Our JR pass expired today so we did a day trip from Kanazawa to Nagano and back on the newly opened Shinkansen line.

Got the Thunderbird 29 train from Kyoto to Kanazawa after hobbling to see the nearest temple to Kyoto Station. My feet gave up around the halfway mark of this trip and the only thing keeping me going is medication – Brufren and Panadine, so I’ll probably end up with a stomach ulcer by the end of it. But the Hotel Kanazawa, just outside the station, is the most luxurious we’ve stayed in so far. Each of the twin beds is as big as some of the double beds we’ve had up till now.

Lucky I took Aisling’s advice and uploaded photos to Facebook while we were in Okayama, because they very next day the card in my camera failed. Fortunately I brought a spare.

From Okayama we took the Hikari train to Kyoto and because our hotel was too far from the station to walk, got our first taxi in Japan. We’d avoided them up to now because we’d been warned that they were very expensive but it only cost about the same as Darwin and it was very clean with linen and lace covers and trimmings on the seats.

That was one of the few things I liked about Kyoto. It didn’t help that it was wet and cold; the only room available in our expensive hotel was Smoking and stank; the location was in the city but not close to anything; it was the most crowded place we’ve been to here with the most rude people we’ve met so far; and, to top it off I got hit by a bicycle – shared footpaths here. So glad we only booked one night there!

Room with a view!   

Despite all that we enjoyed our visit to the Imperial Palace.