Our last day in Japan! Had a quick stop in Kamakura after leaving Mount Fuji but probably didn't do it justice with one night there. Think we'd reached our quota of temples by then and weren't as enthusiastic as we'd probably have been at the start of our trip. Still a nice town though (although Hotel New Kamakura is a bit overpriced!) and found a good place to Pooch-watch in 'Bowls' cafe where you can choose the size of the bowl you eat from and watch extremely...

Couple of quick stops over the next couple of days. We had less than 24hrs in Koyasan, to visit Okonoin graveyard and stay in one of the many temples run by monks. We stayed at Ekoin, which was very picturesque and were well looked after. We, as requested, got a 0630 call to come and watch the prayer and fire ceremonies that are done every morning before breakfast. Pretty special to be able to watch such a thing and felt very welcome. Okonoin is a huge forested c...

Quite a busy few days spent here. On the first day strolled along the Philospher's Walk to see the Silver Pavilion (Ginkaku-ji) which was covered in scaffolding hence no pictures. The walk, much written about wasn't quite as good as expected, maybe it would be more picturesque with the spring blossom. Still, Rob and I managed several good attempts at trying to out-philosophise each other. Took a quick bus across to the Golden Pavilion (Kinkaku-ji) which was much ...

Spent a rainy first day in Hiroshima and visited the Peace Memorial Park and Museum. Think the weather suited it well as was pretty oppressive reading. Such a good idea that people from all over the world have a chance to read about what happened from the Japanese point of view. So many lives lost in such an awful way in the name of peace. To lift our spirits went for some Hiroshima Okonomiyaki (noodle based pancake treat) at Sarashina's as recommended by the LP ...

Nikko to Kanazawa - had a bit of a nightmare journey as the Shinkansen trains (normally so reliable) were mostly Shincancelled leading to mayhem and grumpiness but eventually arrived. At one point when Rob tried to reserve some last minute tickets, a friendly Japanese passer by grabbed him and asked if he was Ok. He then proceded to exclaim 'gaijin!' (Japanese word for foreigner) and dragged him to the front of a queue of about 20 people. Thankfully it was the wo...