Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, and Hello!

First off, hello to everyone! It's been awhile since I did an entry. Happy New Year (year of the Boar this time around) and what not. Here, it's back to normal now that vacation is over for Maurice. We had a lot of lazy wonderful down time and sleeping in.
I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year. Our Christmas was good. We gave in and opened all the presents Christmas Eve and on Christmas went to the Onsen in Takeo for a nice hot soak, followed by a ridiculously overpriced meal at Source (they surprised us with a Christmas menu consisting of two choices and by the time we realized that, we were already seated and had water and hot towels), but it was tasty.

We left early the next morning for Fukuoka and then hopped on the Shinkansen (my first ever bullet train ride!). We arrived in Kyoto with half the afternoon left and after dropping off our stuff at our hotel, we were off.

Apologies ahead of time for the wacky look of the pictures. Blogger and I have not been seeing eye to eye of late and it refuses to upload a bunch of stuff. The only way I could get some of these things on here was to change the size that they would appear as.

*Note: Reese later told me that I can also fool it by changing the file name, but I already had uploaded a lot of pics onto this photo album. So check these here and then follow the link to see the rest. In the future I think I may use this album tactic more often if I have a lot of stuff to share. :)







Imperial Shrine (Heian Jingu)























On the Imperial Palace grounds in Kyoto














Silver Pavilion grounds

How could I resist snapping this? I hopped off my bike to get a shot of that little carriage (being pulled by a skinny guy in traditional garb *brrrrr*) in front of that Pagoda standing proudly amongst the modern buildings.

Us in front of Ginkaju-ji (the Silver Pavilion)

Look for the rainbow!

The photo album: http://squizneak.myphotoalbum.com/