as promised here is the second part of my japan trip wrap-up:

After the 7 weeks of skiing in Niseko i took a bus to the airport of Sapporo and flew to Tokyo. Flying with that 747 for 1,5 hours was pretty comfortable, the same with the monorail from the airport to the city. I stayed in Tokyo for one more night before I took another nightbus to Kyoto.

And again the nightbus was a big struggle and this time i even missed it. But somehow i managed to hop onto some other bus around midnight so that i arrived in Kyoto at about 7am. I got picked up by Shiro, a japanese rickshaw-driver, who i met in niseko a few weeks before. He offered me to stay at his appartment. This way i saved a lot of money, because i stayed 9 days for free, used his bicycle and computer, sometimes even ate his food and got a free citytour by his friend. Thanks!

Let me tell you: Kyoto is one of the best cities i've been so far (yet undecided if it's better or as good as stockholm). There is everything a modern city needs but there are a whole bunch of temples and shrines, which show japanese culture. Kyoto is really a chill city.

But enough talk, here are some shots:

This is the "duck river" which flows through Kyoto and is a good thing for orientation. although the city is built in grid-style it can get confusing sometimes. Always people chilling at the river.

At the time of my visit, there was a festival, so that some of the temples were illuminated. This is Kyumizudera with its 13m high dancing stage.

The next day i went to the golden temple, which is very famous. it happened that a women asked me if she should take a picture of me in front of it. japanese people never say no, and so did i. this is how i got this tourist-shot hehe

Kyoto seen from above

I visited a lot of temples. i liked this one because of its zen-garden. so good to sit on that small stage and look at the garden, just relax. Def a good way to spend some time...

nightview from the balcony of shiro's appartment

the next morning: stoked to have a japanese style lunchbox for breakfast

the lunchbox in detail. so good and even better when it's for free

i visited the fushimi inari shrine, where 10 000 of torii are set up. I walked about 2 hours through all of them

most of the time i took a bicycle to get around. Kyoto is a good city to cruise around on a bike.

these are traditional japanese sweets filled with sweet bean paste. There are a whole bunch of traditonal swets filled with beans, which is strange in the beginning but after i while i really liked it. I'd love to eat one of these now

this is the tallest pagoda in japan

at the end of the day i often took my bicycle to cruise around a bit. it's so much fun to rush along the bright neon signs and do slalom like turns between the cars.

i took a daytrip to osaka and one to nara. this is the daibutsuden in nara. the biggest wooden building in the world, with a huge buddha statue inside (i think it is the biggest in japan)

these badboys burned some holes in my jacket. damn

deer is holy in nara and happens to be everywhere. there aren't any fences so that the animals can go everywhere, even into the convenience store but mostly they stay in the park to get some food from the tourists

there were at least 30 people trying to get a shot of this. even better i got a shot without a person in it hehe-

true

i tried a lot of ned things in kyoto. this is raw beef with an raw egg. not too good, not too bad

all the other things were delicious. This was an all-you-can-eat place and you get the raw meat to put it on the bbq which is built into the table. the beer was good as well, needless to say...

So these were a lot of shots from my stay in Kyoto. After 9 great says filled with good food, temples, shrines, fun bike-rides and nice people i left Kyoto and took the bullet train to Tokyo (no more nightbusses...). Next episode will be filled with shots of Tokyo, where i stayed for 2 weeks.

Hope you liked this one, although there weren't snow shots in it. Stay tuned.

Peace

Simon