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We’ve managed to cover a fair bit of Japan since my last post…

We left Kawaguchi-ko on Monday (6th) for Kyoto and being prepared as we are had not really worked out how to get there.  Luckily, the hostel owner was very helpful and he pointed us in the direction of the bus stop to catch a bus to Mishima in order to catch the Shinkansen Bullet train from there to Kyoto.  I’ve been on a few bumpy bus journeys in my lifetime but this was something else - the bus took as around the bottom of Mount Fuji and at one point we were speeding along this narrow mountain road in low cloud cover with the rain lashing down - my knuckles were white by then end of that one!  We made it to Mishima in one piece after changing buses in Gotemba and caught the Bullet train down to Kyoto.  These Japanese trains are something else…  There is so much leg room that you could get your luggage at your feet and still have room to stretch out.  My favourite thing about the train is this nifty feature that the seats have whereby when reaching the end of the line the train staff can pass through the carriage push a lever on the seats and turn them around to face the other direction so everyone faces direction of travel - so cool!

We spent four nights in Kyoto exploring the city and around.

After leaving the hostel on our first morning within an hour we had spotted some Geishas.

I was so excited!!  I read “Memoirs of a Geisha” a while back and fell in love with Kyoto and the whole Geisha idea.  It was so cool to see some in the flesh with their white makeup and high shoes.

We took a daytrip to Nara to see the largest wooden building in the world at Todai-ji temple.

The building is the Daibatsu-den Hall, inside of which is a gigantic Bronze Buddha statue.

The length of it’s fingers are the size of a human!!  Around the back of the statue is a pillar with a hole cut in the bottom which is the same size as one of buddha’s nostrils.  Legend has it that if you can fit through the hole then you will be enlightened.  We contemplated for a while whether to attempt squeezing through but decided that we would be able to do it but didn’t want to risk the embarrassment of being pulled out by fellow tourists!  We watched for a while as a shy, young japanese boy was coaxed by his mum to slip through the hole and just as he was about to do it a group of schoolchildren came around the corner causing him to cower behind his mum’s legs covering his ears!  I’m starting to wonder if Japanese schools every hold class or if they are constantly on daytrips.  Everywhere we go there seem to be herds of them in their yellow hats making such a noise that sometimes I want to run away and hide too!

We visited Osaka yesterday which is only a short train journey from Kyoto - our Japan rail pass has really come in handy!  We spent most of the day in the Umeda Sky Building enjoying the view across the city, watching the sunset and then looking out over all the neon lights.  We headed downtown to the Dotobori Arcade as we had been advised that is where to find some good nightlife.  I think we went on the wrong day!  We went into a few bars and all were empty aside from the bartender and a few drunk regulars.  I have come to the conclusion that Japanese people prefer to stroll and then go to restaurants and stay long there drinking rather than hit the bars - or maybe we just went on the wrong day!

We took the Shinkansen down to Hiroshima today and visited Miyajima to see the floating Torii and then went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park to see the A-Bomb Dome and visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

The amount of information was quite overwhelming and certainly gave me something to think about.  It was very eye-opening seeing just what an effect the atomic bomb had on the city and the people living here.  I think the exhibit that hit me most was a step from outside a bank where a woman had been sitting waiting for the bank to open when the bomb hit.  The whole step has been bleached white from the blast except the spot where she was sitting where her shadow remains dark.

We are heading back up to Tokyo tomorrow with a lot more to fit in before we leave for Hong Kong on Wednesday.  More news on what we get up to there in a few days.

More photos from the last few days on my flickr page.