Blogs from Kyoto, Japan, Asia - page 77

I was sad to be headed back to Japan; my trip to America was just a little too short. Yet lucky me, I already had a slice of home (well kinda!) waiting for me in Osaka. My friend Kelle was in Japan coming to visit me! She is a slice of one of my many homes (Japan included, I now have 5 places I consider home). Kelle and I met spring 2005 ‘studying’ in Barcelona. We use the word studying loosely, as more time was spent living the high life in Barcelona with crazy senoras, endless supply of 2 euro wine, Spanish boys, tapas, travels, getting lost on trains, absinthe, beaches, wrestling boots, mullets, and dancing till dawn. What can I say, it was one of the best semesters of my life. Kelle, Lindsey, and ... read more

I think we promised pictures for this next entry and we definitely have some to post, but we have about 45 minutes before we have to leave our Guesthouse so I don't think I have time to resize them all and post them. In Osaka we'll have to find a McDonalds and buy a drink and sit and surf for awhile. It's so neat how all the fast food restaurants have plug ins at the tables and wifi hotspots (internet). We have decided that temples are not really our cup of green tea. A lot of the temples in Japan are restored too, so some of them are as recent as 1960's or 1970's! We tried to see as many free ones as we could, but considering we are on such a strict budget and the ... read more

Hello !!!! whilst we are still in blogging mode thought i would stick an entry about our journey from Tokyo to Kyoto on the bullet train as Carla going to do the next entry about our time in Kyoto so watch this space. I wrote the below whilst on the train, so its a bit poetic !!! apologies but i promise loads of crude jokes about lady boys when i blog Bangkok! The Shinkazen (Bullet) trains' have a simple excitement about them. Waiting on the platform we watch them glide in with their Concorde-like noses and pristene white carriages. But like most of Japan the ultra modern never forgets the tradition and history of this ancient country. Firstly an army of pink tracksuited cleaners pile on to turn the seats around and use their primative brushes ... read more

Yesterday was a rainy day in Kyoto (actually every day we've been here so far has been overcast and rainy) so Hime-ji Castle was scrapped. Instead we took a break from sightseeing and did some mundane things such as exchanging money and trying to use an international ATM with our Visa cards (which despite setting up pin numbers for before we left do not appear to work...damn). Wandering in a department store we spotted some interesting items. Both were in the liquor section, which is quite extensive in Japan. The first was called "Dog Line" and it was a bottle of wine wrapped in paper with different breeds of dogs on the front. We don't know if this was wine for dogs, or dog lovers, or what. But it made for a giggle. The second was ... read more

First off let me apologize to our fans for not providing pictures yesterday. We didn't snap a whole lot and we were so tired typing that entry that we just posted it and went to bed. We took quite a few more today so enjoy!! Also thanks to everyone leaving comments, you have no idea how excited we get when we log in to read them. I hope I'm writing exciting entries for you all to read. From Kyoto we plan to take 2 day trips, one to Nara and one to Himeji-jo Castle. Both of these are full day excursions requiring us to travel approximately an hour or more by train, so we decided to stick around downtown Kyoto and just wander and keep it easy today. Our train dropped us off at Kyoto Station, ... read more