I am feeling a little over-indulgent with my travel of late, with not so much a ‘Carbon Footprint’, as treading my big, muddy carbon boots across the carpet and into the living room. Indeed, checking my Dopplr record, I have clocked up 3200 kg of CO2 since June. Ouch.

Cute as a button

Anyway, I popped over to Kyoto last weekend to meet up with one my best friends from my university days in Glasgow, Robbie, and his fiancé Imke. They were there at a Neuroscience conference – flying in from Germany – where Robbie was learning about some of the recent developments in the field. It’s not exactly brain surgery, as far as I can ascertain.

It’s my third trip to Kyoto, but it is not too much of a hardship to return. We focused on eating some good food, a wee little bit of hiking, and checking out some of the areas of the city that I had not been able to check out previously. I have a feeling that you could be there for a month and still not run out of interesting things to see.

Luverly textures and pillars and depth of field

Stairway to heaven

Reflecting.

Studying the largest bell in Kyoto. Or Japan. Probably.

Busman’s holiday

Hiking

Obligatory mirror shot

Kyoto from afar – good to get out of the city

Stumbled upon a rather nice little village of thatched houses

Reminds me of my local pub!

Sunshine of my life.

Political posters – Japan style.

Kyoto is famous for its humid and hot summer weather, but we managed to mix in a little light rain, which cooled things down nicely. Still, the drinks vending machines took a pounding, and we had some kind of magnetic attraction to the Starbucks Frappuccinos, that seemed to line the routes of the streets. We did manage to pack in some temple action, interspersed with time spent in the Pachinko and video parlours, and some rather embarrassing results from the photo machines. One for the best man’s speech, perhaps.

The drumming game – after two nights of waiting for people to stop using it, we finally had our time!

Girls at play.

Adjusting the artwork

And a present for Nikki in Goettingen – we could not resist opening it, after one last bottle of Shochu.

Cheers Robbie – hope to see you out this way again soon!