The Last few days we stayed at a hostel in Kyoto called "The Izumi House" - which worked out great because we each got our own tiny room (smaller than my bathroom at home, but lovely nontheless). I don't think it is on any of the hostel sites because no one there really speaks English; a Japanese friend from our last farm helped us find and book it. Originally we were going to only spend two nights there, but it was so cheap compared to everywhere else (roughly $15 a night) that we decided to stay and take day trips to Nara and Hiroshima. One downside of the hostel was that there was no shower - which meant that we got to go to a public bath... again. It's a bit odd having to pay a little over $4 to take a shower, but I guess it's better than nothing. Our bath experience in Kyoto was a bit different than in Suzaka because there were about 15 women in there with us, all of which were probably over 60. One woman seemed pissed because (we think from her body language) that we were supposed to shower before getting into the bath - so that was a little awkward. Yuka didn't do that in Suzaka so we had no idea. Most of the other women were pretty nice though, trying to help us find privacy towels and urging use to use buckets to wash ourselves in addition to just sitting in front of our showers and mirrors.

Once clean, our first night in Kyoto was amazing. We went to a place we found in Lonely Planet called "A Bar" for dinner. It took us about 45 minutes to find, but was completely worth it. Very comfortable, relaxed place with a really good energy (and good food). We made a bunch of friends there which was fun, and then we went to a kareoke place with two of then, Kei and Masa. We had our own little room which made me think of Lost In Translation; it was great. The Japanese certainly take their kareoke seriously. The nest day we went to the Nishiki Market in Kyoto, which had a lot of food and random other things, including the most beautiful candy I have ever seen. On a side note: I am absolutely going to get a cavity while I am here. Never in my life have I eaten so much candy - I didn't think I even liked candy that much. Everything here is just so interesting and packaged in a cool way. Anyway, we then visited the Kurama-dera temple which took forever to get to, but was really beautiful. On the train ride back into the city it was night time and for a few minutes they turned off all the lights (which made me panic at first) so we could see the fall foliage, which was underlit and stunning. The rest of the time in Kyoto centered around seeing temples/shrines and food. We spent a day walking around Southern Higashiyma, seeing Kiyomizu-dera, the Kodaiji temple and some others. The Fushimi-Inari shrine was also really incredible - it has hundreds of bright red columns/gates lining paths all over the site. We ran into some English boys in a park that we had met briefly in the train station the previous day and decided to meet up for a drink later that night. We went to an Irish pub where we met some other Americans and the Brits, and later went to kareoke again with the Brits (more fun with the Japanese).

We took a day trip to Nara and visited the deer park and a bunch of temples and shrines. We got a free guide at the train station which was really helpful - we saw a lots of places we would have missed otherwise. It was also nice being able to ask him questions. Oh! There I saw the largest bronze statue in the world (or at least that's what the guide said) of an enormous Buddha - it was so huge and cool! I also looooooved being able to pet and feed hundreds of deer. When you feed the deer you are supposed to hold the deer biscuts above their heads until they nod three times. So basically even the deer in Japan are polite. We decided to eat in Nara and found a really cheap place that specialized in fried pork... I had fried chicken and was so happy - they even had tobasco!

The following day we went to Hiroshima which was really interesting. I still don't think I can really fully grasp what happened there. However, actually being in that place and walking around was a neat experience. We walked through the park and saw the various memorials and then went to the museum and spent about three hours there. It was incredibly sad and even a bit eerie. Swiching gears, it was also Thanksgiving (well actually it was the day before, but this was when our friends and families were celebrating), so we went back to A Bar because we liked it there and it felt comfortable. Here we had another great meal and mostly talked to two brittish men who were here teaching English, and a Spanish man with his (much younger) Japanese girlfriend. They were all great and we had a lot of fun - the Brits were just in Southeast Asia so we got some travel tips from them.

Last night we got into Osaka and we are staying at the Peace House Showa hostel. It's small (like everything in Japan) but very homey and nice. Our room has three bunkbeds (so we are 3 of 6 people in there) and that takes up about all of the space.... I'm sleeping with my huge backpacking backpack next to me on my little top bunk. It's not actually not terrible, but someone was snoring soooooo loud last night. Regardless, at least I got to take a shower standing up and by myself (we tried to go to the bathhouse in Kyoto again the other night but got there too late and it was closed, so we hadn't bathed in about 4 days and have been walking and sweating a lot.... it was definitely time). We met another Brittish boy who was staying at our hostel and went with him to a little "bar" down the street. Really it was the size of a closet with plastic flaps as doors. The four of us plus the two homeless men there and the bartender really pushed the occupancy limit. I guess this new friend had been there the night before and ended up going out to dinner and bars with the bartender.... we only stayed about 30 minutes and decided it was time for dinner. Oh, and one thing that this hostel did not put on its website is that it is 3 blocks from the area's equivalent of a red light district (not that it would have mattered, it is the cheapest place we could find). Here, a few blocks are filled with tiny storefronts each containing one young girl, sitting and smiling in the center of the room looking much like a doll, and an old lady sitting on the side who I assum handles the money. As you walk down the street the girls on display get a little older, and a little uglier.

Today we went to the aquarium in Osaka - it was a little bit of a stretch for our bank accounts right now ($20) but it was certainly worth it. There were two whale sharks and lots of other sharks in a huge tank in the center of the building, and 8 floors of other marine life (and some birds and mammals). I absolutely loved it, and took about a million pictures.... will post some soon. Like a very small child, I literally regularly sat on the ground with both hands pressed to the glass and my nose about an inch from it. Christmas music was playing most of the time which was a bit bizarre, and at one point a scuba diver in a santa clause wet suit/costume was in the shark tank waving at people... that was odd. We spent about 4.5 hours there, and by the time we left it was dark out. We also kind of lost Ashley for a while but found her eventually. Tomorrow we are going to Kobe for the night and the following morning we are going to our second farm. I'm really excited to eat some Kobe beef, and also want to see some of the cows and maybe pet one.