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Mt. Shosha, and the temple district of Engyoji, is a wonderfully peaceful area. The path to the entrance is lined with beautiful, bronze statues. The temples themselves, and the paths between them, are shaded by towering trees. Shosha-san is visited by many spiritual pilgrims throughout the year.

If you’re looking for a more unusual eating experience you’ll find it here – we saw snake, scorpion and larvae skewers on offer. If exotic eats are not your thing there are plenty of other options, including meat, seafood, soup, noodles and fruit.

This restaurant was fantastic. It’s in the Higashiyama district of Kyoto, near Ishbei Koji, a charming cobbled street. We went for lunch and had a choice of four dishes (two dishes per set). Included were a vegetable starter, soup, rice and pickles, and also a small dessert. The price was incredibly reasonable for the quality of food and the service was wonderful. I would highly recommend this restaurant for anyone visiting Kyoto.

I used to work close to St. James’ Park. I always stopped in on my way to work and often had lunch here (well, in Summer anyway!). My absolute favourite thing was watching the birds – the swans, ducks and others – have their babies in spring and then following them as they got older.

Nunobiki Herb Garden is well worth a visit. You catch a cable-car up the mountain and then wind your way down through the lovely gardens to one of the lower cable-car stations. Nice views on the way up and from the top. Would be perfect for a picnic in early summer. Their brochure always brings a smile to my face as the slogan reads ‘have a herb’ :)

Finally gave this restaurant a try while some friends were visiting (I put this on my ‘to try’ list after reading a review in Kansai Scene). The food was absolutely sublime – we enjoyed sushi, grilled fish, and a stunning layered tuna sashimi dish with avocado, amongst other things. Desserts were also wonderful. This place is big (seats 300) and has a mixture of tatami rooms, tables, and counter seating where you can watch some of the chefs work. Billed as nouvelle Japanese cuisine I expected teeny, tiny servings but on the whole they were of a good size and the bill was reasonable.

I’m in Osaka at the moment and have spent nearly five years out of the past seven living here. It’s not really a city to go sightseing in, although there are things to see (the aquarium, the umeda sky building, dotombori bridge, Osaka castle) – but it’s great for eating out! My neighborhood is quite a sterile business district, and the area immediately surrounding our apartment is populated by convenience stores and 24 hour restaurants. A five minute ride up the road though and it’s a different story – there are old shopping arcades and winding, labyrinthine streets. For me this sums up Osaka perfectly – not the prettiest city in the world, but look around and you’re bound to find something interesting.

This is a fantastic little island in the Seto Inland Sea. It’s very sleepy and peaceful. A lot of time was spent just lazing about on the beach, lying in hammocks (thanks Moooo! Bar!) and swimming, but we also went kayaking and on a sailing trip – a first for me and great fun. There are hiking trails on the island too. The island is home to one of Okayama Prefectures five ‘International Villas’ – self-catering accomodation that’s great value for Japan. I’d highly recommend this for anyone living in Japan looking for a quiet break or travellers to Japan looking for something a little different.
For more information on the villas:
http://www.harenet.ne.jp/villa/
For more information on Shiraishi:
http://amychavez.addr.com/is-dtl/tour.html

not that I’m counting. Can’t wait to get out of the city – concrete and humidity are never a nice mix.

This holiday is all organised now! We were lucky enough to get into the international villa there, which is usually booked out over August. There’s apparently not too much to do there – which is exactly what I’m looking forward to – just going to relax on the beach with a good book…