Our last few days in Japan have been a whistlestop tour of the last few places we wanted to go - we're definitely getting the most out of our rail passes! Back in Kyoto we did the rounds of a few more temples and castles and palaces . . . and came to the conclusion that we definitely are templed-out! Graham was very disappointed by the castle in Kyoto - no arrow holes to shoot people out of, no slots to drop boiling water on people and no drawbridge - what kind ...

In order to break up the train journey back to Kyoto we stopped off for a night and a whistle-stop tour of Tsuwano. It was a charming little place. In the few hours we had we got round it's few little sights - a single chair chairlift up to the castle ruins, a relatively large shrine for such a small place and enormous koi carp swimming around the drainage ditches . . . ! Someone had even, quite thoughtfully, put on a play for us. The young kids seemed to love ...

Kagoshima is a small town on the south coast of Japan. It was lovely, particularly after grim and gloomy Nagasaki! The rather lovely, but ever so slightly odd, Mr. Nakazono made us feel very welcome. We mainly went to Kagoshima because it's got the most active volcano in Japan (possibly the world, but we wouldn't want to make any unfounded claims to fame here!), and Gemma had heard rumours that she might need an ash umbrella! How exciting! It's last big erruption...

Well . . . what to say about Fukuoka! It was all about the Sumo really! We stayed in a really lovely traditional Ryokan complete with it's own onsen, but mostly we were just excited about the sumo! Particularly when on our way to buy the tickets we came across two wrestlers on their way home. We figured they can't have been very good ones because a) it was only 3pm and they were already finished and b) they were walking home! The wrestling fans were waiting out...

Hey - guess what! We found our guesthouse in Hiroshima first go! Without any outside help (apart from step-by-step directions, a map . . . and a compass)! We're getting good at this! We lost several hours on our first day in the Peace Memorial Museum - we generally avoid museum's, but felt this one warranted a visit. It was very interesting . . . and emotional . . . and we had to go and find gin afterwards. The weather continued to bless us here, so we took the...