Jan 7 - Shiga Kogen to Himeji

We were up at 6, lined up for breakfast opening at 6:45am and checked out and lined up with about 15 people at 7:40am to get on the 7:57am bus to Nagano station. At 8:45am we were near the snow monkey park to remove the chains from the bus. We arrived a bit earlier into Nagano at 9:40am.

From here we did a quick walk to Donki and bought a few things using the vouchers we got in to Fukubukuro bags. We had this completed before 10am and were waiting on the platform at 10:05am for the 10:17am train to Toyama.

Off the train in Toyama we joined the line at the ticket office and got reserved seats for the next part of our journey to Kyoto, charging to the Thunderbird at Tsuruga. We were 5th in line at 11:25, we had the tickets and were seated on the train at 11:37am, the train left at 11:40am.

We arrived at Tsuruga at 1:02pm and joined the throng going to the transfer gate to get on the 1:14pm Thunderbird. The car was packed and we were seated in front of each other on the aisles B seats. We made the transfer with a few mins to spare. Arriving at Kyoto at 2:09pm.

We made our way to the west exit and headed to the Avanti building to eat a late lunch at Gusto. On our way there we contemplated a locker, but would only get rid of the suitcases for $10. We decided against it and Gusto had a luggage space section, so bonus. After our late lunch we went to catch the shinkansen onto Himeji.

However, back at the station we were told ny the ticket office that we needed JR West to reserve seats. So we thought just go non-reserved. But our passes were denied at the shinkansen gate, we were told to go to the next gate. We were then told to go through the JR line gate, so we did, but this was the limited express local train that would take 1.5hrs rather than the 40 odd min shink. So as we were riding the local train I looked up the pass coverage and saw that just the section between Kyoto and Shin-osaka was not covered for Shinkansen, so I quickly looked up the trains and told the family to get off at the next stop - shin-osaka.

The pass had shinkansen coverage from Shin-osaka onwards. So when the train arrived at 4pm, we headed for the shinkansen platform at Shin-osaka and waited for the 4:17pm Nozomi for Himeji.
We easily got seats in the 2nd carriage and rode the 28mins to Himeji. Arriving 15mins before the local train we were on would have.

We headed to our hotel, our first real dodgy hotel of the trip. Yes it was cheap, the reviews were mostly fine and we decided that it should be ok for our 2 nights. The rooms are ok sized, it's clean, it has a lovely nice lobby, then once you are out of the elevator it kind of looks like a jail. The 2 rooms we were given were next to each other, however the girls room smelled badly of smoke. The hotel staff did move us when requested which was great. We now have a lovely view of the shinkansen tracks. Dinner and breakfast are included, it was a tray of set food, that we ate a bit of. Afterwards we hit up the 7-11 for more food and some dessert.

Our long travel day is done. One bus (near 2hrs), train 1 (1hr), train 2 and 3 (2:20min), train 4 (20min), train 5 (30min).Read more