Tokyo Day 25 13/10/2014

Typhoon Vongfong has hit Japan and it's pouring down in Hiroshima (that's 2 typhoons in just over a week!).  We ventured out for breakfast and then quickly retreated back to the hotel.  It's impossible not to get soaked even with Simon's new umbrella.  The Japanese really have got the umbrella thing down to an art.  All shops, bars, restaurants either provide brolly stands or clear plastic bags to put your brolly in and avoid it dripping everywhere.  We spotted a brolly drying device in one store!  At some places you can even lock your brolly in it's own personal stand confident that no one will mistakenly take it away with them.  There's a good over ground tram system in Hiroshima but we decided to treat ourselves with a taxi to the station to avoid the rain and then headed off on the Shinkansen bound for Tokyo.  The rail system is excellent.  The highlight for Diane is the fact that you always face in the direction of travel.  The seats all swivel and some little elf must come out at the end of the line and turn them all around.  Not bad considering some trains have 16 carriages, 16 rows of seats in each carriage and 2 sets of seats in each row!  If anybody is planning to come to Japan we'd definitely recommend buying a Japan Rail Pass and using the train to get around.  From what we've read we get the impression it's going to be a very different experience in China!  Back in Tokyo it's still pouring down and blowing a gale.  Hopefully it will have calmed down a bit before our flight tomorrow.  We're heading to Shanghai so no Facebook or blog updates for a while.  Hopefully we'll be back online early November when we plan to be in Hong Kong.