Kyoto

After only being here two hours I left the hostel I was staying at to do some night walking and maybe get some food. The thing I love about Japan is its alleyways. When you go past a side street on a main street that catches your eye you can just turn and proceed on... you're bound to have this happen on every street you take as there is something of interest just around the next corner. As much as I love getting lost in the alleyways I can't help but think if it would be better to know kanji or would it lose its magic? The way the light falls on that sign beside that traditional looking building turns into a lavatory with broken lighting...

But really the alleyways are great. Here is a picture of an all-you-can-drink place, where you pay a set amount for an allotted amount of time of free drinks. Food is available too, mostly in a deep-fried fashion on a skewer with a communal soy sauce type of dip. Here is a picture of a place I think is this kind of place
I may need to break this habit of wandering the streets and alleys aimlessly as really it's because Japan is so amazingly safe that it works. Will I be able to walk the alleys of Shanghai in the same manner??

Kyoto feels kind of the same as northern Tokyo. There is a high volume of traditional styled streets to where I have just had to stop taking photos as all the streets look really cool! So I set out to find lanterns. I'm in Japan right, how hard could this be?!?! Well, the answer is VERY! I've no idea where everyone gets them! CONSPIRACY!

Went for a walk today and thought I better go see another shrine. On the way getting there, I come across a....... yup you guessed it, shrine (well a pagoda but close enough). Remember when I mentioned you're walking down a street and you look down an alley and you see something of interest? Well, this is what I saw... So of course I'm now obligated to check this out! Then the next alley, and next, and so on.

Along my travels, I got lost and what I thought was the temple I was looking for was a cemetery, but unlike any I've been to before. It was right up the side of the mountain beside Kyoto with the best view I have seen of the city yet. The cemetery was huge and multi-leveled, here are some pictures...

Tomorrow I'm going to try and make it to Hiroshima for a day visit. I'm not sure what to expect of such a place and was actually going to avoid it, but I think I'll go and see how it goes.

Here are some pics from Kyoto so far...