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Greetings from Kyoto! We arrived at around 3pm after a 2.5 hour ride on the Shinkansen. Apparently they can reach speeds up to 300km/h but I'm not sure that we were going that fast. There's a lot of leg room though and stepford wives-esque cleaners in identical pink uniforms. Plus we were in the smoking carriage (unlucky Jim!) which kept me and Don happy!
Our hostel here is substantially nicer than the one in Tokyo and a lot more traditional (can't wear shoes indoors, having to shuffle around in slippers instead). My first impressions of Kyoto weren't at all what I imagined - it just looks like another city in Japan albeit a much smaller one than Tokyo (population is 16 million in Tokyo and only 1 million here).
We went out for tea in downtown Kyoto and found lots of traditional, narrow alleyways with lanterns hanging outside. I tried my first sake (not completely vomitous and the more I had the more I liked it unsurprisingly!) and we grabbed some food, including a dessert labelled simply on the menu as 'pudding'. No more detail required apparently!
On the way home we stopped at an Izikaya (pub) the size of a shed, full of quite naff memorobilia, run by this one tiny Japanese woman who didn't speak any English. We sat at the bar and spent about an hour in there drinking beer/sake and communicating with her using our phrasebook and gestures. We showed her photos of what we'd seen so far and of our friends and family at home - she seemed to like that a lot! She also kept bringing us bizarre bar snacks and all in all it was a definite highlight of the trip so far. As we left she ran after us and insisted she take our pictures in front of Kyoto Tower so when I work out how to use the gallery I'll show you some photographic evidence.
Right, we're off out for the day now so I'll say goodbye. Love you x x
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