To reiterate what Bailey said, after a looong day of travel (Thurs-Friday), I finally arrived in Kyoto and was greeted by a familiar face at the bus stop! Nella picked me up and we wandered around her little neighbourhood to get soup and dumplings before bed time. The next morning was early and we took the 7:30am bullet train to Tokyo (300 km/hour) getting us there in 2 hours instead of 10 hours by car.
Reunited!!
Needless to say I was tired and somewhat ill due to the travel and dehydration etc. We walked around Tokyo for a few hours, window shopped like madwomen and got to our lovely hostel for a nap around 3pm. Waking up after that I felt like a new woman and we wandered over to the beautiful Sensoji temple / market place area where I got a sweet fortune basically saying I’m gonna have an awesome life (woo! So far so good) and also I got to try taiyaki (a fish shaped pastry).
My half eaten taiyaki
We got some boba and then went back to our neck of the woods where we stopped at a karaoke building (several floors)
Listen if you dare… karaoke is a BIG thing here and several places were totally full before we found one we could get into.
Currently in the more populated area of Tokyo with lots of cool shops! We bought some pinky rings and feel pretty cool about ourselves but will feel even cooler once we play with hedgehogs at the hedgehog cafe!! More to come on that. So far a great start to the Japan portion of the trip. 
Nella is my translating saviour (literally), making sure there is no ebi to kani to robusta in my meals. Didn’t stop her from getting near me in this kani hat though.
Sayonara for now!
Amherst Amies 