Hi all from Kyoto,

Still absolutely in love with Japan, seen so many temples, stayed at so many lovely residences and been on the bullet train! Done so much!

The thing I love about Japan is it is instilled with a sense of peace. Everyone is quiet and unobtrusive and you can find a temple or shrine in the midst of the busiest street to just sit and have a moment. Plus it is so easy to get around, with all of its trains and buses running on time and efficiently and so many maps and people telling you where to go and eager to help.

You walk into a restaurant and all of the staff shout welcome to you, but confusing at the start I must admit especially when your waiter or waitress actually runs to greet you, absolutely runs towards to serve you, big smile on their face. And we point and nod and smile and hopefully get something we can eat.

One morning whilst staying in a traditional Japanese lodge we awoke at 8 by a knock on the door and in entered two women who cleared away our futons and brought us a big plate of breakfast. Now I am not a big eater in the mornings, so to see a tray of pickled fish, pickled veg, raw fish, soup and rice that smelt like a dock, was just too much. Christie did admirably, but I barely touched mine as I thought I was going to throw up. Not the adventurous try-all I try to adhere to, but it was 8 am!

The Japanese have been so lovely to us, if we are lost they direct us, they are generous with us when we have our backpacks on the trains, they long to practice their English.

And the temples are just so amazing, full of the most amazing colours in the gardens, 25 different kinds of green and then the most amazing flowers. Then the paper walls decorated and the gold leafing everywhere. Serenity reigns, and you can feel the attraction of the buddist influence.

The food I either love or hate, but the amount of rice and noodles is taking its toll on my tolerance and I will be glad to change my diet when I get to China, albeit only slightly!

Every night our feet ache, despite several visits to local spas. Oh the spas!! For 5 pounds you get all the spa normal features, sauna, steam room, different pools, but you have to be completely naked at all times from when you enter apart from a small modesty towel. Which is the size of my hand and which you have to put down before entering anything. So a bit of English face pulling to start with but now we are happily going to several of the spas. There is a lot of confusing behaviour though. Like in one sauna I had to cover myself in salt for some reason. They do have televisions in the saunas though - got to love the Japanese!!

The technology is so cool, with electronic wooden sliding doors and buses that automatically tell you where you are going, vending machines that do hot or cold cans of tea or coffee. Had iced green tea. Never again. Never. And everything works, nothing is out of order, it is just easy to be here. Things are reasonably priced, meals are usually only 4 pounds. I am very, very impressed with Japan. And only 7 days left till China, where I think everything will be thrown on its head, but bring it on!!

Love to all x x

Will put photos up at end of May and there are a lot!!

Beth