right in the morning we booked another night at the brighton city hotel in yamashina and also checked a hotel for our next nights in hiroshima. once this necessity was done we had breakfast at the hotel, and headed out to our tour for today. so we took the metro to get to the nijo-jo castle[01-37], our first castle to visit on this trip. surrounded by moats and huge stone walls[23-25,29,32] are the three areas of the castle. the first and second circle of defense. inside is the main building of the castle, housing many waiting and audience rooms for visitors to the shogun. unfortunately taking pictures inside was not allowed, so i have no pictures of the rooms decorated with nice paintings on the sliding door walls, ceilings, and hallways. the innermost rooms included offices and living chambers of the shogun and his wives. special fun were the "nightingale floors", wooden boards that made a squeak when walking on it, to detect intruders. squeak, squeak. this day it was especially hot - much hotter than usual. staying in direct sunlight for even a short time physically hurt. even the japanese visitors - not that there were many of them on this hot day - were all sweaty, and looked exhausted - something they usually not do. and inside the castle it was even worse. windows and doors were shut tightly all the time to prevent sunlight bleaching the wall paintings. so it was like in a sauna. walking barefoot on the ancient, soft and smooth wooden floor did not make it better, but we at least enjoyed that, as we did so far with all the wooden floors in temples where one has to take off their shoes. these wooden floors are really wonderful to walk on. after the castle we fled outside and tried to enjoy the beautiful japanese garden[05,07-14,20-26,35], hurrying from one tree to the next to get at least a little bit of shadow. putting our towels in cold water and then on our head[30] brought a little relief, at least for a few minutes, until all the water in the towel was evaporated (which seemed like it took only a few minutes). the last point of interest was an observation platform, which we climbed, but then nina felt really bad. so we headed back to the guest house[37], where everyone seemed just as knackered as we were. even inside the air condition could not really cool down the room, but at least it was a few degrees cooler than outside - that was enough to feel a little bit happier. even after a longer break, nina did not feel better by now. sunstroke, dehydration, all the physical exertion on the trip so far, or maybe all of it, we do not know. since i was pretty exhausted, overheated, dehydrated, and tired too, we decided to just call it a day, go home, and rest - no more sightseeing today - we both really need a little rest. way too hotto! on our way home we spotted a cute umbrella vending machine[39] at the metro station.