Day 22 – Osaka to Kyoto

Having caught an early train to Kyoto I dump my bags at the hotel and visit the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest. This took longer than expected as Ciara was in charge of map reading, the first train took us an incredible distance in the wrong direction, the second train (to get back to where we started) only a short distance in the wrong direction.

Relinquishing Ciara of duties we arrived at the forest where closely knit bamboo trees tower into the air, knocking against each other, causing mysterious eerie echoes throughout the area – if it hadn't been for the swarms of dumpling sellers and tourists it would have been very, very spooky indeed. There were no crouching tigers or hidden dragons – although admittedly they could have been very well hidden

In the evening I discovered the finest  Chu-Hi (flavoured alcohol) drink I have tasted since arriving. I am not exactly sure what it was, but it was close enough to whisky that a Scotsman would buy one (well, steal one) with just enough of a kick of ginger to make the whisky drinkable.

I have no idea what is was called either as the writing on the can was entirely in Japanese, however, I was impressed enough by the amusing cartoon character that featured on the can to splash out the required £1.20. 

Japanese designers seem to love a cartoon character, a huge amount of advertising and packaging feature them. I particularly like the illustrations used on alcohol packaging as it is stupidly banned in England (as it's seen to be promoting drinking to children) a policy which has proved such a fantastic deterrent to underage drinking. 

What, Eh? Oh.