Back to civilisation

We left the countryside of the San -in coast and headed to Nagoya, but via Kyoto , as Daniella wanted to do a tea ceremony and Jon wanted to buy some more books as his supply was running low, due to the high concentration of long train journeys. The tea ceremony was very interesting, Daniella got some more explanation of what actually happens at a tea ceremony from a skilled practitioner. But first of all we had to have some sushi at a sushi conveyor belt restaurant at Kyoto station. This is one of our favourite types of Japanese food and is very delcious. We also visited the Nishi street market, which is famous for different types of Japanese foods, everything from dried squid and seaweed to fruits and vegetables. After meeting up again after the tea ceremony, we had sushi again (as it is a conveyor belt , you can pick as much or as little as your stomach desires).At this place every dish is 100 yen , or 50p. Then we caught the train to Nagoya. It was still raining , so our umbrellas proved useful at keeping us dry.

bullet train

Our hostel here was very unflexible and had a number of annoying rules. We had to sleep seperately in mens and womens dormitory, we had to be in  before 11pm or the door would be locked. This was particularly annoying as it only applied to people in droms not those in private rooms which we thought was unfair. We had a good argument with the man at the desk but he did not speak much English, or at least pretended not to, he just kept saying "is rule" over and over again. Anyway we realised that we not get anyway with the unflexible man, this is a characteristic we have noticed a lot in Japan, there are rules for everything and anything. And staff do not like to make any exceptions to these rules. Though as there was only Daniella in the ladies dorms, Jon stayed in there anywhere.

Burger

Nagoya is a really nice city, it is the fourth largest in Japan, so there is a lot to do, lots of shops, restaurants, cafes and bars.Daniella picked up some cheap Vans.  We had to spend a lot of time booking onward tickets and accommodation for the next stops on our journey. This is annoying, as it is time consuming when you have better things to do . But you have to do as it as you may end up with nowhere to stay if you dont book. There seems to us to be a distinct lack of budget accommodation in Japan, especially outside Tokyo. We never had any difficulty in finding accommodation elsewhere on our trip.

For lunch we enjoyed one of the specialities of Nagoya, which is Katsu, or breaded pork, or you can have breaded chicken, or breaded croquettes ......its good if you like breaded things, they have really good sauce to accompany everything.

cool restaurant

We saw the tallest building in Nagoya looming high above us and decided to go up it. Most skyscrapers have observation floors from where you can enjoy the views over the cities. The tower in Nagoya had an open roof which was half enclosed , good thing as it was 250 metres high. Daniella also found a design museum which was quite interesting with lots of products on display. Jon caught the happy hour at the hard rock cafe, for some cut price beers (if we do not find happy hours or other promotions, drinking can be one of the major ways to spend money), Some bars especially in Tokyo charge 4 or 5 pounds per drink, so it is good you fins a cheap beer for 1 pound 50 pence. We had dinner at really well designed restaurant, luckily the food was as good as the decor.

Kimono

The next morning, we hit the road again, it was an early start as we were going up to the north of Japan.

Modern buildings

Tea

Tea ceremony

Top of the tower

Top of the tower2

Top of the tower4