Going home

We had a taxi booked from the hotel this morning at 7.20am to take us to Kansai Airport near Osaka.  The journey took about 90 minutes and our bag drop and boarding were straightforward.

The flight to Paris was comfortable but a bit of a headwind made us about 30 minutes late at CDG so the connection to the flight to LHR was very tight - in fact so tight that although we made it onto it, our luggage didn't.

Air France communication was excellent  - they had texted and emailed us both as soon as we got to the luggage collection hall so we didn't have to wait at all - we just filled in a form arranging for them to deliver the luggage to home the next day and that was that.  It did indeed come the next day.

Japan has been an amazing holiday that we've both really enjoyed.  Highly recommended.

Our last day in Japan - Nijo Castle and Kuruma

Today was pretty wet so we didn't rush out but we did go and see Nijo Castle - a pretty impressive site with some more excellent gardens.  The Ninomaru garden is renowned for its rocks and we enjoyed walking around it despite the rain.

Following that we found some lunch and then got several trains to get to a traditional village in the mountains called Kuruma.  It has a nice Riyokan (traditional Japanese Hotel) that also has an Onsen (a natural sulphurous spa). We spent some time in that and had dinner there. Sadly the mountains were in clouds so the views were not perfect!

We visited our favourite local Izakaya for a final drink on the way back to the hotel ready for an early start in the morning for the taxi to the airport and the long flight home.

Nara and Uji

We had an early start this morning and got a train to Nara.  Nara is home to a wonderful park with some great gardens and shrines.

We visited the huge Todai-ji shrine, the garden at Isui-en and the Meiraku art museum.

We then visited the Todai-ji shrine's bell tower and then Nigatsu-do and Sangatsu-do temples.  We then walked to Kasuga-taisha and back to the station at Nara through the old town area called Naramachi.

We got a train to Uji (and ate lunch on it) and met Simon again. We enjoyed a formal tea ceremony with Simon translating and then visited Byodo-in Buddhist temple with its Phoenix hall built in 1053.

In the evening we joined a night tour of Kyoto that was meant to show us some of the sights of Kyoto at their best but it felt more like a tour of Kyoto traffic jams.  Not a good choice!

Hikone castle and Arashiyama Bamboo Grove

Today was a two-part day, starting with another cheeky Shinkansen to get us to Hikone.  We visited the castle there in quite a lot of rain.  It was quite attractive and had nice gardens, as does so much of Japan.

We enjoyed some Ramen for lunch in a local restaurant and then got a JR train to Arashyiama to visit the gorgeous Bamboo Groves there.  We had a nice walk around the area before getting a train back to central Kyoto to return to our hotel for a rest.

In the evening we tried a local ex-pat bar called the Pig and Whistle.  It was pretty rubbish, with rubbish food, so we came back to the hotel area and had a beer in a local loud Izakaya to make up for it.