Day 21: Naoshima to Toba (Ise)

Day 21: Naoshima to Toba (Ise)

QOTD:  This must be the hottest day of the trip

Weather: mid to high 90s (and, we’re out and wandering at the peak)

Pics:  the thing that keeps DB up in the night, brunch, bullet train pics, the phone THB has carried all over Japan and never figured out how to make ring or find a contact to call though they are loaded, Ise Shrine and adjacent street (first shot is actually another kind of shrine THB wishes to visit), The Earth

Checkout early, 6:30, to catch the private ferry to Uno and thus on to Okayama for a train ride. The front desk surprises us with box lunches (we were told they don’t provide them). Before the car ride, THB stocks up on café au laits from the vending machine at the Uno dock, $1.50 each, to enjoy with day-before pastries on the ride into Okayama during rush hour, slow enough that THB can climb into the back of the van and retrieve his netbook and do some pic editing and word processing.

Arrive at the train station and DB does some quick analysis with the help of a train clerk: the bullet trains are running late (yes, shockah!!) and if we hurry we can catch a bullet train soon to depart if we’re willing to sit in non-reserved seats. Hustle to the platform and thus catch an earlier train, sitting separate in a full and very comfortable car. THB sits next to a young woman who shows him that the window seats have access to electricity and lets him take a pic of her phone charging.

That gets us to the huge Nagoya station earlier than planned, and DB navigates us to another line where we have time to enjoy an early lunch/late breakfast from the Benesse Park on the platform, and then board our as planned local (still extremely comfortable)  for another hour+ ride back in the direction we came (the optimum) to take a local taxi to the Ise Shrine, where we check our bags for $5.

THB and J estimate upwards of 30,000 people will visit today, including a convention of kimono wearers, where it is 95 in the shade. They are in process of a once-every-twenty-years repositioning of the shrine (it’s a long story, going on for 100s  of years, maybe 1000s), and many people come in the last year before the new version is open. It’s hot…did THB tell you he was sweating off 20 days of beeru? He was…maybe even E-ville beerus.

Await a private taxi pick-up (after snacking on local sweet specialities) for an almost hour ride, mostly along the Pacific Ocean, this time facing east, to arrive at The Earth, a magnificent ryokan overlooking the water. Ahhhhhhhhh, this is first class. Drinks and sweets to greet us, a tour of the 13 room inn, a private hot springs tub outside our suite (living, bedroom, large bathroom with separate wooden tub, hallway, divided deck), and then drinks at the bar.

THB has a kamikaze, DB a gin gimlet, the bartender provides a sample of the locally smoked cheese and canned nuts (from the US), and we’re in a very good mood by the time E&J join us for dinner after their massages.

Dinner is a seafood kaisecki with a sake tasting trio pairing and since the inn had to push back E&J to accommodate another guest who ran over in the spa, our first few courses are rushed a bit to get us on schedule with the other diners (maybe 15). We dine a la yukata, though at least one other group of 6 is in their street clothes.

Here we go: pear wine aperitif; appetizers of tofu with persimmon dressing, seaweed with roe, konjak, Chinese wolfberry; salmon roe with radish and egg york (sic); chrysanthemum dressed with potherb mustard, shimeji mushroom with seeds of summer cypress; assorted sashimi of local lobster, fatty tuna, amberjack; soup with tilefishm, turnip, shitake mushroom, carrot and pumpkin; grilled local abalone; eggplant, eel, pumpkin, carrot, garden peas; grilled barracuda, pacific saury sushi, candied sweetfish (ayu), sweet potato, sudachi; Japanese roasted beef; pickles, miso, mixed rice (mushrooms) and an azuki beans and coconut cream dessert. Served by a very young and cute waitress whose favorite phrase was “okay, sure” which she learned during a recent year of schooling and home stay in Canada.

Dinner wrapped up around 10, and off to sleep we went in a larger than king size bed.