Woke up on the floor again. Normally this would be considered unusual, but it is something we're getting increasingly used to. So far the Co-op inn has been great. It is probably the most quiet of all of the hotels we've stayed at so far. Being on the 9th (and top) floor, and being down one corner of the hotel with no neighbours probably has something to do with it.

So far my only complaint with the Co-op inn is the room air conditioning. On heat mode, it has only 2 settings: "Cook" and "Off". Oh, wait...I lied. I do have another complaint. The breakfasts. Oh do not get me started on the breakfasts...

Toyoko Inn breakfasts are pretty ordinary, but they are free, and designed to be quick and easy for Japanese businessmen on the run. The quality of the breakfasts at Toyoko Inn are something that the Co-op Inn should be aspiring to. At $8 per breakfast for both adults and kids (or $10 each if you don't pre-purchase your breakfast meal the day before for some reason?) the Co-op Inn breakfasts weren't exactly cheap, but they seemed promising. A buffet of Western and Japanese dishes, coffee, cereal and juice. Sounds good, right?

It wasn't. The "western" dishes, eggs, potato wedges, ham, sausages and some kind of weird mushroom pasta, were cold, sitting in a metal dish being heated from underneath by a candle. Seriously. The Japanese breakfast dishes were possibly good, but I couldn't really tell you, because it either looked unappetising, or we couldn't identify it. Either way we weren't about to eat it. So the girls ate the potato wedges, which were the only thing we saw being bought out hot because they ran out at one point. I tried to eat the Western dishes, in a poor attempt to try and get some of my money's worth. I kinda wished I hadn't. It was just bad. Reminded me a bit of hobo food at a free soup kitchen, or at least what I imagine hobo food would be like. Veronica ate corn flakes, and tried to drink the coffee. Yep, tried.

So with the breakfast unpleasantness out of the way, we decided to go for a walk to see what we could find in Kyoto that we'd not done before. This list, after only a few visits to this fantastic city, is becoming shorter and shorter. We started off by heading east towards Teramachi shopping mall in search of some coffee and breakfast that wasn't going to kill us.

We've had starbucks a lot over the last 3 weeks, because Japanese starbucks is really, really damn good. Always consistently excellent coffee. We haven't really found anything that comes anywhere near it, although we've come nowhere near trying a full cross section of the coffee offerings in this country. Still, in the spirit of adventure we tried Tully's Coffee in Teramachi mall. Good grief I wish we hadn't. Ordering was difficult, the coffee was expensive and just plain ordinary. Veronica didn't even drink hers, so I had 2 of the damn things to drink. Lucky me. Even the girls said that their hot chocolates were dull. After leaving Tully's, we went around the corner to the starbucks in the next mall to buy Veronica a real coffee. It's impressive when they remember you, and your exact order, after only one or two previous visits.

We headed out of the shops, along the very busy Shijo-Dori, towards Gion, the world famous Kyoto geisha district. It was before lunch, so it was naturally too early to see any geisha out and about, and it doesn't overly interest me anyway. Gion is very nice, but most of the time is just too crowded to be bothered with.

While walking towards Gion the girls found a teddy bear shop called Cotton Bear and after browsing through, found 3 bears that they would like, including one for their little sister. We didn't purchase them at that point, because we would have had to carry them through the temples we were heading towards, and we didn't know at that stage how far we were going to go.

We arrived at the end of Shijo-Dori, to Yasaka shrine, so decided to being our exploration there. Nice enough, but unremarkable. I'm finding an annoyance on this trip that I didn't notice last time. There are some very picturesque areas inside these temple grounds, which are completely ruined by advertising posters, or street vendors selling trinkets, or scaffolding, witches hats and temporary fencing. The curators of these temple grounds go to great trouble to get their grounds looking immaculate, and in many cases it is completely ruined by some thoughtless advertising or something equally common hung on it. In the case of Chion-in Temple it was a freaking carpark in the middle of the temple grounds, but I'll come back to that shortly.

We continued through Yasaka shrine, to Maruyama park directly behind it. The park was almost abandoned, and while nice enough, was again nothing special. It would be exceptionally pretty, and phenomenally crowded, during cherry blossom season, as there are huge numbers of cherry trees, including the prized "weeping cherry tree" taking centre stage in the park. I've ever seen a single tree with more guide wires and support structure around it holding it in the exact shape. Almost every major branch had a few wires attached to it, holding it exactly where they wanted it. Someone really doesn't want this tree to move or change its shape.

