Japan – Kyoto
All in all, I can probably safely say that Kyoto was all of our favorite city in Japan. Tons of culture, friendly people, loads of stuff to do, endless shopping, cafes and restaurants and Astro Boy:
One of the things we enjoyed most about Kyoto was breakfast that was served up by the little cafe at the guest house:
Coffee and thick white toast with honey. It was super. Kyoto also happened to be the first city we were in where we actually managed to find a sushi restaurant. Overall, I would say that there are probably more sushi restaurants in the downtown Vancouver core then there are in all of Japan 
- a shot of Carly enjoying her time at the revolving sushi place we found (the sushi revolved, not the restaurant)
Carly and Krista also attended a traditional tea ceremony while in Kyoto, here's a shot of Carly happily stirring, or mixing, or whisking... or whatever it is they do.
There was also a great restaurant we ate at where we got to BBQ our food at our table. Yes, what you see below is a large stack of different beef cuts, of which I devoured pretty much the entire thing.
Running through Kyoto is a nice river to walk along, we stayed about 2 blocks away from the river. Just on the other side there is a cafe called 'efish', which is owned by Shin Nishibori, who's a quite famous designer working for Apple Computer. We went there for some coffee's one night, and had a great time. The place screamed of design, and had great ambience.
Kyoto is packed with more temples than you can possibly count, and we didn't go to any of them. I guess we were mostly just busy with other stuff, or we got templed out on our previous journeys through SE Asia. At any rate, below are some amazing paintings (circa 1600) that are currently part of an art preservation and restoration project in Nijo Castle. And a few shots from inside Nijo castle as well.
There were starbucks everywhere, and we visited quite a number of them. What was interesting to me was that their special beverages (latte, americano, etc.) were all priced about the same as they would be in Canada (exchange rates taken into consideration). But straight up brewed coffee was approximately double the price. Odd.
Yes. Our packs were heavy. And it was hard to hug. 
All in all, we had an amazing time in Kyoto, and I would love to go back someday and spend a few weeks just in the city itself. Maybe one day.
