We've settled into the Guesthouse Kyoto Ekimae (translation = "the guesthouse near the Kyoto station") after leaving Johannesburg yesterday morning. Our flight was via Hong Kong and our luggage, including bicycles, was just under the 60Kg limit for the two of us so the bikes flew for free. We had very short transfer time in Hong Kong (50 minutes) so we were worried our luggage might not be on the same flight to Kansai as us but when we walked out of immigration they were already standing on two trollies at the luggage collection.

Kansai is a small airport and is was easy to find an ATM to draw some cash and to buy bus tickets on the Limosine Bus to Kyoto Station (no charge for the bicycles). Once in Kyoto we realised we would never manage to carry out hand luggage plus the bikes in their boxes plus another box with our panniers etc so I spent more than an hour hunting for a taxi that was big enough to fit the bikes into to take us 500m down the road to the guesthouse, which we reached at about ten to four in the afternoon.

The guesthouse seemed deserted so we spent the next hour assembling the bicycles. I wasn't too impressed with the way they had been boxed in Johannesburg (the front forks of my bike were poking through the bottom of the box) but everything seemed to be OK. While we were busy with the the guesthouse owner appeared and got us settled into our room. When I asked what I can do to dispose of the boxes she said to leave them where they were.

Then it was a stroll down the road to the local 7-Eleven to buy something to eat. Leigh is determined to eat sushi every day so we picked up a few pieces plus some noodles and beef, an Asahi Dry and a Coke - 1338 yen, about R160 for very little plastic food. Eating ain't going to be cheap here!

Communication thus far has been been almost entirely via Google Translate which seems to be doing a good job. However, we will have to try and get past using only konichiwa and arigato before we finish with Japan.

The wifi in the guesthouse is good and fast so we are re-connecting with the digital world before an early night. One thing we will need to do tomorrow is to find Japanese plugs for our electronic devices - it would have been more sensible to have sorted this out before we left the airport because we now need to find a shop that stocks plugs or adapters.

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