Japan Visit 2010

Yup that's right it's snowing here in Kyoto!

I got up early this morning and headed to the Peace Museum before we took the bullet train from Hiroshima to Kyoto. As I suspected, the museum was quite harrowing and I couldn't bring myself to go to the free exhibition of photos taken in the aftermath. Neil took the sensible decision and had a long lie!

The bullet ride was great again - we had a brief change over in Osaka. We are staying in the Hotel Granvia in Kyoto and the checkin staff have been the best yet. Their English is pretty much perfect and as the know we're on our honeymoon we are getting our photo taken and they will make up a commemerative frame!! The room is on the top floor and is great and we have access to a special lounge. Our view is of Kyoto Tower - looks really cool at night.

The weather here has been changeable to say the least, but we decided to head to the Nishi Hongwanji temple while it was dry - we can actually see it from our hotel room. On our way to Shosei-en the rain came on really hard so we headed back to the hotel - we'll try and take this in tomorrow. As we were sitting admiring the view the snow came on - big fluffy flakes! Thankfully the ground has been too wet for it to lie.

We ventured back to the restaurant we found on our day visit for dinner - we had thought about going to the Tepinyaki at the hotel but they were wanting £140 per person!!! Our meal was great - the specialise in Katsu and I had the 5 prawns - I've never seen prawns this big! Much better value at just over £10!

We then took a wander in the snow down Shijo Dori and ended up at Pontocho which is a good place to see Geisha - sadly we didn't see any, maybe tomorrow! It's a more traditional street with lots of lanterns - looks amazing. It was very busy with fellow Geisha spotters!!!

If the weather is dry tomorrow we are going to head to Gion and Southern Higashiyama - these are the areas the guide book says you should take in if you only have a short time in Kyoto as they allow you to see several important sites and neighbourhoods.