Hello everybody,

I've been doing plenty of day trips in the kansai region. Nara, the old capital of Japan, was stunning. The park in Nara has hundreds of tame deer milling around the place who walk straight up to you and sniff you. I even saw one deer break into a guy's rucksack and eat his map. Check out my photo of the deer ordering some food at the food stand at dusk in the park! Classic. Some terrific hiking trails around the park (I nearly stood on a snake) and the biggest buddha in Japan.

And last night I caught a rickety train up into the mountains to Koya-San, the centre of esoteric buddhism. I met some Irish girls on the train and we stayed in the Eiko-in temple. The most stunning place I've ever stayed the night. We had an incredible tatami room with shoji sliding doors and we got to wear yukata robes and sit by our window drinking a lot of green tea. The monks woke us up at 6am for morning prayers. Lots of chanting, gong bashing and pyres which looked on the verge of getting out of control, but fortunately didn't! And then a traditional breakfast of no meat, fish, or bizarrely, onions or garlic.

I'm now very very chilled out. Met up with my mate Ed now and we're heading to osaka for the weekend to check out the night life. Then on to kyoto and hiroshima, after which he'll head back to work and I'll have 4/5 days left in Japan. It's going too quickly...

Hope everybody's well, it's rainy season out here so take comfort that I've probably got more rain than you...

Lerve

Jonny