The Festival of Lights

every day in every way Japan delights us more and more...

After obligatory temple hopping in the morning we have spent our last night in Kyoto at the Kyoto Hana Touro - not sure what is all about but we call it the festival of lights. The whole downtown area of old Kyoto has been lit by million lanterns and all sorts of weird lamps. One of our favourite parts was the little stream in the Maruyama Park where about 1,000 bamboo lanterns have been aranged along the stream to create the fantasy of light and romance. All this has been done as a reflection of Kyoto's fasinating 1,200 years of history and culture.
It's really difficult to describe how tranquil, delightful and painfully beautiful the little carefully lit zen gardens are in the spring moonlit evening so we took about 1 million photos. All is to be revealed soon.

We ended the evening at the most popular ramen joint in Kyoto where waiters wear white wellies and all you can order is small, medium or large. Lucky for us we walked straight in but by the time we left the place the queue was around the corner.

We have left Kyoto now and are getting badly lost in Osaka.

We are very very sad to be leaving Japan tomorrow and we really hope to return one day soon but the healing powers of New Zealand awaits us - after a short 3 day break in Hong Kong.