On the 10th May we headed back to Tokyo.� We had to go and get our flight tickets paid for and picked up.� Well what a pain that was!!!!� We had to wait for over an hour to pick up the tickets and head out of our way to do it!� We were not best pleased as Jacqui was told it was a case of pick up and pay.� So we headed off to look around the area and found a little play going on in a temple which was interesti...

On the 9th May we headed off on the train to Osaka.  We were undecided whether to go to Nara for the day or head off to Universal Studio's.  The train we caught took us to Universal so we dumped our bags in lockers and headed off for a day of rides   We did Back to the future, Backdraft, Spiderman twice, ET, Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park three times.  We had a ball - especially as the rides where all in Japanese!!  Jacqui went to Universal in F...

On the 8th we caught another train to Kurashiki - a small town with a beautiful old area.  We went for a walk around the old district after checking in to our hotel.  Interesting little hotel with bunk beds in a room we didn't have room to swing a cat   We thought the area would be like Takayama but the buildings where on teh canal and very nice.  That afternoon we headed off to Komija and went to look in a bridge museum which was very funny.  It w...

On the 6th we caught the train from Kyoto to Himiji so we could go to see the castle.� It was a magnificent white traditional japanese building that is one of 12 surviving buildings from the feudal era - books are great!!!!� It was raining so we spent about 1 hour there before heading back to catch our train to Hiroshima.� We arrived in a storm in Hiroshima but soldiered on to the A Bomb dome via the Tram.� The dome is ...

On the 3rd May we headed off to the morning market in Takayama before heading off to Kyoto - most hotels in Japan you have to check out of by 10am anyway  It was a very cute market selling local produce food, wooden crafts and material crafts too.  We had to punded rice balls on a stick with soy sauce for breakfast - they were gorgeous.  We caught our next Shinkansen to Kyoto and then promotely got lost!!  A nice Japanese lady called Yoshi helped us t...