Kyoto Takaragaike Prince Hotel

... extent, but); its really easy to just walk anywhere. And anywhere you can't walk, you just grab a train (assuming its not too late into the evening). For this reason, I am a bit envious of Jack and his nice living situation in Kyoto. Hes got everything at his fingertips, living in such an awesome town. But...at least I could experience it for a week!

The next day, bright and early, Kasumi arrived in Kyoto to join the party!...

Yesterday we made the trip back to Honshu, leaving our Okinawan experience behind us. It is quite nice to be back on the 'main land' and in the great city of Osaka. We are now definitely back to the Japan that I know.

Osaka is certainly a busier place than Naha -- definitely not as laid back here! There is obviously work to be done, people to see, and food to eat. The thing that always strikes me about Osaka is the sheer scale of eating establishments of all ...

Seconds please. I had to go back to Osaka, one way or another (my return flight was leaving from here). Ate just as well if not better than the first go around. Went to the Takoyaki museum at Universal city walk but it was more tako vendors than museum, not such a bad thing. Had simply amazing Kobe ...

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091006

"CouchSurfing in Nara"
by swami_worldtraveler

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PRELUDE:

In the interest of time, this blog is mostly to post photos, so the usually "story" will have to wait, if at all...

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INTRO:

My not-girlfriend, Michele, was in Japan by cooincidence (well, sorta:); she took the Shinkansen bullet train from Tokyo and I met ...

... rd.

Out to the m*in street. S*w Colonel S*nders outside * KFC. He w*s we*ring * kimono. I got * picture. Went into * f*n store. They h*d some nice (re*d: expensive) f*ns. Found one I liked, then stopped. Asked the s*lesl*dy if it w*s * m*n’s f*n or * wom*n’s. It w*s * wom*n’s. Men’s f*ns *re longer, it seems. Found * nice, bl*ck, m*nly f*n *nd bought it. I know, I’m just * dorky b*k* g*ijin ...

... no English, we were able to point to what other people were having and did just fine. There was one older Japanese woman who was so funny and giving one of the guys a hard time about how he was eating his Japanese pizza. As we left, she high-fived us! So much fun. We then bought some drinks at the convenient store and played card games in the hotel room (Oh Hell, of course). Good times.

... in WWII - perhaps its exclusion is political - who knows. But in any case I drop in to have a squizz. I continue north and pass through the epic shrine of Chion-ji. All these buddhist shrines exist as there are so many different sects of buddhism - some say 3,000 odd in Japan - each with their own temples. Ask japanese girls to take my pic on the steps. Time for lunch Time for lunch and it so happens the Rough Guide points me in direction ...

... where we saw lots and lots and lots of Japanese monkeys! Every monkey there is given a name when it is born because they have scientists there who study them. When we were almost to the top, we first saw two monkeys in a tree, but when we got to top we saw tons of monkeys. We got to go inside a special room where we could feed monkeys sweet potatoes, chesnuts, and apples from our hands. That was very fun - the monkey's hands look just like ours do! Some of the ...

... the "mix" cones were a swirl of white and green, which was a little weird. Turns out i got a mixture of vanilla and green tea flavoured ice cream. Funny thing was, maybe somewhat because of the heat, it was the nicest ice cream ive had in a very long time. Apparently i like green-tea ice cream. Ice creams down, we bought more bottles of water and pocari sweat and continued onto the entrance. Kinkakuji really is as beautiful as they ...

Cherry blossom viewing is serious business here in Japan. Every year the people wait anxiously for these majestic flowers to bloom in there local area, as the sea of pink spreads rapidly from west to east, like a brilliant floral tsunami. For the past two weeks, the Kansai area (my area) has been in full bloom and I must say that everyone has gone a bit nuts. I went to Kyoto last week for my big cherry blossom ...