Last day in China and onto Japan!!

Okay,　so I`ve been holding off on the blog until I could get free Internet again, but since theres precious little chance of that happening here in Japan I`ve relented and coughed up the hundreds of yen to use the hostels PC......I hope you all appreciate my sacrifice!

So, what have we been up to?

Well our last day in Beijing was good, we had a wander around the Summer Palace, which is where the old Emperors etc would spend their time when the Forbidden City got too hot, I actually found it a lot nicer than the Forbidden City,　it was much more chilled anyway.




Up at the Summer Palace, yes that water is frozen, Summer Palace you say? hmmm

On our last evening we met up with one of my old Uni pals who I had only found out lived in Beijing the week before (the power of facebook!).
Suzie and her boyfriend Ian took us to a really lovely Duck restaurant where we experienced Peking duck how it should be done, thanks so much to Suzie for taking us there!

Suzie and Ian, is that a miniature orange you`ve pealed there Suzie?

Then........

JAPAN

Well we`ve been here for 6 days now and its certainly an experience.

We spend our first two days in Tokyo. What can I say about Tokyo?? Well first of all its massive, I mean really massive!.......and busy, I mean really busy!........and expensive, I mean really expensive! But we had a good couple days there. On our second day one of Chris`s friends,　Miki met up with us and gave us a locals tour of Tokyo which was really good fun, we saw so much more than we would have any other way. Thanks so much Miki!!! (We`ll see you in Edinburgh in 2010!!!)

Miki, me and Chris enjoying some authentic Japanese food(remember that raw squid Chris??)



That umbrella is from Clares Accesories if anyone is wondering


Tokyo's answer to the Eiffel Tower, only 3 metres taller and in technicolour!



Responsible parenting Japanese style!


Oh yeah, Chris got his hair cut too, what do you think???

We`ve been staying in Kyoto for the past 4 days.
Kyoto itself is okay, there isn`t much to do apart from look at one of the hundreds of temples! Great if you love temples I suppose! We`ve had a look at a couple.



Somewhere in Kyoto


Its what you come to Japan for really

Yesterday we took the train to Nara for the day. Nara is really small by Japanese standards so it felt really chilled and relaxed there. Nara is famous for the deer that just wander about all over the town, they are treated as sacred by the Buddhists I think?
We rented bikes for the day so we got to cover the whole place in an afternoon(until the rain put an end to our fun).



Chris in his bike, and the obligatory temple photo


How to make friends with Deer??......Deer biscuits of course!




Today we took the train to Kobe, famous for beef and a very bad earthquake!
Kobe was nice, there wasn`t a whole lot us must see sights, but we managed to make an afternoon of it, including a very ropey cable car ride!


Our bullet train, awesome!


The not so stable cable car


Inspecting the art in Kobe