Well, as I haven`t written this blog so far I should fill in the last few days.

The trip started pretty gently, as I had to get used to finding my way around. I guess this is what it`s like to be illiterate, finding your way anywhere just took longer to start with. However, I managed to get my Japan Rail Pass activated and got to Yokohama on the train straight away. I could immediately tell the quality of the trains, they seem to go twice as fast and be quieter and smoother than ours. Once I arrived on the 5th and found my hostel, my bed being a tatami mat, I slept straight away and for the whole night, the result of a 12 hour flight! When I finally woke the next morning I did my first bit of sight seeing at the Yokohama Landmark Tower. It doesn`t seem too tall from the ground but from the top I had a perfect view of the bay and the bridge, and even Mt. Fuji to the West. The lift to the top, the fastest in Japan, instantly makes your ears pop and feels almost like you should be strapped in! I attempted to find the Kirin beer village after that but didn`t seem too accessible so just took a pic of the sign from a distance!

Next got a train and bus to Kawaguchico Lake, one of five at the base of Mt. Fuji. Most of the area was covered in snow and looked beautiful. The great thing about this area is that you can see the almost perfect cone of Mt. Fuji from almost anywhere. Just sad it`s not climbable this time of year. A return trip maybe? Anyway, the only thin I achieved here otherwise was to visit one of the better lava caves formed by eruptions of Mt.Fuji, before catching the only bus back to a station that day...which was lucky!

Then found myself on a Shinkansen `bullet train` to Kyoto, which is where the real sight seeing has begun. Today I`ve managed to navigate my way around Kyoto on the buses visiting first Nijo Castle, a huge complex with two moats and beautifully carved gates. The floorboards inside all squeak, supposedly like nightingales, as an intentional design feature to alert the Shogun and his men to intruders. From here I visited the vast Imperial gardens in the centre of Kyoto before heading east to Nanzenji and Ginkakuji temples, the latter of which was partially undergoing restoration and barely visible.

In the evening I attended a show with the purpose of introducing foreign visitors to many traditional Japanese art forms, such as tea ceremonies, japanese harp, comedy, dance(performed by a maiko, a geisha in training) and puppetry. All of these were fantastic but didnt much go for the rest, namely flower arranging and courtly music called Gakako, the latter of which was claimed to be one of the oldest surviving musical forms but just sounded aweful, perhaps to my untrained ear. The evening finished then with taking part in a tea ceremony, in which I sat next to the teacher. There is a very strict process from preparing the tea, which was a green powder tea, much sronger than what we are used to but very healthy. The teacher said there are so many forms of ceremony that she is still learning herself after 20 years! She also said that the tea I prepared was better than hers! It certainly tasted good and I left feeling highly refreshed.

That pretty much brings me up to speed. Sorry its a bit of a long one but I really could have said more, its such a big rush of culture. At least now I feel like I`ve found my travelling feet and I`m really starting to enjoy it!

Take care all of you, I`ll write again soon!xxx