mybigadventures.com

We've been trying to make the most of the rest of the school holidays before September rolls around so have made a couple more trips out. We visited Buckingham Palace in the first week of September last year, and if you sign the back and keep the tickets, you can revisit as many times as you like within the year. It suggests on the website to book in advance but we thought we'd wing it, and, in a worse case scenario, get tickets for another day. Dani had found some city walks on the TFL website (tfl.gov.uk/modes/walking/top-walking-routes) which looked good so either way we had a plan. As it happened, when we got to the palace we were given tickets for about an hour later, so we decided to wait. 

This time, there was an exhibition celebrating the Queen at 90, so several of the state rooms were set out differently to last year. There were 3 rooms showcasing some of the Queen's many outfits including christening, wedding and coronation dresses, in addition to outfits from several foreign tours. For each outfit, with matching hat, there was a short description of where it had been worn and who had designed it. It was very interesting. 

It was a nice day, although by the late afternoon it was a little cloudy. There's a few photos, but only from the outside as no photography is allowed inside the palace. Not that it stopped some people...grumble grumble... Enjoy!

Wow, how time flies when you're having fun. We've officially been back a month although it seems pretty hard to believe. We've mostly been zipping between Coventry and Sheffield for the last month with a small camping stint in Swansea last week and a couple of weekends in Nottingham. I guess when put like that its easier to see where the time has gone, but it really has flown. We have to go flat/house/small cheap hole hunting in London next week to find something for mid September when my couse is due to start. I think its going to be pretty hard to get used to the prices!! Any recommendations of good areas to live?

In other Welsh news, I was pleased to see the roadworks are still going on, enroute to Swansea including the two cone-a-bouts (perfectly constructed roundabouts including slip lanes made entirely from cones - awesome!) I was however rather dismayed to find carparking in Cardif at 80p per 15 minutes!! Is that the most expensive parking in the UK - or does anyone else know worse? Finally, and probably most importantly, the uplands diner is still in business and serving the most awesome fry up ever!

I think that will have to do for today, there is much to be doing and what not, nobody told me the life of an unemployed layabout bum would be so busy! Cheerio ta ta, I really have no idea if anyone will read this, but here's hoping!

Well we've been here 6 days and I've only just got around to this. It took just over two hours to get here from Odawara station on the bullet train and was fairly straight forward to get to the hotel. We're right next to a metro stop but have only used it a few times as unlike Tokyo, there are only two metro lines so it doesn't cover as much of the city. It's been really hot generally keeping in the mid thirties during the day time which has made walking around a bit of an ordeal but despite that we've got about a lot and even found time to climb a mountain.

The mountain was Fushimi Shrine which is one of the top sights to visit here. It's famous for the thousands of Tori gates that line a trail up and back down a mountain side. We picked what turned out to be one of the warmest days for it but made it all the way to the top managing to see some wild monkeys on the walk back down which was fantastic. 

We've also seen a lot of temples and shrines around the city and some spectacular pagodas. It's not far stretch to say there's a shrine or temple in every district and more often than not more than one. We're on the move again tomorrow heading for Osaka which is only a short distance away, but I'll try and come back and add a little more detail about Kyoto if I get a chance. In the meantime check out the album, linked below!