From a cat cafe that wasn't a cafe to the horror of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, today has been a strange one. The trains from Kyoto to Hiroshima were fairly simple, although the lady reserving our seats was telling us that we couldn't make reservations, despite reserving us some seats - it was all a bit confusing. There was one change, easily done in 9 minutes because everything is on time.... more or less. Arriving at Hiroshima we were looking for Hiroshimaeki Station to catch a train to Dobashi Station (where our J-Hoppers hostel is located) - I'd looked it all up on Google maps previously. But it turned out that we were already in Hiroshimaeki Station and what we were actually looking for was trams. Oh Google maps, you never told me that! Hiroshima ... read more

The day started with rain, lots of rain and continued with more rain. I just don't know how rain can keep raining so much without running out of rain. I really don't. Looking out of the window this morning, my heart sank a little as it was raining as hard as rain can. Never mind, I said, a bit of rain won't stop us seeing Kyoto - we've come a long way and as always, no time to waste. But it wasn't just a bit of rain. Kyoto Station is pretty awesome and gets a few paragraphs (a futuristic entry into Japan's old imperial capital, etc) and a photo in my guidebook which proved to me that this was a station to see - although I'd already seen much of it. It has many floors, shops ... read more

Convincing wild animals to sit in hot springs and pose for photos is not as easy as I'd hoped, despite all I'd seen on the TV. However naked men in outdoor hot springs with hand towels for hats seems to be rather common around Yamanouchi, but not as common as heated toilet seats. It's been an interesting day.... It's getting towards the end of typhoon season which means there's a lot of rain, I'm hoping it's worse here because we're in the mountains and it will get better in Kyoto. I woke a few times in the night to hear the constant downpour, wishing it would ease off but according to my weather app, there's no chance of that. This isn't the type of rain that merely trashes hair. No. It's it's the rain that has ... read more

No one expects to find Dracula at the gym, or at least, not until they've been to Dublin and then it may seem quite normal. For at Clontarf there is a Dracula Experience at Westwood Gym, a rather unusual place to rock up at (being a rather large health and fitness centre), and then be escorted past all the fitness posters, equipment and various treatment rooms to the Dracula Hall of Fame, then ultimately to his castle. Naturally it was dark, loud and extremely disorientating, populated by the undead waiting to scare the bejesus out of every silly tourist without fail. Talking of undead, I was beginning to feel this way by the time we'd reached the castle as throughout the day, I'd walked over 30,000 steps... My first 1,500 steps had been between midnight and ... read more

Don't poke a crocodile with a stick, no matter how big your stick is. That is the most important thing I have learned today. The day started like it normally does for us in Spain, which meant getting lost for an hour and a half before we found what we were looking for. Today the elusive intended destination was the Picasso Museum in Malaga. Now I'm not into Picasso but had to learn a bit about him at college and could at least appreciate that he knew how to draw before going all nuts and developed his own 'style'. Thus I presumed that I would come out of this pleasantly surprised, but no. It really was mostly childlike crap that made no sense whatsoever and was not visually pleasing to me. If art has an intended ... read more