Gimmond Kyoto

Caught the Shinkansen from Osaka to Kyoto station. Stupid amounts of people at both stations, but the train ride was insanely short, so that made up for it. It was easily 30 degrees which was a bit of a shock to the system coming from the Australian winter, and in amongst the thousands of people was not fun, but we eventually made it. Train staff have been very helpful so far, even when they are up to their eyeballs in people. Once we caught the subway we found the hotel with no problems. We...

Awoken at 6am by a couple of young girls wrestling in their bed, the day began. I went down to the foyer and got some bus maps, and with that we were on our way. A whole day bus trip around Kyoto is 500 yen ($5) for an adult, which is good value considering individual trips are 220 yen. the girls aren't classed as human beings until they are 6 in japan, so they were free. We walked up to Nijo castle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nijo_Cast le), which is about 10 minutes walk from the hotel. Th...

More rain overnight, and as we set out in the morning a slight breeze was blowing, which was a welcome relief from the heat. It was still hot though, and we were once again sweating by the time we got down to the bus stop to catch the bus to Kiyomizudera (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiyomizu- dera). After we arrived there at about 10am the crowds were already massing, and about half way up the steep narrow street leading to the temple I began to wonder whether it was going to be worth the ef...

The alarm went off at 5:30am, about 4.5 hours after I went to bed. Sleep is overrated anyway. Since this was my last morning in Takayama, I had to check out the morning markets on the riverbank, just to say that I had done it. I attempted to wake Charlotte, as she said she would come up to the markets with me, but no amount of prodding would wake her up. As I began to walk towards the river, it felt like I was the only one awake in the entire city. Even the traffic lights weren't awake yet, a...

Lazy day in Kyoto today. Nothing on the agenda today. We took our time getting ready to leave the hotel in the morning, and headed out at about 10am. I think Kyoto is my favorite Japanese city. The pace of the city is slower, the people are friendlier and the city seems alltogether easier to get around. If any city feels like "home" in Japan, it would be Kyoto. We set out towards the main shopping area in Kyoto today, and started our walk through one of the 2 parallel covered shopping streets...

Our last "full"day in Japan. We fly out tomorrow night at 9:50pm. This will probably also be the last blog entry I write for this trip while on Japanese soil. I'm guessing that my next entry will be written on the plane tomorrow night. We started out the day early by heading to the Toji Temple markets (http://www.japanvisitor.com/index.php? cID=374&pID=792). All of the reviews of the market say to get there early, so we decided to get there a little after 7am when it opened. We caught the...

I havent been writing as much as I thought I would-- finding time and internet is harder than I thought. But lets jot some things down from the past week or so for posterity. I arrived in Kyoto Wednesday in the middle of a massive rain storm. Having made no reservations for a bed, I went to the TIC and sought their assistance. All the registered hostels were full, but Kyotos Cheapest Inn, a name that aptly desvribes the venue, had a bed available. North of Nijo palace, Kyotos Cheapest is not ...