Last night was sleeping on the futon on the floor.  But I woke up feeling quite gooind, so my back is getting used to it!  I went down for breakfast, which was rice, little sausages, soup, and sweet egg stuff (tamagoyaki).  After a shower, Kaoru and I walked to the train station  to go to Tokyo, and then got on the Shinkansen for Kyoto.

While waiting to board we started talking to a man and his daughter that were also waiting in line.  The man lives in Seoul, and his daughter in LA.  From what I could gather he was in shipping, and hass travelled a long way around the world, including Melbourne.  We were surprised to hear he was 95 years old!  I wouldn’t have picked him as over 80.  He was very friendly.

We found our seats, and I caught up on a few things – what else is there to do for 2 hours, while travelling at 300km/hr! We enjoyed some Strawberries and Cream Kit Kat’s that Aunty Lynette left behind with Kaoru, and some other sweets and drinks.

After a couple of hours we arrived in Kyoto and as we had some time before we could check in we had some lunch. Then we walked to the skydeck at the station building, which involved a single escalator from the 7th to the 11th floors. We had some nice views of the city but were tired from carrying heavy bags around. So we made our way to the hotel.

We got to the hotel just after 230 but check in wasn’t until 300 – so we had to wait in the lobby for a bit. Eventually we checked in and went to our room. It wasn’t as nice as our last hotel but better than the Washington. Although the mattress was very hard and the pillow not much better.

We relaxed for a bit and then decided to get a feel for the area.  We caught a train to the northern side of kyoto so Kaoru could buy some cards. We had a hot drink and relaxed for a bit and then started to walk back to our hotel, via the bank as the exchange rate was looking quite good! It took us over an hour to walk back, through lots of small streets and alleys, so we really got to enjoy the area.

We stopped at the supermarket to get some bento boxes for dinner, which we ate in our room. I had a bit of work to take care of so did that while we watched some tv.