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.


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.


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.


i'll have a garden like this one day.

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