Two days have passed and I'm already losing track of the details - lots has happened. Our trip to Nagaoya did not go according to plan -when we arrived we found out that Robot Museum had closed down ages ago. School boy error really as the guide book did say it was temporary. This meant we had to make do with another day of sightseeing with no real focus. We decided to buy a day ticket on a sightseeing bus which took in the other reason to go to Nagoya - the Tokugawa Art Museum but also the next best thing to the Robot Museum which was Toyota's Museum of Science and Technology. Thsi featured Toyota's answer to Honda's Asimo robot. Nowhere near as good as it couldn't walk, dance or serve coffee but it could play the trumpet. The museuem also had a "technoland" a bit like London's Science Museum but cooler. Some of the pieces were in English but it was mainly up to us to interpret what they were demonstrating. Off the top of my head there was a massive lever which enabled one to lift an engine, a buggy that rode on a bed of air, and loads of stuff for kids (or Loz) like the inside of machines and engines. There was also an　assembly line making cars.

Then we went to Tokugawa Art Museum - lots of shiny things (I really liked this - reminded me of Lone Wolf and Cub etc), sword blades, sheaths, decorations and armour from the Edo period C16th-18th mainly. For me teh library stood out - old war logs, records and diaries of shoguns (not translated but still cool). There were also some early illustrated books, some with monster similar to Giml. I bought one postcard - our budget target was already blown for the day.

The electronics shop at the station was good (not for me - Em), spent half an hour walking round.

A conventional (ie not a bullet) train to Takayama took 2 1/2 hours, I listened to the Al Usher "peaks and valleys" mix which was the best I've listened to for a while.

Arriving in Takayama to the Buddhist temple hostel that Em found on the net - nice place, nice room (massive compared to the last box), beautiful garden,massive spiders and other creatures I couldn't identify in the shadows but they had long tentacles. Our room even had a gong and incense burners etc! For some reason it had three alarm clocks and we still couldn't get up on time! It had cool sliding screen doors better than I imagined (and I had high hopes anyway!) and pillows filled with rice husks so my neck was killing in the morning.

A slow start today (midday rising) - it was needed after the last three days - just spent the day"pottering" round Takayama (aka Tacky-ama) taking photos of signs. Had a nice lunch , watched the men's volleyball final between US and Brzail and then went for a long walk in the park. Its been the second graveyard we've been to where we've been attacked by swarms of mosquitos - em got 26 bites in Kyoto, we've got a few more today. Takayama itself is a bit boring. The idea was to use it as a base for excursions into th mountains - tomorrow we're going to some hot springs to get naked and do what it is you do in a hot spring, onsen.