Japan Day 3: 1 To Nagoya

Day Three in Japan started a little too early for my liking after the wonderfully full Day Two. We had to have our bags packed and in the hotel foyer ready for collection by 8am. Luckily I have never suffered from jet lag, but I was tired from the journey followed swiftly by a full day so an early start was not what I would have chosen.

Thankfully we had Yuka, our guide, to sort out our tickets and get us to the right place at the right time.

So good that she always wore her distinctive yellow hat so that we could spot her in the crowds. We were all quite noticeable in the sea of black suits and black hair …

The Japanese seem to walk fast, silently and with purpose.

Once we had our tickets we knew exactly where we were to stand on the platform to be near our designated seats as the Bullet Train swooped in.

All was comfortable and pristine, with seats that turn round to face the ones behind if you wanted to, there was absolutely no space for big suitcases, which is why ours needed to be collected and taken to our destination by truck.

Time for some crochet ….

…. until we caught a glimpse of Mount Fuji from the window, with just a tiny bit of snow left on its north side

and only a wisp of cloud on the other side

After an extremely smooth and comfortable 2 hours we stopped and transferred to a coach which took us to a Shopping Mall where we could get some lunch. Most of our group grabbed a quick sandwich in the supermarket and then headed straight for the top floor to buy fabric, a couple went to the restaurant, I went on an a wander to explore and found the children’s play area………

with a mixture of horror and fascination I was aghast ….

right next to the bouncy castle and the soft play area were ALL THESE

electronic games and slot machines

just masses of them

with a ridiculous quantity of temptingly coloured plastic nonsense for the children to try to ‘win’

It was midday during the week and the place was very quiet but I could imagine that after school and in the holidays this area would be packed with children pouring money into these machines. Is this a vision of the future for our kids in the UK? Are there places like this in shopping malls in other countries?

Shudder!

I needed an antidote and went outside to sit in the sunshine and eat my lunch in a little seating area next to the car park surrounded by metal railings with panels which seemed to depict a story.

Sunshine, a delicious take away sushi lunch and a few rows of crochet and my batteries were nicely recharged. Then into the coach for about 45 minutes to get to our first workshop in dyeing fabric ……