The alarm went off at 5:30am, about 4.5 hours after I went to bed. Sleep is overrated anyway. Since this was my last morning in Takayama, I had to check out the morning markets on the riverbank, just to say that I had done it. I attempted to wake Charlotte, as she said she would come up to the markets with me, but no amount of prodding would wake her up. As I began to walk towards the river, it felt like I was the only one awake in the entire city. Even the traffic lights weren't awake yet, as every set was flashing orange, and all crosswalk stop/go signs were blacked out. It wasn't a problem, because I didn't see any cars anyway. As I got to the markets, it was a few minutes before 6, so I decided to continue up the hill to get some more photos of the housing preservation area with no people walking through the streets. At it came to 6am, a bell began to chime. It was the huge bell at the monestary a little further up the road, so I sped up my walking speed to see the bell being rung. The bell is absolutely massive, and as it was struck, it hurt my ears, and I was 30m or more away from the bell tower. After the initial ringing of the bell, the entire area would continue to vibrate in an ultra low resonance hum which you could feel more than you could hear, until the next striking of the bell. This happened 4 or 5 more times while I was standing there. Strangely, I was the only one standing there to watch this taking place. Aside from the man ringing the bell, the entire park was deserted. After this I wandered back down the hill towards the markets, and it seems that the bell is a wake-up call for the entire town. As I was walking back down, people were emerging from their houses in their kimonos, shopkeepers were putting their signs out the front of their shops, and the traffic lights had started working. It seems nothing happens in Takayama before the bell is rung at 6am. The markets themselves were a waste of time. I started walking through the produce market, and along the entire length of the produce market there was only 6 or 7 vendors, who had each set up a small white tent containing a table or two. If you wanted to buy something other than eggplant, zuccini, chilli or small fish which had been lightly killed and put in a bag, you were going to be out of luck at these markets. I had 5 of the 7 vendors try desperately to explain the virtues of their eggplant to me in Japanese. They seemed pretty passionate about their eggplants, but neither could I understand them, nor did I want or need any eggplant at that point in time, so I politely thanked each one and kept walking. After another short walk through the preservation area to get some tourist and vehicle free photos, I returned to the ryokan. After checking the train timetable, and packing the bags, we headed to the front desk to check out. As I mentioned in yesterdays post, we had decided to give breakfast a miss this morning. I'm very glad we did, because the manager ended up reducing the bill by nearly $90 for skipping the breakfast. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and had we known what we know now we would have skipped yesterdays breakfast also, as it effectively amounted to $90 worth of rice and apple juice for the 4 of us, as that is all we ate from the array of dishes that were served. At the Takayama train station, it seemed like every foreigner in Takayama was leaving the place. I chatted to at least 3 Australian groups at the train station, as well as a couple from California who also had a little girl that Angela was fascinated with. We all seemed to board the same train carriage, which resembed a day care centre one everyone was seated with their children. In the row behind us we got chatting to John and Robyn from Echuca in Victoria. They were an older couple who's kids have grown up and moved out, and they are now busily spending the kids inheritance by travelling. They seemed to have been to many places across the globe, and loved telling their stories. As far as 2.5 hour train rides go, it was relatively painless because of all of the people around us which we had to talk to. We changed trains at Nagoya (interestingly, Japan's largest train station) to board the Shinkansen bound for Kyoto. Due to the lack of seats, I was seated in the front of the cabin, and Veronica was seated further back, again near John and Robyn. We organised to have a coffee together once we got off the train at Kyoto station. We found a coffee shop in the main atrium of the massive main hall of Kyoto station. For a train station, Kyoto is absolutely massive, and complete overkill for the purpose. Still impressive to look at, but you can't help but think that it is an engineering monstrosity simply as a showpiece of what can be achieved if enough money is thrown at a project. Once we were done with the coffees and travel stories, they left to find their hotel, and we went down to catch the subway to the central area of Kyoto where our hotel is located. Having stayed at this hotel at the start of the trip,we had no problems finding the hotel and checking in. Our room is slightly bigger than last time, even though it is not a corner room. After a brief rest we headed next door to our little 24hr vending machine restaurant, and the food was fantastic as we remembered it. Charlotte is a lot more brave than she was just 5 weeks ago, and this time ordered the kids curry meal, instead of just the chips which she ate last time she was in the same restaurant. After afternoon rests, we decided to head out and have a walk through the surprisingly lively back streets behind our hotel, to both kill some time and find dinner. The back streets of Kyoto are as busy, if not more busy, with foot traffic, than the main streets. Bars, coffee shops and restaurants are buried away in the smallest of back alleys, and you get the feeling that some local knowledge around these parts could really unearth some fantastic places to have a meal or a coffee. After dinner, ice creams were on the menu for desert, so we visited a convenience store, which had ice creams in $1.50 single serve containers, which were put into a very clever machine, which in one twisting action opened the ice cream tub, crushed the tub flat causing the ice cream to be compressed into soft-serve which was pushed out into another cup (or a cone if you chose it). So simple, yet it kept me amused. Fantastic machine. Really good ice cream too. Choc mint chip. And with that, we decided to return to the hotel for the remainder of the night. Not sure what we are going to be doing tomorrow, but I'm fairly sure that shopping will be on the agenda.