Another day, another move, which means getting up at a reasonable time, eating as much food as possible for breakfast so we don’t have to take it with us and then packing.
My extra task was to walk up to the Post Office and send something home for a little chap’s upcoming birthday. That was a very hot half hour and I felt a little sad that we’d be on a train for much of the rest of the day.
I spent some time writing a thank you note for our host. She’d offered us a lift to the railway station, so it was the least I could do!
I just hope I haven’t written something incredibly rude, by mistake.
The ride from Shin-Osake to Shingu was nearly four and a half hours long and fortunately, we were able to reserve seats.
Liesel watched TV on her phone while I was entertained by books on my Kindle, my new book of (seemingly impossible) Soduko puzzles and typing. Tupingg on s train is trrribly difficult, sp I have up. And when I stopped, I was glad to see that the view from the train had vastly improved. No more concrete, steel, glass and bricks, pylons and wires. Just good views on both sides. Hills to the left, sea to the right.
<ph sea
We were right next to the sea for quite some time but on this occasion, we didn’t need to follow the instructions given on the card.
<ph tsunami
<ph more sea
There was a lot of damage, presumably caused by the recent typhoons. Some of the beaches were covered with broken trees.
We had a 1.4 km walk from the station at Shingu to our new Airbnb place. It was a long 1.4 km carrying our heavy bags and it was mostly uphill and the streets became more and more narrow, towards the mountains. Then we had a battle to open the the metal box that held the key. Then we had a battle to use the key to unlock the door. These tasks would have been so much easier if we’d been less tired and, oh, if only we’d had a cup of coffee!
While Liesel prepared supper, I walked back to buy some essential groceries. You can’t get nice big loaves of crusty bread here, it comes in packets of 5 thick or 6 less thick white slices which is ok for toast but a bit disappointing otherwise.
The house is nice and big but it was very hot when we arrived, so thank goodness for the cooling units. On the downside: mosquitoes. Grrr.
The host’s mother came by to say hello, well, to say kon’nichiwa, since she had no English at all. She gave us some Japanese coffee but it would have been incredibly churlish for me to say “Huh, thanks for the coffee, but where were you when we needed it? And why didn’t we get a lift from the station? Huh?”
The toilet has a control panel to rival Apollo 11’s. If the next entry on this blog is sent from the Moon, you’ll know I pressed the wrong button.
It’s a nice start to our first full day here in Shingu and we’re planning to go for a hike… well, we’ll see how that works out. Here’s the view from our house: gorgeous but steep!
Mick and Liesel's Antics 