So after walking around for hours trying to find a Japanese take-away we realise that perhaps Japanese do not really have the concept of take-away, (the closest thing we found is ramen bars where you go in and eat at a bar) maybe because (we read in the lonely planet), the Japanese people do not like to eat food in the street and so perhaps there is little demand for it. So what about Sushi then? Well we've both been dining on sushi here and there, but sometimes you just want a nice hot meal. Bento boxes? we've only seen them in restaurants. So we discovered that you can walk into a seven-eleven type shop and pick up a nice looking boxed noodle meal (that you can almost guess what it is) that they warm up for you when you pay for it - winner, these are a very cheap way of eating and pretty tasty too.

Just as we thought we had mastered it, we picked up 2 of these boxed meal things and gestured to the lady behind the counter to warm them up as we had done previously and she seemed to understand what we meant and then proceeded to pack the un-warmed noodles into the bag along with the drinks we had picked up too. So we gestured again towards the microwave and she took the drinks out of the bag and put them next to the bag and handed us the bag of cold boxed noodles. So we took our noodles back to the Ryokan and ate them cold and left the lady behind the counter thinking that we were anal enough to make her take the drinks out of the bag for us. I really wish I had seven years to learn Japanese.

Just so as you don't think we are starving ourselves, yesterday we managed to locate a less intimidating noodle bar with at the train station and we managed just fine, and we've also re-mastered the boxed noodle buying. In fact our chop-stick skills are coming on in leaps and bounds. Really, it is just a matter of going for it and trying stuff, but with my lack of chicken eating and our general fear of getting something we might not like, we are taking it one step at a time, but we are getting there.

Toilet Training

Everywhere we have been so far we've been lucky enough to be blessed with western toilets, even in the Ryokan, you can choose between a Western and a Japanese hole in the floor affair. Yesterday, however, when I really needed to go, the only option was a hole in the floor toilet - not a pleasant experience when you are in a rush, however perhaps a good way of forcing you to learn how to use them.

BTW, many of the western toilets over here have heated toilet seats, even in the Ryokan, where you must put on a different pair of special designated "toilet slippers" to enter the toilet!

Hurricane Update

You may have read about Hurricane Nadi that has been striking destruction upon southern Japan over the last few days. Thankfully, we have avoided the turmoil, as we have been staying in Kyoto which is north of there, however we were told by the nice lady at the tourist information that we should expect "hurricane weather" (not something Rob or I have experienced before, so as you can imagine, a little worrying) and were to get back to Kyoto before dark last night and not to stray far from our accommodation today. So today we have been wandering round Kyoto town and the weather actually is better than it has been for the last few days, blue skys and scorching hot so it looks like we can go to Hiroshima tomorrow and all is ok once again, yippee!

Today we had fun exploring the department stores food halls, which is an experience in itself, plus we had a wander round one of the huge gaming/amusement arcade 6 floor building with a whole twenty or so machines dedicated to networked Counter Strike - Rob's dreams come true. Plus we won some pac-man soft toy things which are rather cool. The Japanese really seem to love the pokie machines, we saw loads of men queuing outside to get in at about 10 in the morning in Tokyo. There are gaming and pokie halls everywhere with lots of glowing lights, it really is something.

The Ryokan

Staying in a Ryokan isn't just about sleeping on a futon on the floor, it's more than that, there's a whole set of social graces you have to understand. Firstly, slipper wearing, which I touched on earlier.. you must take off your shoes and put on your designated slippers before going anywhere beyond the front step. You must not wear your slippers on the Tatami mats in your room (easy to do when you are used to walking round the house in shoes). You should really wear the special toilet slippers too. Also, there's bath time. Bath time is between 5pm and 11pm and you must tell them when you come in what time you want your bath so they can run it for you. You must wear your robe to the bathroom (left side over right side, as the other way is dressing the dead). You must wash yourself thoroughly before getting into the bath. It's like staying in someone's house I guess really, and, like many things, it doesn't exist just because of the foreign tourists.