No rest for the warui...

After a sad farewell to the newfound friends at Waseda University Gakuin on Saturday afternoon, the intrepid Xavier exchange travellers made a quick transition, moving into the Shinagawa Prince Hotel, not to be confused with the Prince Hotel or the Takenawa Prince or the Shinagawa Annexe and so on... A short time later, after a quick trip via Tokyo station, they found themselves in a monorail with Mickey ears for handrails and windows. Disneysea was a welcome injection of crowds, elevator music played at high volume and lights.

The next morning Tokyo faded at the speed of a very fast train into the distance as the group attached earphones and settled for an under 3 hour trip to Kyoto.

After a misadventure with a ramen ticket vending machine, the group was finally fed by 3pm and somewhat bleary eyed, as they were, it was decided to cut our losses and have a break before venturing out again to Gion for dinner. Dinner was a laid back affair to say the least, sitting on matting backing in the open air onto Kyoto's Kamo river.

On Monday we weee back at our full on pace, with the help of a trusty coach, which had soon moved us between Kiyomizudera, Nijo-Jo, Ryoanji and Kinkakuji. The final step was a train trip into the hills, where all the boys took to a Japanese onsen and the majority also relaxed in the outside rotenburo. Tomorrow? Hiroshima.