Out of the Northern gate of Maruyama park, and onto Chion-in temple. The most striking thing initially is the massive front door. The temple ground have a massive wooden gateway perched on a hill, at the top of a flight of steps. Veronica suggested that all of the steps were there to keep attackers out, because once they realised how damn far they had to climb to get there, they would find another temple to pillage. There were quite a few steps, and steps were quite steep, but it didn't end up being too bad.

Once we got into the main courtyard of Chion-in temple however, we wished we hadn't bothered. Some kind of major renovation was occurring. Cement trucks going in all directions. Entire buildings fenced off and covered in scaffolding. 30 or so cars parked in the middle of the temple grounds. Workmen in puffy pants everywhere. Actually, that was the most interesting thing about the temple. The puffy pants. The workmen were wearing the same puffy pants that you usually only see monks wearing. Veronica assured me they weren't monks. I'm still not so sure.

Since that was a major let-down, and we're pretty much templed-out for this trip, we decided to head back in search of lunch and rests. We had originally planned to continue to walk further North to see more temples along a popular walking path, but we just decided against it. We'll save some temples for our next Japan visit. After some Hagen Daas ice cream for the girls, we headed back towards Gion.

Called in at the teddy bear shop to pick up the 3 bears we'd earmarked earlier. We then continued down Shijo-dori for around 30 minutes (stopping to look at a few different shops along the way) until we came to Daimaru, a huge shopping complex with a massive array of food stalls on the first basement level. It was huge, busy and amazing, and yet not what I was expecting. There were a massive number of vendors selling a seemingly infinite array of foods and deserts. There was so much choice, and so much activity that after walking around for 10 minutes, I didn't actually want anything because the range was to massive, and the effort to get through the crowd made it seem too difficult. This combined with the fact that there was absolutely nowhere that we found where you could sit and eat the food you've just bought mean't that despite the literally thousands of food options available, we left without eating anything.

We ended up eating a very late lunch, with 3 very tired girls, at Star Cafe, which is a cafe specialising in Ome-Rice, or rice wrapped in omelette, topped with any number of fantastic options and sauces. After meals bigger than any of us wanted or needed we were on our way.

Veronica and I then split up. Veronica wanted to head back to the hotel, via one or two more hundred yen shops, while I headed down Nishiki Market for a look into the weirder, fishier side of Japanese cuisine.

If you have some variety of dead fish on your shopping list in Kyoto, you have to come to Nishiki Market. I still find the range of stuff available at this 5 block marketplace fascinating. There are honestly whole stores filled with stuff that I can't identify. And I find that very cool. Everything, for a whole 5 blocks though, smells like fish. I find that less cool. Even the few shops in this market not selling food, like the footwear vendor, still smell like fish. Buy shoes from this guy, and your feet will attract cats.

While slowly walking along this narrow and crowded market, I came across one nice old lady playing a fun game of "Poison The Foreigner" for her own amusement. She handed me a small glass of something milky, said lots of stuff to me motioning me to drink it, so not wanting to be impolite I did. Nothing bad could come from drinking an unknown liquid from a stranger, right? Oh how she laughed (as did the half a dozen others watching) when I coughed and gasped for breath. It was sake. Really strong, really ******n horrible sake. Or battery acid. Not sure which. It made the sake we had in Takayama a few days ago seem like camomile tea. With tears in my eyes I bid her a pleasant farewell, and resisted the urge to pick up a fish and throw it at her from the next stall.

With the Nishiki market over with, I headed West in search of our hotel. I've never actually tried to find it by approaching it from the South side before, and since I have no map, I don't have it bookmarked on the maps on the phone, and I'm unable to find a free wifi signal, I don't actually know where the hotel is. I know it is close, but how close is the problem. After wandering North West for a little while, trying in vain to find something recognisable in the backstreets of Kyoto, I finally stop, check the phone again, and luckily find an unlocked wifi signal. It seems I've gone 6 blocks past where the damn hotel is, and if I'd have turned right to head directly North when coming out of Nishiki markets I would have found it straight away.

After 10 minutes of backtracking and swearing, I was back at the hotel. I fell asleep soon after getting home, not feeling really great, possibly due to the sake from hell, while Veronica kept the girls entertained for the afternoon. With everyone exhausted, we didn't bother with dinners. Showers, and into early beds, ready for our final full day in Japan tomorrow.