Today we said goodbye to Tokyo, and jumped aboard a Shinkansen. Man, those things are FAST! It took us around 3 hours to travel almost 500km, including 4 stops. It was impossible to focus on anything closer than a couple hundred meters, because it just flew past so quickly!
They're also really long. There were 16 carriages on the one we were on, each sitting around 30 rows of seats. It was incredible just how big, and fast they were! And they left every few minutes!!
We finally got to see Mt Fuji though, covered in a little bit of cloud, but no less majestic! It was pretty cool seeing the city speed away and be left with huge, rolling hills.
The video below was shot at 400fps (so it's showing about 16x slower than it was) and you can see the electricity poles just wizzing past still.
When we arrived in Kyoto, we had a bit of a wander around, and it turns out our accommodation in right in the Geisha district! Day 1 here, and we have already seen about a dozen girls all dressed up. This group even let us have a photo with them.
Kyoto seems to be somewhat odd so far though, as in our wanders, we came across a whole shopping centre that went on for blocks, and within it, were heaps of temples. They looked as though they had just been slowly encroached on, just built around by discount shoe shops and burger places.
I'm sure the rest of the city is different though, as already the hills surrounding the city, and the traditional buildings are winning me over. The tiny alleyways seem like they would take years to properly explore!
Tomorrow, Bamboo Grove and hopefully monkeys! xx