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.

Can’t share those photos today because my iPad’s full. Need to find a PC to do some downloading.

It’s been a mixed day. Weatherwise it started fine but then the rain came in and lasted all day. But then if we didn’t have rain we wouldn’t have cherry blossom and flowers so we have to take the good with the bad.

In terms of the hotel and Booking.com, it’s an ongoing saga. I will now try to demonstrate the difference between what you think you’re getting and the reality.

 Reception

  Carpet at lift exit on our floor – positively dangerous

The main attractions of this aquarium:  a dolphin show in the adjacent canal; and, a whale shark exhibit were cancelled and temporarily closed respectively without explanation or any reduction in entrance fee. This was disappointing but the rest of the displays were enjoyable and informative. The seal feeding was pretty basic but the indoor dolphin show was entertaining.

Sakurajima didn’t make photographing Senganen Garden easy.

Took a tram, then a ferry to get to Sakurajima Island to see its volcano which, luckily for us, had just started erupting again  yesterday.

We were having a picnic lunch at the foreshore when WHACK – I got hit in the face by a hawk trying to steal my food mid-bite! He lost and I applied the 5-second rule, just used the volcano ash as extra crunchy seasoning.

The culprit

Natural foot spa with a view 

This morning we visited Osaka Castle.

Then we took  the  14.39 bullet  train to Kagoshima

Sometimes things happen for a reason. Last night Brian finalised plans for the next leg of our trip to Kanazawa, north from where we were in Nagano. We needed to transfer funds so got onto Qcash which was taking forever to load, so to fill in time and stop myself loosing my temper, I clicked on the Japan Met Bureau site, only to discover that snow was forecast for the next week from Nagano north! So we changed our plans and headed towards the least cold place on the map. We made it as far as Osaka today. It’s still cold here, 9 degrees, but at least it’s not snowing – yet!