Osaka/ Kyoto

When travelling to Osaka, it seemed to bring up a lot of sadness, both Maree and I started our journey of homesickness, and although sleeping arrangements were interesting, they did not offer much sleep; and so travelling off little sleep and much homesick feelings, Osaka seems to be the downfall to our trip so far. 

For anyone considering coming to Osaka, i suggest you only stay for one night as there is only enough to occupy 1 nights worth of entertainment...that is unless you enjoy over priced aquariums with whale sharks. 

The hotel we stayed at was a capsule Hotel with communal baths. Although I was willing to try out the bathing situation, I think my former expression of views on communal bathing scared Maree from showering for the 2days. The capsules themselves were really interesting, but very uncomfortable (much like all the beds in Japan, although these had an extra hardness to them) 

We travelled to Kyoto yesterday, and after walking a good 40mins to our hostel with our 25kg bags, we were told that check in wasn't for another 4hrs, so we decided to travel to Nara. Nara is a small town about 1hr train ride from Kyoto station. It has many many temples, mainly known for the Giant Buddha, and yes, it is GIANT!! Although I had seen it all before, it was really lovely, even though we walked EVERYWHERE!! 

When we arrived back at Kyoto station, both Maree and i spelt this AMAZING smell, it was JAPANESE CURRY!!! it is now our new love, today we even travelled back to Kyoto station (we are two stops from Kyoto station, at Nijo) just to have lunch there!! it is only 450 yen for a plate so big that we have to share!!! (450 yen is about $5.50)

Today we rented bikes and travelled to the golden pavilion. If it wasn't so cold and rainy it would have been one of my favourite days so far. Even though we were bike riding, the wind today cut though all warm feelings, and even sitting here writing this in bed, i am still cold. Once the sun goes down here (which is at about 4pm) so too does all the warmth!!!

For a few days now we have been trying to change our hostel bookings so we go straight to Tokyo from Kyoto (where we are currently) instead of stopping over at Yokohama. Although it would be lovely to go there, Maree and myself are both UNBELIEVABLY exhausted!!! so much so that we are taking turns on the train trips to sleep, making sure that one of us stays awake to ensure we don't miss our stop. 

I emailed our hostel in Yokohama multiple times, worrying about cancellation fees, but receiving no response. With each email i became more and more assertive, worrying that if they didn't understand then they would charge us for the nights we had booked. After many phone calls we finally got a hold of them and with a translator, found out that the man from the hostel didn't speak English, nor could respond to our emails in English, so although he received each email he had no way of responding. 

All was a massive misunderstanding, and am VERY VERY happy to have it all sorted out!!

Tomorrow we travel to Tokyo and will be there till the end of our trip!

We will be visiting Mt fuji and many many castles and temples!

Hopefully Tokyo will make up for the lack of Japanese crepes here. 

Japan is truly an unbelievably place.