Ended up being a bit of a late night, so both a bit sluggish this morning, no running today. Trix is sad to leave her window.

I had a full English breakfast, Japanese style, because … why not, it’s a holiday! Roast beef, sausages, very wet scrambled eggs, cloud bread and fatty bacon.

We had 3 trains to get today, and had a little pile of tickets each, mostly understandable, but it wasn’t totally clear how to navigate the turnstiles. I asked the station chap he said “stack them, all together, ok!”, ok… let’s see, we were both pretty sceptical. Turns out the machine separates them, processes each one individually, and stamps, marks, or keeps them depending on where you are and how far through the journey you’ve come. Impressed, we set off to find provisions.

First leg of the journey was a bullet train to Kyoto, we settled in and I asked Trix what the best thing about Hiroshima was, “Shin! He was great!”. He was. In the context of a thing or place, “shin” means new (like Shinkansen – new trail line), for a name it can be made of up different kanji characters, I can’t remember which ones he said his was, but some of these and they all fit: humility, heart, belief, true. He was given the name by his parents and grandparents because of how they felt after the bomb, at first he felt he had a heavy responsibility, but he grew into it, and is one of the most positive people I’ve met.

The train alternates between tunnel and daylight, it’s relaxing and mesmerising. The tunnels are quiet and dark, then popping into daylight, smoothly gliding through a valley, over villages, temples, rivers, pointy tree covered hills on all sides, then plunging back through the next mountain. If I hadn’t had 3 coffees I’d be dozing in my comfortable reclining seat.

We look at the map of Kanazawa, our destination for today, there are beaches, and we wonder whether to just take a walk along one of them for a change of scene. We looked at each other simultaneously, “a beach walk without puppies?”

It does seem wrong, “we’re definitely not obsessing about our dog” Trix laughs.

We change at Kyoto for the Thunderbird Express 21, I’m excited, “do you you think it’ll be as cool as it sounds?”, she just raises an eyebrow, “I’m pretty sure you’re going to be disappointed, it’s just a standard JR train”.

I thought it had a certain something, sort of like an insect, Trix said “it looks pretty goofy”, which I thought was a bit mean.

Time for lunch, and it’s only as I’m opening my yakitori bento box that I realise this is unlikely to be the sort of yakitori I would usually order… hmmmm. Just as well I like chicken skin, and …. cartilage. There are some other bits that I don’t recognise, but “ah well at least it’s just chicken eh?”. Luckily I’ve got a beer, and everything goes well with beer.

I don’t know why we even thought about a beach, it’s a grey drizzly sort of a day. The clouds seem to have got tangled up in the hills, very green alongside the edge of a huge lake. Puffy green bamboo forests, wooden houses, rice fields.

Trundling along gently, making each other laugh by being silly, the packet of “finger wiper” that came with my lunch has Trix in stitches. Feels like the camper van trip: we’ve gone slightly deranged, in a good way.

It’s only lightly raining as we walk to the hotel, but by the time we leave it’s properly pouring. We do a lap of the castle, narrowly miss a giant hornet being chased by a worried looking groundskeeper with a big net on a stick. Trix is apprehensive about heading further into the forest, “I’m sure he caught it, I saw him stamping on something just now”, though it almost certainly went a different way (I keep that to myself).

Wandering around the Katamachi area looking for food, but it’s weirdly quiet then we realise it’s Sunday evening, oops. Trix spots a place down a side street, “oh that place, nice looking things on skewers?” Yes. We sit at the counter, just the job.

Wasn’t quite enough though, and we spot a barbecue place on the way back to the hotel, “cheeky grilled beef and rice?”, obviously.

As per our standard routine, we find a 7-Eleven and meander back to the room, time for hotel pyjamas and a bit of a chill before an early night, all that sitting around is weirdly tiring.