We again awoke to the chirping of our lovely son at 4:45am. I found a last minute optimization on the route to Magome, where instead of taking a bus to Matsumoto, we could take it to Kiso Fukushima. This would require cancelling the original ticket, which I wasn’t sure if it was possible.
I had a final onsen (last night’s visit to the onsen was deferred due to it being overrun by a bunch of American middle school kids daring each other to uncover their beans). Henry drank an entire 500mL carton of milk (well done Henry, we didn’t want that going to waste!) We got some food for the journey from 7-Eleven and then set off to Shinjuku station, either the busiest or second busiest transfer hubs in Tokyo. We fortunately got our ticket changed and Viki made special note of the massive queue to the ladies powder room, where Japanese girls arriving to or departing from Tokyo could do their hair and makeup.
The journey today was long. Left the hotel at 7am. Shinjuku by 7:30am. Departed on bus at 8:30am. Got caught in near standstill traffic around an hour in and delayed 1.5 hours because of a collision between a bus on lorry. Arrived at Kiso Fukushima by 1:30pm. Lucked out and arrived just in time to sprint to the hourly train departing at 1:31pm. Arrived in Nakatsugawa around 2pm. Did our shopping for the next day at 7-Eleven. Caught the bus to Magome at 3:15pm. Arrived in Magome 3:45pm. Arrived at our hostel around 4pm. Viki proclaimed throughout the journey that we’re only taking the fastest transport from now on and wanted to know whether we could go back to Tokyo.
Fortunately for our marriage, the hostel far exceeded our expectations. I had told Viki we were sleeping in a school, which she wasn’t thrilled about. When we arrived, we learned that it had only just opened two weeks ago. We were staying in a “family room”, which ended up being an entire converted classroom with two beds, a couch, and a table for four, with a great view. The entire hostel feels like it’s been freshly panelled in wood and is somehow pretty much completely empty. On top of that, we’re only paying 6000 yen, which is very cheap compared to what we’re spending elsewhere.
We’ve now had our dinner (Viki had a vegetable udon and I had a pork cutlet with rice, which were both microwaved), Henry is in bed, and are listening to the sound of a symphony of crickets outside the window. We’re happy to be in the mountains now, where the climate is more temperate (highs of around 20, compared to 29 yesterday).