My Sparkly, Twinkly Adventures....

Today we endured the most horrific rain and thunderstorms I have ever experienced!It was ridiculous...however we were not prepared to not make the most of this amazing opportunity to be in Kyoto so armed with our bright yellow unbrellas, wet socks and socked up to the knees we went temple hopping! Below is just by our hostel but I loved the whole colourful thing!!!Look closely and you can see one of my much adored vending machines!!!

We first headed to Nishi Hongan-Ji and Higashi Hongan-Ji which were both equally beautiful, surrounded by a moat scattered with ornate bridges and mulit-coloured carp!These places are huge and although a lot of our views were warped with the rain I fell in love with them all the same!

This evening we made our pilgrimage to Gion which is the main Geisha district in Kyoto and it was everything I had expected.....a teeny quiet little street, wooden fronted houses and the occasional little shrine.

Next thing I saw the very sight I had only even dreamed about.....a young Geisha girl clattering in her wooden shoes in full dress robes, make up and hair ornaments!!!It was amazing!!!within seconds she scurried out of one door and into the next!!!It totally made my day, had I left Japan without seeing a Geisha in the flesh I would have been dissapointed!!!!By the time the camera was out she was gone but that memory will stay in my mind forever!Then minutes later the same thing happened!!!So much for people saying I wouldnt get to see a Geisha!!!Im so happy!!!It was the most incredible sight! We then went on for a stroll the the Pontocho area before finding a teeny tiny traditional tea room where we enjoyed a lovely cup of tea as we watched the owner spend an hour chopping a single onion into miniscule pieces for an entire hour!Today was simply amazing!

Mount Fuji!!!!!!!

Finally got to put our JR Passes to good use and experience the famous Bullet Train!!! This morning we had to say farewell to the amazing Tokyo and of course the wonderful Toukaisou Ryokan and bid bon voyage to Sue!

Dont know how I managed to fit everything into my backpack and Im not suprised that it feels like Im carrying an elephant in there!!!! We made the trek across Tokyo to the train station where we sat outside enjoying a breakfast of cinnamon pastries and an iced latte with pistacio which was bright green!Yummy!!! We had a bit of a wait around so we could activate our JR Passes so the time was spent eating, smoking way too many marlboro lights and getting shouted at by a bunch of rude promotions girls in hideous spangly lycra who made us move our bags!
We boarded the much anticipated 'Bullet Train' at Tokyo and took the route down to the Kansai Region to Kyoto!I was so excited!you can actually twirl to chairs around on the Shinkansen trains so you can choose the position that you sit!!!I loved it! Needless to say we twisted the whole row of seats around so we had a perfect panoramic view out of the window!!!The trains are so fast...amazing views however, great way to see the country...we saw teeny, tiny, rural villages, to Rice Paddies, to mountains....and eventually the long awaited Mt.Fuji!!! It was amazing to see it in the flesh!!Its always a bizarre feeling when you see such a prominant thing that you have only ever read about in books or seen on TV, so it was pretty overwhelming, I think I was lost for words! It was covered with a blanket of mist at the top and I was suprised by how green everything was! Saying that with all of this rain, there no chance of a drought!

Finally arrived in Kyoto and were welcomed with a horrendous thunder storm! This is the worst weather I have yet to experience since arriving in Japan! Apparently the further south you travel the worse the rain is!!! With our map in hand and backpacks firmly strapped on we waded our way through the tiny streets in search of our hostel! Managed to find it pretty easily and already the contrast between Kyoto and Tokyo is evident... For all its a city, it is surrounded by ranges or mountains so everywhere you look you are kind of enclosed with hills. The overall atmosphere is a lot quieter and somehow it just has a totally different vibe, and I like it! Theres still my favourite Japanese elements here such as the little vending machines that I love so much!!!

Staying in a really cool hostel called 'K's House'! I can honastly say its the best hostel I have ever encountered!!!Its full of like minded people who seem a really good bunch, its all newly refurbished, has a great little Japanese wooden decked patio.....brilliant communal kitchens and it has the crazy toilets with all the gadgets such as music, fake flush and warm seats!!! Kyoto has always been the place I have dreamed of visiting so Its a dream come true that Im actually here, its so exciting!!! Bags were quickly dumped as we set off with our trusty umbrellas to check out the delights of Kyoto!

Finally got to see some temples after me and Daniel almost bought out 2 100yen stores, cruised the market and got soaking wet!

The 100 yen stores were incredible, I was in absolute heaven! It was the equivalent to our Poundland, but the delights to be found were much more of a treat! A plethora of really cute Hello Kitty and Japanese Anime trinkets and gems, loads of Tinkerbell things....Oh my God I actually got a Tinkerbell ashtray, how perfect!!!

I bought little stickers, cute stationary, crayons, Miffy chopsticks, several little Hello Kitty pots and tubs, perfect for putting all my jewellery and things like pins and needles in! The Market was like a dream come true....stalls selling Kimono, fans, the usual Hello Kitty flashing charms, tea-sets, gorgeous, sparkly Geisha head pieces.....I could have so easily spent a fortune but with this backpacker budget I have to restrain myself!

