After Kyoto, we moved on to the smaller city of Nara, and stayed in the most traditional-style accommodation of the trip (the one from the photos above). The city was spacious and peaceful, with a huge park full of shrines, monuments etc on its Eastern side. Over 1200 very friendly deer roam free in the park and the parts of the city close to it.

Nara Park

Isuien Garden - said to 'borrow scenery' from the hills and building behind it.

The imposing and impressive figures below guard the entrance to Todai-ji temple:

Todai-ji Temple, which houses the world's largest bronze Buddha (Daibutsu) statue:

Various pictures of sights and gardens around Nara:

By the pond in Nara City

We took the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) from Kobe back to Tokyo, great experience for a train freak like me!

Check out how the speed bent the houses in the foreground of the picture above

Finally, three of my favourite pictures from a very successful Kansai trip, thanks for reading! More from Tokyo in the next post... 

Kyoto

Kyoto is another one of Japan's ancient capital cities, and probably the most significant. I took literally hundreds of photos there, which goes some way towards explaining why I've taken so long to look through them and put them up!

It's all very impressive so I'll put up a selection (with captions) below. The Japanese are very careful with their old monuments, but unfortunately most have been destroyed and reconstructed a number of times due to wars, fires and natural disasters. As a result these places look and feel pristine despite their ancient origins:

Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion, is one of the most striking and recognisable sites

Most of the main Temples are surrounded by smaller buildings like this one



Tenryu-ji is a temple and garden complex at the foot of the hills on the outskirts of Kyoto

Tenryu-ji Garden





Otagi Nenbutsuji is further up the mountain, with a number of Shrines surrounded by stone figures all with different facial expressions



These gates mark the entrances to spiritual places - this one is in a preserved 19th Century village area

Yasaka Shrine is the focal point for many of Kyoto's festivals

Ginkaku-ji is also a top attraction with its sand sculpture garden

Kiyomizu-dera Temple is on top of a steep hill and enjoys beautiful views of the city (which is surprisingly big)

People queued for this cleansing ritual

This huge temple gate leads to the complex below

The mountains around west Kyoto host this monkey park, where tons of monkeys roam free; humans can only feed them from inside a cage.

We stayed in some incredible old traditional houses, complete with paper dividers/windows and central traditional gardens.

I actually can't hold this position for more than a few minutes, a true foreigner...

Now a long overdue post from my travels in the cities of Kansai (Southwest region) and a little more from Tokyo!

First stop on my trip was Osaka, Japan's third largest city after Tokyo and Yokohama:

We stayed right beside this seemingly endless shopping arcade:

I later found out it was around 2.6km long, and contained the most exciting supermarket I've ever seen, with neon scenes depicting everything from meat to vegetables:

Osaka Castle is impressive, surrounded by a moat and with great views of the city from the top. The Castle itself has been burnt down and rebuilt numerous times (like many old Japanese buildings), so it isn't actually that old:

Another Osaka highlight was the Aquarium, which housed an impressive Whale Shark and huge Rays, along with every other sea creature you could think of:

The Aquarium was on another man-made sea island which was a nice break from the city:

There was a traditional Japanese clothing (etc) shop on the way, and the whole building seemed to be vomiting kimonos and umbrellas from every opening (I wondered if it stayed like that all night or what):

That's all on Osaka - I'll get Kyoto up in the next post! Plenty more to come... <3