KYOTO

  I had got together with a bunch of Australians on line before we boarded to join them on a private tour of Kyoto. We never got to meet them on board until the day of the tour. Anyway I sent them our photos and they found us in the queue to leave the boat. Our guide was a young guy called Lee, we had a Bruce in our group so we had the full Kung Foo pair. It's a long ride from Osaka, where we docked to Kyoto, 1.5hours plus. The bus was good, 12 seater for 8 of us.

Some of the bamboos were carved to play notes in the wind, and the bamboos rattled at the same time. However, no wind & big crowds, so who knows what it would have been like. Next stop was the Golden Temple.

Picturesque, nice walks, 1000 year old tree, golden temple with phoenix on top, lovely ice cream, matcha & vanilla, but you know what - you can get templed out.

Off to Nishiki, Kyoto's famous market area. Indoors & out, from street food to high end shops. We went for grilled eel, so fresh it was almost alive. Liked it there.

Gion, the geisha girls working area next up.

And finally, another shrine, the Fushima Inari Shrine, but by now it was dark.

Protected by foxes with golden fish in their mouths & wearing bibs- who knew. It's open 24/7 and has the famous tunnel of Torii gates that feature in so many marketing shots for Kyoto. They were installed all the way from the shrine to the top of the mountain and were paid for by sponsors who got their name & company on their Torii gate. Lin was exhausted by now and I had to leave her at the bottom of the hill & collect her on the way back. Arrived back at the ship at 19:30, she was so tired, I couldn't even persuade her to go on the big harbour wheel. At 404ft it's slightly smaller than London Eye but we've still got a chance with the Singapore Flyer at 540ft, 100ft bigger than the eye. Let's wait & see.