It's been getting down into the thirties at night, and our little wall heater struggles to keep up. We bundle up before bed and bury ourselves in comforters to stay warm, which makes it even harder than usual to drag ourselves out into the cold. Against the advice of every guide book ever written about Kyoto, we slept in before heading out for some temple sighting. Most things close by 5pm here (even the restaurants and stores shutter by 6!) so you've got to sque...

We're sitting on the Shinkansen (bullet train) on our way from Tokyo to Kyoto with a less than perfect view of Mt.Fuji streaming through the window. It is an absolutely beautiful, perfectly clear day across the entire country but a gang of jerk clouds decided it would be fun to park right at the top of the mountain. I guess they wanted to rain on my parade. Haha...cloud humor. We've been here for two days now and I have a lot to write about (it's the first entry ...