Riding the rails

Nara, Japan What a day. We left Takayama and had a lovely long first-class ride to Nagoya. (Yes, we have been there before.) Then we jumped onto a bullet train to Kyoto. (Yes, we have been there before.)

We then hopped onto a subway-type local train for Nara, and now have finally arrived at our hotel.

The reason for this backing and forthing would require an elaborate explanation from Don, so I’ll let him decide whether he’s game to share it. However, I must say that I never thought the day would come when I knew my way around several large Japanese train stations.

There is not much more to report than that. But I thought you might be interested in seeing how we’ve packed and what we’re toting around in all these travels.

We each have a small carry-on suitcase and one extra item. I have my new Pakt backpack and Don has our Orvis duffle bag, which always comes in handy. Don also has his briefcase, and, around my neck, I have my camera bag, shoulder purse, and — on hot days — my personal fan, which has saved my life many times.

It’s not exactly traveling light, but compared to some of our fellow tourists who didn’t get the memo about minimal storage space on trains and in hotels, we are models of efficiency.

Don’s Food Corner

You will not get a full explanation of how we ended up taking these complicated — and exhausting — train rides. Basically, we changed the itinerary and are now traveling in the opposite direction of how this was all intended to work. I didn’t bother looking into the complications of going one way instead of another. The result was this convoluted travel day.

We are staying in an area loaded with interesting restaurants here in Nara. We found what looked like an upscale place, and it featured grilled Waygu beef. Since I missed getting a decent full serving of Hida beef in Takayama, I decided this would be second best.

It came barely grilled and blue raw in the center. That’s OK with me. It was extremely flavorful. However, it did not have that melt-in-the-mouth experience I had with that single piece of Hida beef that was on the sushi plate I ordered the first night in Takamaya.

A little internet search on the whole phenomenon of Japanese beef cultivation reveals that there are kinds of different gradings of this beef. The famous characteristic, of course, are those zillions of layers of marbleized fat that run through the meat. (Refresher: Fat equals flavor.) The best of the beef has a type of fat that is so fine that it melts at the temperature of the human body. Thus, the beef does literally melt in your mouth. That is exactly the experience I had at that little sushi place.

Tonight, I didn’t get that level of experience. That’s not to say it wasn’t great. But it wasn’t the pinnacle of Japanese beef production, which, after just one taste of the real thing, I would rather experience.

The beef was served with a vegetable sauce, which, if the beef had been the best, would not have been necessary.

Other than the beef we had an order of vegetable tempura and chicken tempura. Both were fine — delicate and handsomely presented.