Kyoto

Eoin and I made are way via bullet train to Kyoto from Tokyo this morning sometimes topping speeds over 175 miles per hour.  We were going to so fast that are ears were popping from the speed.   It was nice to make it over 300 miles in probably a little over 2.5 hours.  In the US that would be a drive of about 8 hours for us. Japan is very efficient.

We are in Kyoto and it is a historic and beautiful city.  We saw some great things today including a magnificent bamboo forest and went to the old part of Kyoto which still has cobblestone streets.

We are staying in a very traditional Japanese hotel called a Ryokan.  It is very minimalist hotel with just a table for tea and then some futons that you pull out of the closet and sleep on.  This is the type of place you think of when you think of Japan.

Eoin navigated us from Kyoto to the Bamboo forest which was no small task since he needed to figure out how to get us through one of the busiest train stations in the world and onto one of 100 platforms.   Everything was in Japanese but he did a fantastic job and has now won the job of official navigation man for the trip.