Asakusa Market.

Me and Daniel loitered around outside the market and found outselves immersed amongst a crowd of Japanese Schoolgirls in their sailor style uniforms!

Look at these Uniforms, I so wish we had these back in sunny England, would make a refreshing change from blazers and ties!!!

This rainy season isnt too much of a treat! We headed up to the Asakusa Region where we got to see the 5 Story Pagoda, the Demboin Temple, Sensoji temple....all so incredible! I was just amazed by the whole thing!

We got to see people tying their prayer papers onto the racks, emersing themselves into the incense, beautiful huge lanterns.....it was all so intense!

Below is the Japanese Gardens that we visited...

We then took a River tour to Rainbow Bridge and also got to see Tokyo's answer to the Statue of Liberty and we could see the skyline of the finacial district!Also saw lots of pretty butterflies and some scarily big lice!!!!

Irrassiamase!!!Started our day by visiting the Ginza district to get some breakfast and check out the big designer stores!Its so bizarre to see all the neon and huge colourful buildings up close!
On Gwen Stefani's influence we made the pilgrimage to Harajuku to do some serious shopping!!!this place was unreal, all the bright colours, kitsch dress sence, the energy.....

I Love it here,so many cool things to see!this is shopping heaven for me seriously, picked up some corker jewellery!Big pink plastic hearts..... All the little boutiques were crowded with crazily dressed teenagers in children print dresses, fluffy socks, pink wigs!!! All the staff would almost sing "Irrasiamasse" which means welcome and all you could hear throughout Takeshita Street was cheesy Japanese pop music and wails of welcome! It was such a bizarre experience and left me feeling totally inspired!!!

Tonight we met Miriam Kinjou, the chief designer from "Renown America", for the Rebecca Taylor Japan range...she was great she took us out, showed us around, we got taken to meet the girls who worked in the store, she was really helpful! She showed us around 'Isetan' a big department store, where we discussed the difference of western and Japanese fashion and how different ideas appeal to different nationalities!!!She then took us to a food market and made us sample some local delicacies such as pickled cabbage, blue seaweed! We saw the fish market where there were live eels and some pretty scary looking sharks!

We also paid a visit to the Tokyo Tower....

Me and Daniel then spent the night gazing in awe at the bright lights of Shinjuku before grabbing some dinner!We knew it was time to go home when I almost got sold into the illicit sex trade after stumbling into a not so pleasant area!!!!

Konnichiwa!!!
This is soooooooo surreal it is unbelievable!I cant believe after all these years of dreaming of visiting Japan that I am finally here! After a very long and tiring flight from America I arrived at Toyko Narita Airport!It hasnt sunk in that I am here!Arrived to find Daniel already here waiting for me...in fact his flight had got in 12 hours before mine so hes had quite a wait and was quite accustomed to the airport!!!!Experienced my first squat toilet!!!From here we had to trek right across Tokyo to get to where we were staying in Tarawamachi. We took the train to Ueno station where we got chatting to a woman called Sue who was from Tazmania and it turned out that out of everywhere in the whole of Tokyo she was staying at the same tiny guesthouse as us!!!So we all put our map reading skills together and after some time arrived at Toukaisou Ryokan!It was just as I had imagined...the tradiational guesthouse including the Tatami mats, the yukata robes, the tea set and the pinnacle (this has been my vision ever since reading 'Memoirs of a Geisha' many years ago....).....the toilet slippers!!!

Here is our little squat toilet and the much anticipated toilet slippers! Obviously you cant resist but to comply with tradition and etiquette and wear the slippers!!!

I am in my element!Dumped the backpacks and headed out to get something to eat and have a couple of drinks! After that super long journey a gin and tonic was definatley on the cards...imagine my delight when I spotted the bottle of the old Bombay on the shelf!!!Its amazing just to walk around and take it all in....Im so overwhelmed by the whole thing, this is just a dream opportunity and I appreciate that Im so incredibly lucky to be here and to get to see these wonderful things!I just cant beleive that Im in Japan! Where we are staying is a very quiet area and is not really overun with hotels so its great to be staying a bit away from the tourist trail! Instantly I have fallen in love with the crazy vending machines which are every few feet away!!! They sell everything, from cute little pink cigarettes, to chocolate and the most random selection of drinks I have ever seen!!! The Pocari Sweat was just begging to be sampled after hearing Danielle's stories!!!! We strolled around the nearby streets, a couple of the arcades, spotted the weird signs on the pavement which say it's illegal to smoke and walk at the same time!!! Nightmare, its going to be stationary cigarettes galore!!! We eventually headed back to our Ryokan and watched a bit of random Japanese gameshows, involving people doing crazy things involving pain and snakes, with a cup of black tea before rolling out our cosy mats!

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