Ah, Christmas Eve. Such a festive time at home, such a capitalist time in Japan.

Today, Emily, Keiko and I went to Kyoto. We met Keiko at Nishishimmachi Station at 9:00am, and arrived in Kyoto at approximately 11:00am. We had some *sketchy* breakfast. (Toast and salad were good, the eggs were pureed or something.) We decided to cab it to Kiyozumi, a beautiful temple where Emily and Keiko (and I!) took tons and tons of photos. The shops were also great in the area, with narrow streets winding up the hill toward the mountain. Lit some incense, took a look around. EVERYTHING in this country is about couples. There was a whole area dedicated to this love stone gimic. Two grey stone, about knee-height, with chains on them, and you were supposed to walk between them with your eyes closed. If you came to no harm, then you'd have luck in love. (This might be easy on a quiet day, but it was a Saturday, and Christmas in Japan is couples' day anyways, so the place was literally teeming with sickenly cute Japanese couples, so walking between two rocks would be damn near impossible!)

Had some odd little delicious tofu doughnuts before hopping a cab to our next destination: lunch. We ended up eating at a small French restaurant that the cabbie recommended. Cabs here are quite nifty. The drivers are uber professional, sporting caps and white gloves, and you never have to touch the doors. Wicked. Food was good at the French spot.

We then went to the Golden shrine thing. Hmmm the name escapes me at the moment; I will have to update this later. It was beautiful, but it was pretty cold up there. I was under the *misguided* impression that the temperature in this region doesn't drop below zero. The sad truth is that I've come to Japan in a year when all sorts of records are being broken for the lowest temperatures ever. (No global warming? Think again, Bush. Someone needs to give you a good swift kick upside the head, or have you pay a few visits to the remnants of New Orleans.)

We decided to go to our hotel next, to drop off my bags, as I was exhausted. Palace Side Hotel was, of course, next to the Imperial Palace. Pretty decent hotel, given I had low expectations. Sleeping in a bed felt SO good. I missed it so much. Anyways, we decided to go to the Daimaru main shopping area and found a small Nepalese restaurant, and had some excellent curry on Christmas Eve.

Keiko had to leave at that point, but Emily walked around and shopped until about 8ish, when vendors starting closing up shop for the night. Then we cabbed it back to the hotel and went to sleep. Merry Christmas.