And now we're home again... Arrived late yesterday evening after two days of travelling. A little tiring, but absolutely problem-free.

It is a good job we left when we did. Yesterday, the mercury was plunging (the screens at Fukuoka airport were advertising sub-zero daytime temperatures in neighbouring Seoul), and today there has been widespread disruption.

Before we start on the journey, here are a few pleasant memories of Nagasaki:





Anyway, nice as this all was, we had to leave.

On Monday 23, we vacated our accommodation (which we'd grown used to, and whose environs hadn't disturbed us since those first two noisy nights). We walked to the railway station. I love Nagasaki station, as it's generally very calm, and there was room in Seattle's Best Coffee for restorative lattes and apple pie:


We were due to travel on Japan's newest Shinkansen, the Kamome, launched only last September. It's the local pride and joy, so we needed to make sure our coffee-drinking still left plenty of time for some Kamome-worship.

I love Shinkansens generally (and Sonics), but I really think this one is the most beautiful of them all:






It goes only as far as Takeo-Onsen at the moment, so you have to change trains. It's another of the extraordinarily fast connections that you have to be in Japan to really believe will work. But it does. Off the Shinkansen. On to the train waiting on the opposite platform. Three minutes all told... And then you're off again.

Fukuoka seemed ultra-busy after laid-back Nagasaki. But we dropped our bags at the Toyo Hotel, and went off to Canal City, where we not only enjoyed the last tonkatsu ramen of the trip (a quiet tear falls), but also bought some new overtrousers for me at Mont Bell (big country, you see, so you can buy trousers in short-leg-appropriate sizes), and some gifts to take back with us.


The hotel room would win no prizes for space, but it had a fridge, a kettle, and a really nice bathroom. Would stay again.

And on Tuesday 24, we're definitively heading home.


We'd decided to taxi rather than take the bus, given the less than epic weather forecast. Nigel had reactivated the Uber app the night before -- only to find it had locked him out the following morning... Go figure...

The hotel reception desk tries three taxi companies, to no avail, so we head off across the road in the direction of the station. But at the intersection, there's a free taxi. So we bundle in.

A quick run-down on the departure experience:

-- Check-in. Very efficient.
-- Immigration. Quick. It's really much easier to get out of Japan than into it.
-- Security. Wonderful in that you don't have to haul every single piece of electronic equipment out of your bag... You do have to take your shoes off, but -- in true Japanese style -- they give you slippers...
-- Coffee. No coffee shops open, so you're down to the vending machines. What???
-- Temperature. Hot, hot, hot. All those people in their Seoul-appropriate puffer jackets must have sweltered.
-- Souvenir shops. Positively under siege... Seriously. HUGE long lines at every checkout. Japan's souvenir trade must be keeping the economy afloat. But you can understand why. Everything is so very beautifully packaged, and looks so lovely.

There was nothing to complain about on our Singapore Airlines flight (to Singapore), except that those JR trains really do spoil you in terms of legroom...

They'd changed the time of the connecting flight to Kuching, unfortunately, so we had longer to wait at Changi airport than was ideal. But it's a good airport in which to rack up a few paces. And -- yes! -- there's a Ya Kun Kaya Toast!




Then just the little hop to Kuching. Taxi. And HOME! We'd got up in Fukuoka at 04.30 (Kuching time), and we weren't home until 22.00. So it was a long day.

Our landlady had left us some oranges and home-made cookies (really good):



This morning we started to tackle the long list of post-holiday jobs.

Japan is already starting to feel like a dream. But what memories, what memories... Glad we did it.