travelling allrite

There is a place I often dream about. Not exactly a place, because it has many forms, but I know its the same dream. It is away from the capital city, sometimes far, sometimes close. There is always a train, and that's how I know it. The train goes through a quiet landscape. It's grassy plains or around the river of a bushy national park. It follows the coast or a river or neither. The train itself is never new, never shiny and modern, usually just a rail car of a couple of carriages. It may even be a tram in origin, if not in fact. It's the end of a branch line. The location is Australia. It's Rockhampton in the mid-eighties, Newcastle when the train ran to the city centre, it's Yeppoon with its old train line or tiny Keppel Sands which never had one. It's Kurnell which never was. Or it's a hidden suburb down a non-existent turnoff a bit further along our road. Wherever it is, the city has a few characteristics. It's old, a bit run down and it is quiet....

The constant rumbling and porcelain flickers across the sky make me wonder if we have dragged the weather of the tropics down with us. Certainly not that of Japan and northern Europe. It's far too hot and humid for that. It took us until the 11 AM check out time to pack our three weeks worth of travels into a state ready for the journey home. Leaving the bags with the hotel we set out for our last exploration of Japan. Where would we go? Where do we have time to go? Not too far. I suggest the red torii tunnels of the Fushimi Inari Shrine, but Alex is insistent. The Kyoto Railway Museum. As we ride the rapid train to Kyoto Station, watching the trainee driver in front, he wears us down. First we explore Kyoto Station and the Isetan Department Store. There's a KATO trains shop, for instance. Lunch is pizza and pasta in the underground tunnels in front of the station. It's chilly outside, much colder than our other days in Japan so far.  It...