Our last day in Kyoto was taken a bit slower. Actually, half way through the day we traveled to our new town Nara.

Allen and I slept in until 8 or 8:30am. Then we leisurely packed up our stuff and got ready to leave Ryokan Nakajimaya. (We had told Alaina we wanted a “late” start and were meeting her at 10am.) The kind ladies at the ryokan let...

This takes place after lunch on the our second day in Kyoto, the 25th. 

It was about 2pm and we were headed to Fushimi Inari, the head shrine of the god of rice and business. Inari is incredibly important to the Japanese and I’ve seen dedicated shrines everywhere. They are easy to tell since Inari’s divine messengers are foxes which sit...

I’m writing this from a couple days ahead again. I was just so exhausted during this period. On that day we went and saw Kinkaku-ji, Ryoan-ji, and Fushimi Inari. Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion, is a Zen Buddhist temple. The top two levels are covered in gold foil thus giving it its name. It was a guy’s retirement villa but he wrote it into his will...

Today has been a very long day. We woke up a little late at 5:45am but made it out the door on time. After taking the 6:30 train, we arrived at the station, walked to the stop and were right on time for the 7:30 bus. (Thank goodness. We did not want to miss it again after last time.) It was a three hour drive from Nagoya to Kyoto. Allen and I spent the...

We saw the Inuyama castle today. It’s one of only 12 of the original castles left. There are others but they’ve had to be rebuilt. It is also the oldest castle in Japan. The day was dripping with humidity and after the twenty minute walk there, I felt like I had just walked out of a shower. The closer you got to the castle, the more...

Heeeeeeeey friends.

So that whole ‘Travel Blog’ idea worked out real well. Ha..ha. But! The good news is that Allen and I are in fact whole, healthy, and still alive (or our usual amount of undeadness) and back in the good ole USA.

We had a great trip chock full of adventures: fencing, fighting, torture, revenge… No not...