On our last morning in Kyoto I packed quickly and visited another temple… Kiyomizudera-dera… the main hall was unfortunately under repair but you can still visit inside and get an idea of how amazing it is, all built out of dark wood, sitting majestically on the side of the hill on the eastern side of …
Monday morning, second week of school. No 3 has already destroyed his school shoes, admittedly they weren’t new, but I’d only bought them in May last year. Sigh. Also he thought that telling me on the Monday morning 5 minuted before we’re due to leave was a better option than owning up on Friday after …
More Kyoto. More temples. Frankly, it’s all about them… oh and the geisha too… So after the Fushimi Inari shrine/amazing red torii gate experience we headed back to the hotel for breakfast and then out again for more: first up this one, dedicated it seems to a while boar. No English description (and why should …
Kyoto is magical. President Truman, when choosing a target for the first atomic bomb discarded Kyoto because he’d spent his honeymoon there and loved it so much. It was for century the old capital of Japan (before to move to Tokyo a couple of century ago. It houses 1700 temples and shrines. It will capture …
I’ve just said goodbye to the boys for the their first day of school, Lilli – the ferocious beast – is snoring on the sofa already, the builders coming to take down the terrace with their pneumatic hammer have not arrived yet so all it’s calm and quiet in the house. Today it all begins …
Just under an hour from the centre of Hiroshima, half way up a hill, in a quiet residential street there is the most gorgeous ‘ryokan’ you can possibly imagine. A ryokan is a is a type of traditional Japanese inn that typically feature tatami-matted rooms, communal baths, and other public areas where visitors may wear …
We’re back. I decided to leave the computer in the suitcase in the end and simply enjoy the time away. Good choice on my part. It’s been an amazing trip and I’ll never forget it. Also, I’d like to go back! So, let’s see where was I?… Hiroshima. Yes. Wow. What can be said of …
Day 3. Hot. Even hotter because the sun came out and literally baked us because of course today was the day we choose to walk through the Imperial Palace Garden (you’re only allowed freely into a small portion of it, but it’s really pretty)… go us! Funnily enough there weren’t many people out and about… …
This morning we left Tokyo on the bullet train and it’s about time I summarise our time there. We have had a great time and it was the perfect introduction to a world so different from ours (even if the weather wasn’t the the best, extremely hot and humid but also overcast which is a …
And we’re back. The sky is quite grey this morning, but we’re bracing ourselves for a heatwave in the next few days… we’ll see. They’re never as hot as they say. The laundry is almost all done – well, until no 1 and no 2 arrive back from their trip tomorrow and then we’re back …
while you're ahead... 