Japan

We had an easy start to the day.  We didn’t have to leave for the airport in Hiroshima until 11 am.  Before heading out to our plane, I saw another sign I just had to photograph.  I have no idea what this means. It was a long day.  Our plane back to Tokyo was delayed coming in, and delayed taking off, so we started to sweat a bit about catching our flight back to Toronto.  We finally got to Tokyo and had to switch terminals.  We had very little time to get there, go through security and through passport control.  Then get to our gate.  Yikes! We made it while our plane was boarding.  Whew!  Good job we weren’t any later! We’re now home, safe and sound.  Our first Adventures Abroad trip and, of course, first trip to Japan.

This morning we headed off to the train station by taxi, then hopped on the JR train to Miyajimaguchi (gateway to Miyajima).  From Miyajimaguchi, we boarded a boat to take us to the island.  The island, and the views from the island back to the mainland (which really isn’t mainland because we’re in Japan - which is a bunch of islands), are beautiful. Looking back toward the town. And a little further along. And of part of the island. I posted a picture on Facebook of a selfie with a deer.  Here’s another one at the same spot.  He’s trying to lick me here.  Actually, all it wanted was my map...to eat.  It was hard to get it to stand still for a photo. The main thing we saw here was the Itsukushima Shrine.  It’s the only shrine in Japan actually in the water.  The Torii gate leading to the shrine is also in the water, but it’s under renovation/repair, so we couldn’t see it.  This is what we did see of it. Many smaller buildi...

This morning we were off to the train station.  We packed our belongings and off we went for our last 2 days in Japan. We were getting on the very last car, so we were waiting at the end of the station. Neither of these were our train, but they look likes eels going down the tracks. So we arrived at our hotel.  This was the view from our window.   As we were gathering to go out, we saw wedding photos being taken in the lobby.  Not the traditional Japanese wedding, so they must have been of a Christian faith. We walked down the street to our destination, the Hiroshima Peace Park.  We crossed one of the 6 rivers in this city. This beautiful fountain is set at the street in front of the museum. And this is the museum we visited. The museum is all about this. I don’t even want to keep as a photo much of anything I saw in the museum.  It is heart-wrenching.  Just know that Hiroshima was targeted because...

Today was an easy day...sort of.  The down side is that it was raining pretty good this morning.  The up side is that we had half a day of touring and half a day of our own time with a terrific dinner at night. So we visited Kyoto Castle this morning, also known as Nijo-Jo.  The castle grounds and the castle itself are well-preserved. It is the shogun’s castle with beautiful gates, and inside are well-preserved wall paintings.  Very different from castles as we know them in the western world. We could not take any pictures inside.  The grounds are immaculate, complete with ponds and bridges. And there is a moat, just like we’d see in the western world, complete with koi (well, maybe not them). We took the subway to the castle and back.  We thought this was interesting.  An architectural image of the subway station we were in. So the afternoon was spent with Gerard going down to the hot tub in the hotel, and having a ...

We were off earlier this morning to catch a train from Kyoto to Nara.  It’s essentially a suburb of Kyoto, but is about an hour away by local train.  We made our way via subway to the train station and  stood at the triangle spot on the pavement (yep, things are very organized) to board the train. We arrived and took taxis to our first stop.  By the way, it’s raining today and didn’t stop all day long.  But you make the best of it. On the way, we came across all these deer.  They’re not kidding when they post this sign!   They were everywhere!  I thought initially it was some kind of zoo where the deer roam free, but no, they’re all over the place!  We learned from our guide that the deer are believed to be divine messengers (there’s a whole story about that). So there are rules about deer.  You don’t hit or chase them. You don’t let your dog go after them. But you have to be careful because they coul...