banzai!

Hey. I`ve got 7 minutes left on this machine so here goes.

My Air NZ flight was nearly empty, I had an empty seat next to me. I slept most of the way. Arrival in Kyoto was fine, no one asked to see my onward ticket to Korea. Later I asked other travellers about whether they were required to have one, and no oen else has had to. The check in people obviously just don`t like the look of me.

I`ve had five days in Kyoto, the 3rd capital of Japan and seemingly its main cultural place these days. Its a huge city, it took an hour by bus to get to my hostel (ok so its probably about the same size as manchester but theres a lot more tall buildings in the city centre). I stayed at UTan oyouth hostel, which is very nice, it has a large enclosed green space and a bath house, and an all you can eat breakfast, but I think its more of a retreat place or place for school groups rather than independent travellers. I stayed out til 11 (woo!) the night before last and I couldn:t get a bus back; I rang up the hostel and they told me that the place would be locked down at midnight, so I had to get a taxi back. A bit annoying really, as the city centre is quite boring by day, and I`ve only seen it once at night time.

Apart from that I`ve visited a few temple sites and generally wandered around. I went to Nara for the day, which is a smaller city, but the temple area there is in a large park with lots of deer, so I had a better time (in Kyoto there is either a lot of walking through city streets or waiting for buses to get from one site to the next).

Ok thats it for now, see ya!