Home sweet somebody elses home

The next day we agreed that biking was going to be the best way to see all that surrounded us. We set off for a famous bridge a few hours away on old dirt roads surrounded by mountains and farms all along the way. About half way to our destination, that we never found, the rain stopped us in our tracks. We quickly took cover under a roof waiting for the rain to pass.

Surprisingly, an old lady poked her head out of her front door and invited us in to her lovely home. We immediately took her up on her offer and sat on her couch for five minutes smiling and laughing while she spoke Mandarin to us. Once the rain passed, we tried to continue our ride only to leave too early. The rain started again and the sweet lady invited us back in, once agin we stepped back into her house to wait out the rain.

After a few more hours on bikes we finally had our fill of the magnificent beauty and headed back to town for a much needed shower and dinner. We were blessed to have a clay pot restaurant only steps away. This place was unbelievably good and super cheap, we ate there three nights in a row.

Zoom Zoom

Exploring ancient city walls doesn't sound very exciting, but when you can do it on a bike atop the wall it improves the experience 10 fold. While cruising the wall you get an interesting view of a modern China city that is growing at an unbelievable rate. We easily saw 30 skyscrapers being built while on our 1 hour ride. The truly shocking thing is that this is what you see in every city in China. Growth at a rate you can't even imagine. 

Temples, geishas, and gardens oh my

Our last destination in Japan was Kyoto, home of what seemed like thousands of Temples. We hopped on bikes and zipped across the city exploring temple after temple during our first day in town. Stopping for street food, bakeries and even a burger and fries along the way. One temple highlight held 1,001 statues of Buddha all lined up for your to see in one magnificent hall (photos not allowed). Kyoto is also famous for having geishas walk around the streets in between clients. Apparently, it is a rare occurrence when you see one, but on this early Saturday evening, we were lucky enough to see three girls moving about.  That evening we enjoyed our last round of Sake with our lightweight drinking laptop. It only took it a deep cleanse and a 7 day detox to recover. Thanks to the Apple stores genius bar in Beijing for helping us with it's recovery. View the entire gallery here.

While visiting the Japanese garden in Seattle a few years back I was in awe of it's beauty. The garden is quite small but it's packed with perfectly manicured lawns, beautiful ponds, colorful koi fish, bridges leading to more bridges and the always lovely lotuses on display. Knowing the beauty of a japanese garden we were very excited to see one in Japan.

The morning before we left Kyoto we found one near our hostel so we thought it would be a wonderful ending to our whirlwind adventure through Japan. It was a pretty garden, not quite as well executed as the one in Seattle, but it was a nice mellow way to end our final day before flying to China.