to Japan in May. There are some...

One night in Canberra

It's the April school holidays and we are too busy to have a break but need one because of that. And because it's the Easter weekend the options are limited, so we just drive down to Canberra for the night. No, this isn't our first trip for 2023. I wrote about Japan on another site .  I refuse to wake up early so we depart after 8.30 AM. There is not much to say about the drive except that the clouds seem so low and Lake George is very full. We stop at a rest area and at the lookout up the hill to take it all in. Everyone is hungry so we first stop in Dickson and then can't think of anything to eat, so I drive us to Civic, where we can't decide and end up eating at the Singaporean Killiney Kopitiam branch.  The Canberra Centre has nice shops. I dream of getting an iPad from the Apple Store, we buy a blanket and toothbrushes from Muji and wish that Lego wasn't so expensive. Nothing we can't get in Sydney, but then we rarely go out shopping in the city. It...