Japan Wins

Why Japan wins:
1. People were nice and friendly, even when you can't speak Japanese. Take the nice bus stop attendant guy who helped us find our hostel - he spoke two English words to us "English" and "North". There was lots of pointing, hand motions, and map drawing - but he was sooooooo nice about it. And we did find our hostel.
2. The hair and fashion. Guys seriously have some awesome hair and fashion sense in Japan. We captured many with our stealth photo taking skills. It was nice to see people being individuals - here in Korea people tend to have the same style.
3. The vending machines. They were everywhere! There were drink vending machines, and beer vending machines, and even cigarette vending machines. Oddly enough we never saw a food vending machine.
4. The food. We had some good food - even though we didn't know what we were ordering half the time. It was an adventure that turned out well, most of the time. And it was nice to have something other than Korean food.

We of course did a lot of sightseeing and temple wandering. These were great as well - except for the gazillion stairs we climbed, and I don't think I'm exaggerating. There was an ill conceived idea to hike to the top of a mountain because on the map we had it didn't look "that far." The map lied - and it was pretty much vertical stairs the whole way up. And it was hot with I think 100% humidity. But these are slight things. We had a great time, walked a lot, and enjoyed being in another country for a short time.

View of Hiroshima with the Atomic Dome on the left

In front of the Shinto Shrine on Miyajima

Evidence of truly epic hair. Later we saw this guy driving a Mercedes with glow in the dark license plate - even more epic.

Sunset on Miyajima

The Golden Pavilion in Kyoto

Kyoto main drag

Fushimi-Inari Shrine. There were LOTS of orange pillars.

More orange pillars

Geisha!

Kiyomizu temple