Summer holidays this year were a quick trip to Japan to show off the newest member of the family. The flight over was as trying as I'd feared - absolutely impossible to watch a movie or sleep when there's a crying child nearby, and especially when that crying child is yours. Air France didn't help though - rubbish service to go along with their rubbish food. The cold indifference of airport security staff was worse than all of them though. In Japan, despite being the so-called "rainy season" it was actually an even 35 degrees the entire time and really humid. The kind of weather where you just sit on the ground staring into space, sweating. It was too hot to do anything much other than loiter in convenience stores, abusing their air conditioning and looking for new exciting Pepsi flavours or Happoshu brands. I did get to have a look at the now tallest skyscraper in Japan (not including the sky tree) and had a quick trip to a Kyoto shrine, thankfully cool under the maple leaves).

We've arrived in Japan in time for a spot of Koyo, when all the Japanese maples turn every shade of red and people go to view them as a national past time. Like its springtime counterpart for cherry blossoms, it can get pretty crowed. Especially on this public holiday, when everyone seemed to have the same idea as us to go to Arashiyama in Kyoto. On another weekend in Kyoto with some friends we did a spot more, going up into the hills behind the city to Kurama. It also afforded us a proper look around that I never really got before. With its universities and tourist attractions it's immediately a more accessible feeling city and also fairly flat, making it easy on the foot or bicycle. Though it looks from a distance as oppressively concrete encased as any other Japanese city, there are tonnes of tiny out of the way places that make up for it, and you could spend all day just taking photos of evocative restaurant entrances.