I am not going to dwell on the night we spent in the Relief Hotel in Kokura, suffice to say it was clean and functional and for 5,000 Yen i should not have expected any more. The combination of poor air conditioning, a rock hard bed and Robert’s, recently developed, irritating cough (to add to the snoring) meant that, after the loveliness that was Bennesse House, it was something of a crash to earth.