Woo!

Kyoto’s having a snowstorm right now. We’re eating at an Italian restaurant in Kyoto Station because there was a huge line at the elevators to go up to the department store floors with the restaurants. After this, it’ll be time to check in and we have to figure out how to get to the ryokan…

View from the tub

Yeah, it’s kind of a pain to get into, but you can’t beat the view.

Fire!

More about the fire festival n Miyajima Island later, because we’ve gotta run for breakfast shortly, but here’s a photo of young men carrying a flaming torch, as the descriptions of the festival promised.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to you schmoes still in 2014! Sent from my TRS-80

Thief

Sent from my TRS-80

Still cold

But they did eventually set things on fire. Sent from my TRS-80

Cold

Been standing in the rain for an hour at this festival and nobody’s set anything on fire yet. Sent from my TRS-80

On Staying Connected

It goes without saying that we needed a good way to get online during this trip. Getting around, double-checking hotel reservations, and of course posting here all need at least a semi-reliable internet connection. After using a couple £15 burner phones on our UK trip a few years back, we opted to rent iPhones this…