Finding somewhere to stay in Kyoto and getting annoyed by stupidly expensive train fares

We had to check out by 10am this morning, and we didn't get up particularly early, so we were in quite a rush. We checked out, and left our bags with the hotel while we looked round Osaka.

We just walked around for a bit, and found a shrine where there was a building that was shaped as a dragon's head. We walked a bit more and found another Shrine. Then we walked some more and eventually found a subway station, but we couldn't work out how to buy a ticket. After a bit, an English speaking guy came along and showed us how to do it.

You have to check on the information board how much the ticket you want is, then press ticket on the machine, insert your money (doesn't seem to accept credit cards), and then select the amount your fare is. Then the machine will print your ticket and spit out any change. The guy was going the same way as us, so he went with us to the correct platform,and got on the train with us. He even told us when it was our stop, though we could work that out ourselves.

The train we took was to Osaka-jo castle. We had said to the receptionist at the hotel that we would be back to pick up our bags about 3pm, so we didn't have much time to look around the castle, and I didn't have time to take any panos. Looking round the castle is free, but there are some parts that you need to pay for, like going up the main castle tower building. Since we didn't have much time, we didn't do any of the paying stuff.

There were loads of (primary) school children around, it seemed most didn't have a school uniform, but wore coloured hats to show what school they were from. The red cap school must have been a very large school and sent all its children to the castle, as they were everywhere. Some Japanese girls got their photo taken with me and Moccle. Why? Who knows.

After rushing round the castle and taking a few photos, we went back to Namba station via the subway, and then walked back to the hotel. We picked up our stuff and went to the station to get a ticket to Kyoto. We weren't sure what line or platform we needed, but we asked a guy and he said we needed to go to Osaka station, and then change there for a train to Kyoto.

So we did that, then when we got to Kyoto we needed to find a hotel. We spent probably over an hour trying to find one listed in the Japan guide, using its Map, however it seemed that the hotel we were looking for just didn't exist. There was another hotel nearby, but it looked pretty expensive. Still using the Japan Guide book map, we looked for another hotel nearby, which did exist but was full. Then, we found another hotel (still quite nearby) using the Japan Guide book map again, and this hotel did exist and had space for tonight, but not tomorrow.

As yesterday, we were pretty worn out and tired, and just wanted a rest (despite it only being about 6pm). So we booked that hotel for the night, which was about as expensive as the Hotel Toyoko, despite being a 'budget hotel'. The Hotel was called the 'Pension Hotel'. Moccle thought it would be only for pensioners, but it wasn't.

They had wireless internet access at the hotel, but although we spent ages trying to access it, we couldn't get it to work. We showed it to the bloke at reception, and he couldn't get it working. Also, a guy from the Czech Republic who was just booking in ahd a look at it, but couldn't get it working on the laptop either. On his phone it saw the wireless network(s) automatically, but our laptop couldn't for some reason. It could see other wireless networks, but not the hotel's for some reason. Possibly the laptop is just too old.

We also tried unplugging the network cable from the back of one of the PC's in reception, and plugging that into the laptop. While the laptop said it was connected to the network, it couldn't actually load any web pages. Annoying!

So we had to go on one of the computers in reception. Why we wanted to use the laptop was so we could book some hotels and look them up on google earth and garmin mapsource so we could add them to the gps.

We decided that looking for hotels and moving hotels was quite annoying as it took up so much time, so we should try and book some hotels then so that they're all sorted out and we can pinpoint them on the gps. First we tried to find some hotels in Kyoto, but they were all fully booked. So we tried to find some hotels in/near Oze National Park, but the only one Expedia had was in Nikko, and that didn't have any spaces. According to a website, there are lodges in Oze National Park, but they are all full during peak season (which is at the moment). Also, we couldn't find any way how you book a lodge anyway.

We looked at how much train fares from Tokyo to Oze National Park would be, and it was stupidly expensive, over £100 for a single. It was a similar case for Hakone from Tokyo. We looked at the Japan Rail Pass, which was about £300-£400, but according to the info, this could only be bought outside of Japan. In the end (after a few hours of googling) we decided to book the next two days in Oiso (near to Hakone), and then three days in Kyoto (as while Kyoto Hotels were fully booked for the next couple of days, some of them had spaces for after that).

This meant very expensive train fares from Kyoto to Oiso, then Oiso back to Kyoto, then Kyoto to Tokyo, but there wasn't anything we could do about it.

I copied and sorted my photos while we were looking at the different options, and then copied the photos across to the external hard drive, which required me to hold the power supply adapter block in my hand as it didn't seem to work otherwise. We got to bed about 11.30pm.

Food
Lunch: Packet of pepper flavour Tortilla chips; ½ Strawberry pastry; Some Japanese drink.