I`m writing this siting in an internet cafe at Narita airport and about to fly to Sydney. We have such an amazing time in Japan and I`m sad to leave but very excitd about going to Australia. We`ve fitted in rather a lot in the last four days and are now feelng rather sleepy! On our second day in Kyoto I took us on a fairly fast paced sightseeing tour of an old palace/ temple complex (I`ve forgottn the name!) with a beautiful pagoda-see picture above- the first we had seen in Japan; Ryoanji temple with the most famous zen rock garden in Japan and Kinkaku-ji the golden pavillion which was stunning especially reflected in the water of the lake. With energy flagging we stopped for lunch at a recommended 100yen conveyor belt sushi restaurant. It turned about to be a huge sushi palace and Darren and I stuffed ourselves with our favourite sushi for 80p a plate. I had wonderful tempera prawns and egg sushi: Darren had salmon and yellowtail sushi. If something you wanted was not on the conveyor belt you used a touch screen computer to order it! After our sushi feast we picked up our luggage from the temple and made our way to the youth hostel we were staying at for our 3rd night in Kyoto (the temple couldn`t fit us in for 3 nights). We had grand plans to do more sightseeing but were so worn out we decided to take it easy and spent the evening doing laundry, going to the 100 yen shop in Kyoto Tower to buy jiffy bags in which to send my shopping back, having a hot bath and eating dinner from a bakery/ convenience store (not a culinary high!)

The next morning we packed up quite leisurely and took the train to Nara, the ancient capital before Kyoto. There we met Christine, a friend of Judith Cowan one of the artists I`ve met whilst at the Walker. Chrisitne is also an artist and has been living in Japan for over 30 years. It was so interesting to listen to her talk about her life in Japan and she was extremely knowlegable on Japanese art. She made a wonderful guide around Nara. She took us to Todaiji one of the largest wooden structures in the workd which houses a HUGE Buddha. I think I could easy fit in the palm of its hand! The roof tiles constantly need changing and for a small sum you can buy one for the temple an then write any mesage you want on it. Darren bought one and wrote our names on it (I added a heart!) so we will be on the roof a little bit! Christine took us to a lovely little soba restaurant for lunch and I had cold soba dipped in soy sauce with spring onions, wasabi and daikon radish mixed in. It was delicious. Darren had hot noodles with yuzu-a strange cross between a grapefruit, lime and orange. After luch we went to a beautiful Japanese gardn which borrowed the mountain view in the background to create a mini landscape. After umming and arghing over whether to buy a eautiful, radiantly purple vintagelimno for 16 punds (sadly i didn`t as I couldn`t see how I would get it home) we headed for the train and found ourselves in Osaka. As you know we had an amazing Balinese feast and then as I blogged Darren watched Graveyard of Fireflies an extremly sad Studio Ghibli animation about a little boy and hs kid sister trying survive in Japan in the second world war! I watched the last little bit and had tears runing down my face.

I`ve got lots more to tell you about Japan including being askd to take part n a local festival where everyone is pelted with rice cakes but we have to go and get the plane to Oz!