Kyoto White 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 ...

... say the Japanese are reserved conformists!!);
- Our hostel, where despite staying in cheap dorm beds, has a marble entry, super helpful staff and plays Christmas carols in the foyer all day long;
- The bathrooms with automatic lights, soap dispensers and taps. And completely unfathomable control panel for the toilet.
- Awesome beer... which maybe I`ve had enough of for now.

... but no people. We then surmised that he most likely got someone fired, because whoever closed would take the blame for not "locking up," but, without dwelling on it too much, we went to a backup bar. It was a nice chill. small place underground, and pretty quiet. We had ourselves a few drinks, then walked it back!

Thats one thing I really like about living in the cities in Japan (I suppose any city anywhere would have this to ...

... at home, for what would be the next 4 days. From our first impressions, the hostel was extremely clean and the room was well equipped. This backpacking lark isn't so bad, well in Japan anyway. The plan is to have a little wonder around and do a little research and plan a route for the morning when the real site seeing begins. First impressions, Kyoto looks more like how we pictured a Japanese city than Tokyo, so that's a good thing.

... am horrible for eating McDonalds when I could be eating sushi. Hang on... for those of you who just scoffed at me, back up one second. At this point, I've been offshore and from home and land for about 75% of the last 6 months! I don't care if they have the best food in Asia, I don't care if Kyoto had the best food in the WORLD, all I wanted at that moment, was a tiny piece of home that I could bite into and not ponder what the ingredients are. Some people get homesick and cry ...

... great. Turns out that our roomie is from Taiwan and very nice and polite. Kieran only knows one person from there a girl who went to uni with him, she became very good friends with him, her name is Pin, so what do we call him to ourselves, naturally. First thing we did was go to the hostel cafe were we had pizza and noodles for dinner very japanese. Early night.

When I first arrived in Japan, I didn't realize just how big it is. Sure, it looks sort of big on a map, but its still dwarfed by its over sized neighbors, China and Russia. Japan may be smaller than those guys, but really, its a TARDIS. There are so many cities here that go unnoticed by travelers, because they are seen as boring small-towns. Boring? Small? Half of these places are bustling, buzzing and each have a unique atmosphere of their own and I am amazed and glad that we ...

... vähintäänkin ympäripyöreitä. Mitään työuupumuksia tai burn outteja ei tunneta, vaan ihmiset lähtee sitten suorilta jaloilta. Japani on käsittääkseni ainoa maa, jossa on työhön kuolemiselle olemassa jopa sana (karoshi). Meikäläinen ei kestäisi tässä kyydissä viikkoakaan... Rankka työ vaatii sitten rankat huvit ja kaikenmaailman omituista aikuisviihdeosastoa löytyy todella huikea määrä! Jos tälläisestä asiasta häiriinnyt, niin pysy ...