Kyoto...

So we (me, anthony, michiyo and her sister) headed to kyoto for a couple of days. Kyoto for all of you who dont know is one of the oldest remaining places left in japan that was not effected during ww2 hence the temples there remain beautifully intact attracting millions of tourists like me. For anthony it was a call home of course...back to the land of the samurai...hahahhaa.

Anyways going to kyoto meant anthony and i getting up vbery early (bad idea) but we made it onto the shingansen train ok which was cool and we even sat in the smoking carriage which is seriously kick ass. the train goes way fast but in the end we were still late by an hour due to snow...

upon arrival we were pretty lost as the station was big and there is no help anywhere whatsoever. we finally found the english tourist department located in the department store and for once the english of the helpers was top notch!

That evening anthony and i went for a wander around the area of our hotel and stumbled upon a cool bar called the hub..british of course! after a drink there we headed to the station to pick up mi-chan and her mei mei however we were stopped on the street by a very distraught young woman called melinda or something. melinda was from california (where else) and had just bought the wrong train ticket and spent 9 hours on a train from tokyo and now was completley lost in kyoto and could not find her hotel! the shingansen only takes 2.5 hours! dang...she burst into tears and was like...thank you so much for your help! so of cvourse we healped her even though anthony and i had only 7 hours of knowledge about kyoto ourselves...the place she was living in was so well hidden it took us over an hour to find inbetween asking a guy on a moped and 3 policemen. she hugged us and said her many thanks...who said we aren`t good samaritans!