Miyajima Island on Wikipedia: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itsukushima On December 31st, we spent the afternoon and early evening on Miyajima (“Shrine Island,” a nickname for Itsukushima, its name) because they have a fire-prevention ceremony in which people set giant torches on fire and parade them up and down the seafront. Sorry to say, there are no pictures of…

There’s this service called Bubbli (at bubb.li) that allows you to use your iDevice to capture your surroundings in a 360° bubble that you can then move around too look at. I just tested it out on the main room of the hanare (guest house) that we’re staying in in Arashiyama, a suburb of Kyoto….

Eating New Year’s breakfast at the ryokan. And the food just won’t. stop. coming. There’s also a New Year’s liquor, which may just be plum wine. I don’t think I’ve ever indulged this early in the morning. Sent from my TRS-80

The snow is falling heavily, and the taxi had to wend its way through tiny streets into the heart of Gion, the old quarter of Kyoto, but we made it. The place is exquisite, and snow makes it more so.

Central time, at least. Happy New Year, slowpokes! Sent from my TRS-80

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…

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

From our hotel room – snow!