To reach our next stop, we crossed the country with a 6 hour train journey from Kyoto to Nagone and then through the Japanese Alps to Takayama. We spent two great days there, staying in an actual temple. Our room itself was a brilliant experience - it had Japanese style futons on the floor, a dressing screen, sliding doors without a lock and a Japanese garden right outside. Actually there were no locks in the whole building, even on the front door, which shows ho...

Hiroshima & Miyajima Island Our next stop was Hiroshima, and although totally different to Kyoto, it was still a brilliant experience and definitely worth a visit. Our first day there we spent visiting the memorials and museums about the Atomic bomb. They were exceptionally sad and scary to imagine a whole city centre being turned to dust in less than 2 seconds. It also made us both very angry to learn more about the background to and the reasons behind the ...

Kyoto & Himeji Castle We arrived no problems in Japan and got straight off the plane to the super fast train to Kyoto. And what an impressive start to Japan - the train seats could be rotated to always face forward at the touch of a button, it had vending machines, a telephone and was on time to the second. Uber-efficient...a sign of things to come! Kyoto is a gorgeous city, the cultural capital of Japan. We got to see all the main highlights there....beau...

XianXian, one of the nicest cities in China, especially in terms of atmosphere and ended up being our favourite. Its one of the few that you can walk around with ease. The centre is surrounded by authentic city walls too, which you can cycle on top of. Xian is also one of the few places in China where we found the nightlife to be any good. At midnight everyone is handed out sparklers, its as if it was New Years Eve, but this was a random Tuesday night in June. Pr...

Shaolin and LuoyangWe took an overnight train to Luoyang from Shanghai and then got a bus to Shaolin, home of Chinese martial arts. Shaolin is not really a town, more of a school and a temple with thousands of students studying Kung Fu. The temple itself is quite impressive, especially so because of the moutain range it has as a backdrop. The school is the main attraction though. On our first day we saw a demonstration by the students and it easily matched the tr...