some may ask, where are tom and joel these days? well here, you can find out.

Friday 18 April 2008

Tokyo to Kyoto

And so we arrive in Kyoto, after a reasonably pleasant 8 hour bus journey when comparing to the public transport in Nepal. Get to our hostel about 7am, when finding the front desk only opens at 10 we sit outside, joel sleeping sitting up and me trying to stay awake by dancing. Must have looked like a pair of mental tramps.

Hostel is very hostel esque, covered in a very interesting selection of brit teen posters, american pie style dvd case covers, and about anything else westernised you can stick on the wall. Is welcoming though, and the travelers we meet here seem to be much more friendly than the ones in tokyo, maybe the cream of the crop like to escape to a more relaxed place.

IMG_4035
food market in japan

Which Kyoto is indeed. Every corner is beautiful, and the city still retains much of its old style architecture, although stephen pointed out this is changing fast. But in some of the beauty spots, they now are building houses with an old style exterior, and a modern interior, which is the best of both worlds.

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a tree. curly.

Stephen has showed us a fantastic range of Kyotos highlights, from huge buddhist temples to tiny sake bars to old walk in kilns bigger than small houses. Today we explored some more of Kyoto on our own, finding an enormous castle in the city centre and what seemed like an everlasting botanical garden which had a beautiful contrast of some parts being nurtured to create lines of pristine rainbow coloured flowers, and other parts more jungle like, with moss crawling up the trees and mud beneath your feet. Could have spent a whole day there, but got hungry for a Mos Burger, probably the most fantastic, fresh, juicy burger chain in the world. Been trying not to eat too many of them.

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i'll have a garden like this one day.

AND...we did karaoke. Brilliant. Need to find one in Leamington.

7 comments:

D said...

Is it cheaper than Tokyo or will you be broke before you get to Indochina?

Parma Violet said...

That photograph of the food market is lovely. :)

Anonymous said...

Just read your blog aloud to Martin and we both laughed at the mental tramp image! and decided you should make our fortune as a mixed race bill bryson young person. Can't quite understand why I have never managed to get to anywhere interesting like this myself, a big puzzlement.
Beautiful photos. Mmmmmm
Mum
x

Anonymous said...

I havent seen anyone for ages! Where is everybody? :( Its Boring! I need to get a passport so i can travel too..... Whoops falling asleep.... Speak to you soon.... Love Bounce X PS check me blog out! Whoof

Andrew Gibbs said...

hi Tom and Joel

Greetings from Mexico

Rachel and I are just off soon so hello to you and bye to Mexico.

If you want a change of itenary I can recommend Oaxaca, here, its great.

Damn, we have finished our holiday and you are not even half way through. He he

lots of love
Dad and Rachel
Like the pics

Anonymous said...

Hi Tom

It just HAS to be a poem, I'm afraid:

Birthdays come and birthdays go - however,

This special date will stay great forever!

Oh dear! Sounds so bland after imbibing your picturesqe blog posts.

If EVER you get bored, look up the poem above (plus hundreds more) on

johnpembertonsbitesizepoems.blogspot.com

Happy, happy birthday!

Love Joyce and John

Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday for yesterday Tom. Love reading your & Joel's blogs. The pictures are wonderful. Anyways hope you had a great birthday.
Love from Mike, Sarah, Cat & Bouncer. xxx

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