Harvest Kyoto Hotel

... complex in the centre of Kyoto. We food a small restaurant where we had pork cutlets with cabbage, rice and miso soup. It was very tasty and delicious. After lunch Yuki headed back to Osaka to spend sometime with his family this weekend. He works in Tokyo suring the week and comes home on the weekends. We won't being seen him again on the trip. He was very kind to us and spent alot of time ...

... former imperial capital of Japan (the capital moved to Tokyo in the mid-18 Hundreds). The city has over 2,000 Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines as well as numerous gardens. The city has a number of pre-war homes as it was not bomb by the americans during WWII,

Yuki took us to see the follwoing 4 temples:

- Ryoanji Temple - this temple had a beautiful rock (zen) garden which was very simple yet remarkable ...

... watch the latest fashion victims.
So, our impressions of Japan after 10 hours here:
- The incredibly friendly and polite people;
- Amusement at the vending machines on every street corner. Beer, chocolate, hot noodles, coffee, cold tea...
- The Japanese guy who asked `Australia, Australia?` and then proceeded to jump around like a kangaroo and then imitate a koala (and ...

... 20- 25 minutes and we are there. The bus had an automated annoucement system in English citing the touristic sight stops. Kinkakuji- Seeing is believing. Kinkakuji is one of the many UNESCO World Heritage sites in Kyoto itself. I cannot till this day forget how I felt when I was there. It was exactly as you'd seen in all pix and websites. At Kinkakuji, no pix can ...

We spent 3 great days in Kyoto. Such a different city to Tokyo. Checked out the temples and more autumn leaves at the bottom of both the Eastern and Western mountains surrounding Kyoto. Our first day of sightseeing was a bit of a rainy one but it was still great to check out all the temples in our rain jackets and made the hot ...

... la gran urbe y poniendo al descubierto maravillas naturales como el Monte Fuji que a las 7:22 AM aparecía al lado derecho del tren tal cual la camarera me lo había pronosticado, otra forma mas de ver que tan exacto estaba planeado este recorrido. Imponente el Monte Fuji es el punto más elevado de Japón con 3,776 metros del nivel del mar y rodeado de 5 lagos. En otoño hay muy poca nieve en su cumbre, pero igual su atractivo y sus actividades campestres se pueden ...

... been turned into a museum.

And that's where the town of Nara comes into play. Nara, is a 'small town' by Japanese standards, and would have gone unnoticed if it weren't for the fact that it holds the largest wooden structure in the world; Todaiji Temple. But the real kicker is that its the longest surviving wooden structure in Japan. Way back when, the Japanese constructed all of their Temples, Shrines and Castles out of wood. Everything was made of wood. Of course, that ...

... myself in *we of Buddhist Zen rock g*rdens. I *m *ll too *w*re of how ridiculous the ide* of * g*rden m*de entirely of rocks *nd gr*vel sounds, but if you c*n see for yourself just how meticulously *nd be*utifully *rr*nged these cre*tions *re, I gu*r*ntee you'd tot*lly feel the zen. You feel c*lmer for h*ving been here.

All in *ll, J*p*n is m*king me f*r too *w*re of just how little Austr*li* h*s to offer, p*rticul*rly in terms of n*tur*l be*uty. No wonder they sent *ll the ...

Day 14 19th May 2007 Woke up today determined to make a full day of it. The confusion of yesterday needs to be sorted so im going to throw myself at it head on. Skipped breakfast and headed straight for the subway. Now in not ashamed to admit it the ticket machines in the subway baffle the ding dong off me they ask you to pick a ticket and don't show you where its just a big headache, so I relied on the human factor and I have to say after a few minutes of hand waving and bowing we ...

... Well after the silent fight and misunderstanding, we got on a bus and went to the next visit point - the Seimei-jinjya Shrine. We got off the bus around 4:30 pm and we walked to the Kyoto Castle side then moved on to find the way to the Seimei-jinjya Shrine. It was lucky that we had a GPS device, so it was really easy to find a way to get there without going on a wrong track. The way to the Seimei-jinjya ...