Monday 1st

at this point in the trip i got really lazy and didnt write anything really, my entrie for this day was purly KLANCY. Klancy is a good friend of mine who was at the time 8 months into a 1o month exchange in Hakata, on the lowest of the main islands of Japan, and as this particular day we were going to Hakata to visit our sister school, i aranged to meet up with her. that was really all that we did on that day, left kyoto went to Hakata and then back up to Hiroshima on the shinkansen. here comes the photos.

the 4 i hung out with most of the trip; Rosie, James, Jess and BB
our sister schools band, their baton twirling team also did a demo for us, fantastic entertainment.
Klancy and I
at the Okonomiyaki resturant, where we all went as a group for dinner that night. Okonomiyaki, literally means fried things you like, basically its a savoury pancake based around cabbage, but whatelse is put in the standard changes depending on the area of japan that you are in, here i think from memory its bacon and lots of herbs, but i could be wrong, i did eat alot of okonomiyaki on the trip as i really like it and the diffrent variations of it. as you can see they cook it infornt of you and the hotplates actually extend around the entire resturant, so you sit up to the hotplate and eat it straight off of there, it is indeed an intresting dinning experiance.

Friday 28th ~ bus tour

Today we went on a bus tour of Kyoto, on the morning tour we visited Kinkakuji(golden pavilion) Nijojo castle (it has mocking bird floors *sigh*) and the old imperial palace. All the way our guide held up this thing that looked like a bright green toilet cleaner. After that we went to the handy craft centre for lunch and a browse. Before the afternoon tour with Mrs. big bird. I can’t remember all the names of where we went but one of them was kiyomizu temple which was incredibly beautiful I can’t not describe it, just highly recommend you go and see it for yourself.

at kinkakuji

the tour guide for the morning...see green toilet cleaner

another of the temples

kiyomizu temple is the 3 photos. or the view back towards kyoto from it.

thursday 27th ~ my birthday

At breakfast this morning they had the table all decorated with ballons and stuff for Mr Hutchinson and My birthday. We then packed up all our stuff and caught the shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto. Where we met tanieal at the station (brooke’s older sister who lives in nara) and she led us to our hotel which is litary across the road from the train station. I had dinner with the hutchinsons and Mrs Symonds for my birthday where I also got to speak to Felicia on he phone, I spoke to mum and dad earlier in the day.

with mr ishiyama at the train station

my birthday presnt from felicia that she had packed in my suitcase.

Wednesday 14th September ~Kyoto

We (the group) meet at the train station on plenty of time so that we wouldn’t have a repeat of our leaving Tokyo. When we had to leave, some of our families came onto the platform with us (they had special platform passes) Yui gave Jon a letter (she likes him) just before we got on the train.
When it was time for us to change trains I think most of us freaked out a little when Mrs Forman said “ ok bye guys ill see you at dinner tomorrow night “ ( her and Mr Stolz went on to visit our sister school in Hakata)
Mr Swindles and Mrs Cooper were now in charge of the group and managed to get us to out hotel with eh help of Jon’s navigational skills and Kate’s language skills. We left out bags there and headed out again. This time all the girls were in one room and I was nominated keeper of the key.
We went to the kinkukuji (golden temple) and we were supposed to stay as a group but as usual Jon, Mel, Tom and I walked to fast and got way ahead of the group. we got some photos with maiko (apprentice geisha) Jon then got me started on my obsession with melon fanta … its GREAT its just a great pity you cant get it in Australia.
From there we went to Nijojo castle, which was really cool coz it has mocking bird floors and absolutely wonderful Architecture. But as with a lot of the amazing places here we couldn’t take photos. The 4 of us had a great time mucking around in the common room and we scored many a strange looks from the teachers and brad… they were looking in on us every few minutes