Kyoto, Japan

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The 48 hours crossing from Shanghai was very comfortable but we had one day of rough weather. There were only 30 passengers on the large boat so we had loads of space and spent our time watching dvds and relaxing. I met an english girl, also called Hannah and we got chatting to a very friendly and helpful guy from Japan, appropriately named 'Hero', short for 'Heroshi'. He introduced us to a famous Japanese animator who was on board and the lady drew our pictures for us which was fun as I have never had my picture drawn before. When we arrived in Osaka, Japan Hero put us all on the right trains to get to where we were going and gave us lots of useful information about where to go.

It was like culture shock going from China to Japan as Japan is so modern. The railway system is so effecient, the trains are very rarely even 1 minute out of time and the doors to the trains stop exactly where the carriage numbers on the platform indicate, to the centimetre.

Japanese people were really helpful when I looked lost and were very polite. They dress so stylishly the whole nation young and old look like they each have a personal stylist and a wardrobe full of designer clothes. But the drawback of Japan is that it is expensive by asian standards. I think most of the costs are about the same as they are in England with a few exceptions. For example the cinema costs about £10, and randomly, all fruit is very expensive, with melons costing anything between £10-20 each.

I headed for Kyoto and spent a week there. By the end of the first day I had decided that this city is one of the most beautiful in the world and I would encourage everyone to visit Japan to see the sights of Kyoto. Its full of parks and temples and traditional Japanese gardens and the occasional geisha walking the cobbled streets. There is a lot to see and I had 4 full days of looking around Kyoto's 17 UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

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