I highly doubt anyone is reading this blog, but at an event recently hosted by my friends at FranklinAvenue.blogspot.com, amid a whole crew of L.A. bloggers and fans, someone brought it up and I thought, damn, I better update that thing, just in case. Needless to say, since that last post, we made it back home from Tokyo and have been through a lot more drama since then.

For a moment though, back to November: I raved and raved about our Japan trip for weeks until people got sick of my spiel. In a word, it was FANTASTIC. Kyoto was a friendly, approachable, somewhat mystical combination of gorgeous, ancient temples and Japanese gardens and a super-modern consumer/shopping/fast-food lifestyle. We stayed at a ryokan, traditional, Japanese style inn, called the Three Sisters Inn Annex, and walked or took the bus all over, from the bamboo forest to Golden Temple to the surreal Path of Philosophy. Kyoto is one of those cities that feels like it exists just for travelers to enjoy it, but it's actually a major center and the former capital of Japan. It was of the only cities that was spared during WWII, and consciously so, due to the efforts of a Western scholar who persuaded the Allies to leave it alone as the preservation of the cultural treasures there would be "good PR." And it was. Tokyo was also spectacular. Sure, it's a big city, but if you can handle NYC or London, Tokyo is similar, but easier in some ways, because the transportation is smooth. We spent 3 days there, 3 days in Kyoto. Can't wait to go back.