Insect bites: 7:5 to Kim and Colin respectively (despite the guide book insisting you won't have any problems here).
Deer attacks: 1 (I should clarify the deer attacked me, not the other way around).
The last day in Tokyo we did go to see some fat men in nappies and it was really good fun. Hugely entertaining - I don't know why it hasn't taken off in the UK. I keep wanting to challenge Colin whenever we need to solve a dispute as to who's right (happens frequently), but I fear he's a bit stronger than me and I've seen what happens to some of the weedy fighters!
The language barrier has become a bigger problem but really only in terms of eating out. Most places near where we stayed in Tokyo had translated menus which made life easy. We've found in Kyoto it's not quite the same. You can walk around the downtown area and see thousands of restaurants - many of which have the headings eg. starters, fish, meats, desserts written in english but what's written under these headings is written in kanji. It's a bit frustrating but it adds to the fun of finding a place to eat.
That said, Kyoto is a really cool city. We've been out and about temple hopping but as there's more still to do we haven't posted the Kyoto photos yet. They'll be coming your way in a couple of days. We're staying in an apart-hotel here so we have a mini kitchen which is great for making toast and coffee in a morning to save some yen. The japanese equivalent of dairylea cheese slices are interesting (even when they're not frozen you have to slice them-frozen they're disgusting) but all in all we're not wasting away.
We've used Kyoto as a base to explore a few areas. We took a train to Osaka which is where the japanese go to party apparently. It rained that day so we went to the aquarium and didn't stay long enough to see the crazy side of things. Saw some penguins (one of my must see's on our trip, as well as bears-still none!) so that made me happy. The aquarium there is supposedly one of the best in the world and, in spite of our limited aquarium knowledge we were impressed! Also went to Osaka castle in the afternoon and had a wander around town.
Today we took another train to Nara, which, like Kyoto, is full of temples and shrines, one of which contains a 16m high great buddha (and thats when he's sitting down) in the largest wooden building in the world. We did a walking tour around Nara which led us to most of the big tourist sights, as well as ensuring we got stampeded by herds of deer. I know it doesn't look much on the photos but those deer were really going for me. Because i was not quick enough feeding one of them it decided it would have a mouthful of me instead. Trust me there were nearly teeth marks in my belly. Can't imagine why it thought that would be tasty!!
After several nights of eating japanese food and struggling to find things we'd like we copped out tonight and found an irish bar in the guide book, which was great for a night off. We ate irish stew and chicken pie and mash and it was so good. Some of the japanese food we've had has been delicious but i drew a line at the pickled mini fish with heads still on which you were supposed to eat whole. We were given this one evening as a starter.
Hopefully tonight we haven't let any bitey insects in to our room, so the bite tally shouldn't increase. Last night we had left the air conditioning off as it had been cooler. Unfortunately it got warm overnight and by morning we had kicked off the duvet and there was a very fat and very happy mosquito sleeping off a good night's work. Air con's staying on tonight!!!
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