Today was supposed to be a great day of sightseeing, as we went to Koya-San for a day of temples and shrines. However, we ended up not getting to the cable car station until about 3 o'clock, a problem as it gets dark around 5 here. We went to the temple of Okunoin, which has the largest graveyard in Japan (half a million graves), but got lost in the graveyard and subsequently failed to make it to the temple itself. We then headed to the other end of town to try and get to the massive gate 
before dark, as there are apparently awesome views all the way to the Seto inland sea, however we took a detour via the great pagoda, and happened to catch the 5 o'clock bell, which eched around the mountain and was answered from other temples. It was incredibly loud, and we were the only people around to hear it. After this we trudged onward through the rapidly darkening town for a kilometre or two, and managed to reach the gate just as the last light faded from the sky. This meant we then had a miserable walk back in the dark, and it started to rain, making it somehow reminiscient of many other failed attempts at tourism which I have been a part of - I swear I have been on more than my fair share of dark, damp, half-lost walks through cities and fields all over the world (in general due to poor planning on my part), while insisting that it's all very much worth it and everyone will agree with me when we get there. This is seldom the case.
before dark, as there are apparently awesome views all the way to the Seto inland sea, however we took a detour via the great pagoda, and happened to catch the 5 o'clock bell, which eched around the mountain and was answered from other temples. It was incredibly loud, and we were the only people around to hear it. After this we trudged onward through the rapidly darkening town for a kilometre or two, and managed to reach the gate just as the last light faded from the sky. This meant we then had a miserable walk back in the dark, and it started to rain, making it somehow reminiscient of many other failed attempts at tourism which I have been a part of - I swear I have been on more than my fair share of dark, damp, half-lost walks through cities and fields all over the world (in general due to poor planning on my part), while insisting that it's all very much worth it and everyone will agree with me when we get there. This is seldom the case.We headed back to Osaka, and had Sushi at the place across the road, which has an awesome delivery system - instead of waitress service, if you order things from the touchscreen menu, they arrive on a miniature Shinkansen/Bullet Train which whizzes down a track above the conveyor belt!
Tonight was poker night - Bill and Eric came over, and we played Texas Hold-em for a 2500 yen pot - Eric was out first, then me, then Bill, leaving Les and Laura (who didn't even want to play) to battle it out for the money. This isn't exactly what happened, as Les wasn't paying attention, and Laura was bored, so they ended up (in spite of our protests) splitting the pot down the middle, in a terribly fair and sporting manner.
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