Kyoto

Pete and I belt out some Kareoke classics at Shidax
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As a Christmas present for Pete, I bought two shinkansen tickets and a night in a hotel in Kyoto. Kyoto is Japan’s cultural capital and has 17 World Heritage Sites. Unfortunately as we were travelling during the Christmas/New Year period it meant that many of the sights we were keen to see were closed.

However we took the opportunity to explore some of Japan’s other traditions and started the day by trying to catch a glimpse of a geisha in the Gion district. We also took a stroll round Nishiki Market which had lots of weird and wonderful foods that are used in typical Kyoto cooking. Not sure anything was particularly appealing though. There seemed to be a lot of pickled squid and fish heads.

there seemed to be a lot of pickled squid and fish heads

Shinto priest at the temple preparing for the new year celebrations
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For dinner I took Pete to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant and then to Shidax (a chain karaoke company) where we belted out some more classic tunes – this time without anyone listening as we both felt we needed the practice.

On our second day, we managed to take in a few of the temples that Kyoto is famous for, including the most well-known Golden Temple which was really spectacular. You could see that many of the shrines and temples were gearing up for the big New Year festival and many of the shrines were elaborately decorated with red and white lanterns and fortune telling messages for the new year. As this is the Chinese year of the boar, there were also many pictures depicting the boar and associated birth years. After spending the day wandering around, we spent an hour relaxing in a traditional Japanese onsen. Again, this was the first time Pete had experienced this Japanese tradition which he thoroughly enjoyed – though I suspect this was because he could show off his muscles to the puny Japanese men!