Konbanwa! It's 10pm here in Kyoto and we're relaxing in the hostel with dubious looking cloudy saki and beer from the vending machine... Had a pretty relaxing day today after the mayhem of yesterday. We hired bikes and cycled around Southeast Kyoto, stumbling upon an amazing Zen temple called Tofuku-ji. After looking around there we set back off for our original destination, Fushimi-Inari Taisha. It's a shrine with hundreds of vivid red torii (they look a bit ...

Enjoy life, enjoy your sock style: the best sign we've seen so far in Kyoto and valuable advice, I'm sure you'll agree. Yesterday was our first full day in Kyoto and it was a really good one. We took it a bit easier on ourselves and yet still managed to cram in viewing some famous sights. We started the day with a trip to see Ginkaku-ji (translated literally as 'silver pavilion'). Unfortunately it was undergoing rennovation, as Don put it 'it's a serene building...

Greetings from Kyoto! We arrived at around 3pm after a 2.5 hour ride on the Shinkansen. Apparently they can reach speeds up to 300km/h but I'm not sure that we were going that fast. There's a lot of leg room though and stepford wives-esque cleaners in identical pink uniforms. Plus we were in the smoking carriage (unlucky Jim!) which kept me and Don happy! Our hostel here is substantially nicer than the one in Tokyo and a lot more traditional (can't wear shoes in...

It's Saturday morning here in Tokyo and we're bound for Kyoto on the Shinkansen (bullet train) today. But before we set off I thought I'd do a little round up of the events of yesterday which seemed to embrace high and low culture in equal measure! The day started with a trip to Ueno Park which is full of museums and a zoo. We went into the Tokyo National Museum and saw a whole range of sculptures, paintings, laquer work, samurai armour and kimonos. There was a...

Ohayo Gozaimas! It's day three in Tokyo and the calm before another mental day of sightseeing. We packed in a lot yesterday, getting up at 4.30am to go to Tsukiji Fish Market. It was mentally busy with hundreds of men bustling about and people transporting fish on these crazy electric scooters that looked like beer barrels. I've never seen so many different types of fish in my life; every single kind you can imagine, some still alive and twitching, some being ex...