The weather forecast says we’re in for heavy rain today. The forecast for the rest of the week is much better but today may well be a wash out.

This morning we’re on the 7.20 am shinkansen (Hikari # 491) to Hiroshima. I think we were both somewhat dubious as to whether or not we wanted to visit Hiroshima but it would be remiss of us to shy away even if some of what we may see may be confronting.

This morning we caught the 204 bus from around the corner to the Kyoto Railway Museum.

Today we’re off to Nara, about 45 minutes south of Kyoto, the main attraction being Todai-ji, the Denbatsu-den and the Big Buddha (and the deer), all of which are in Nara-koen park.

Today we’re going to Okayama so down to the station to catch the 8.23 shinkansen (Hikari # 495). The main attraction in Okayama is the Koraku-en Garden and the adjacent Okayama Castle.

Today is ‘Culture Day’, a public holiday. For us, more of a rest day with a certain amount of pottering about.

As the first washi store was closed yesterday, we headed back there this morning – though a stop at Starbucks first for coffee and to use the wi-fi before taking the subway two stops up to Shijo.

Today is a ‘free’ day in that we’re not committed to anything and have no particular agenda. We’ve done most of the specific items on our Kyoto to-do list for this trip though, given that Kyoto has 1,700+ temples and shrines, there’s never any shortage of places to go. One that’s on the list and to which we haven’t been before is Ryoan-ji so we decided to go there today.

Today we leave Kyoto for Kanazawa. We were up, packed and ready early so headed down to the station, stopping for coffee on the way.

Today we’ll probably go to the Contemporary Art Museum and the D.T. Suzuki Museum.

This morning we leave for Tokyo on the 9.46 shinkansen (Kagayaki # 508). This shinkansen line is relatively new (2015) and operated by different equipment (12 car W2 or E2 trains) from that used on the Tokaido line from Tokyo, west to Kyoto etc. (which primarily uses 16 car N700 series trains).

Today we’re planning on taking the train from Shinjuku to Toro (about 35 minutes on the train) to visit the Bonsai Museum and Gardens. We’ll probably get a train back to Ueno and then visit Kappabashi-dori Kitchen Town.

This mornng, we’ll probably go to Sengaku-ji and later on go for a walk in the Shinjuku Gyoen gardens.

Yesterday, when we went to Shinjuku-Gyoen, it seemed like half of Tokyo was there. Today we’ll go to Meiji-jingu, where the other half will probably be….

Today we leave for home. We’re flying out of Haneda, which is much closer to the city than Narita. Our flight isn’t until 10 pm so we booked the AirBnB apartment for tonight so we could stay until it’s time to leave for the airport.