We walked to the station, which I thought would take about 15 mins, but ended up taking 30mins, so we didn't have long to wait for our 9:09 train. We had to stand for 30min, until we changed trains, then sat until we reached Horyuji, near Nara, which is the site of the first UNESCO heritage site in Japan. This is the Buddhist temple, which was first built in 607. Although this was burned soon after, its replacement, still 7th century, still stands, so it is the oldest wooden building in the world.
I had located a website which listed 'Goodwill Clubs', which will provide English speaking volunteer guides, so at 10:30 we were met by Mrs Hattori, who took us around and explained the various buildings and statues to us.
By now it was about 16:30, and it had been raining since just before lunch, and my foot was very sore, so we decided against going to see some pagodas, and left our guide, catching the peakhour train back home again. We stopped at a restaurant for a good Aussie grill, and got home at about 19:30.
David is asleep on the bed, it is still raining, and I'd better start sorting out my suitcase ready for a quick getaway tomorrow.
Thurs 29 Jan Jetstar
I was awake well before the alarm went at 04:30. Outside it was still very hot. We bought some breakfast, and the plane left on time at 06:10. The Gold Coast Airport was cooler, but very steamy because it had been raining (what's that??). We had to collect our bags from the carousel, then take them to the next check-in. That's what you get from el-cheapo JetStar. But they left on time again, which is better than Qantas ever did for us last year. There were spare seats in the plane, but not for us. In front, 2 guys shared 4 seats, behind 1 girl had 3 seats to herself and slept most of the day, but in our set of 4, all were taken. Not a lot of space for knitting, and the SydMornHerald, and my twitchy legs.
We reached Kansai on time, went through the formalities very quickly, and were out in Japan. We exchanged our voucher for genuine JapRail passes, and also bought tickets for the local train which took us two stations, where we got off and got a cab to our hostel, by about 20:00.
Our room would make a reasonable bedroom for one, but it has a double bunk, and a single bed pushed in to make a double bed. This gives us absolutely no room to move around, and to get to the desk to write this, you have to climb over the bed.
We were in bed (with electric blankets), by 22:00, but set the alarm for the morning just to make sure. It went off at 02:15. grrrrr.
Wed 28 Jan
We left home at about 17:00, by which time the temperature had dropped from the max of 42.4 to 39.?. We were rather looking forward to some cold weather, and maybe even some rain.
We had tea with Tim and Bec, and Tim drove us to the station to catch the 19:00 bus to Tullamarine. We checked in to the Formule 1 motel, and watched a bit of tennis before trying to sleep. The outside wall of the building was so hot, and we had the airconditioner running all night. It wasn't a very restful night.