Japan

They have a spray in the hotel room.  Love the translation. There are thousands of temples and shrines in Kyoto.  Apparently, it was spared during WWII because of this.  Well, today we visited 6 of them, including some of the most famous here. Gotta love signs. The first one was called the Daitoku-ji Temple.  It was very serene (hardly anyone around).  They meditate at the Zen rock garden.  Zen is a part of Buddhism that practices equanimity and awareness. Christianity was introduced in Japan by the same Spanish jesuits as worked on converting our own native people.  But it was banned and people suffered a horrible fate if they worshipped Christ.  This rock garden at the same place shows the rocks in the formation of a cross.  It had to be very subtle things like this.  The rocks form a shape of the cross (the right side is hidden by the hedge). The next one was called the Ryoan-ji Temple.  Same kind of thing, but...

This morning started out the same as yesterday, but we headed to the train station instead.  It was raining pretty good when we woke up, but then cleared up to the point where the sun came out just in time to get onto the train. ALASTAIR A little about our guide, Alastair.  He was born and raised in Peterborough, Ontario, and lived in the beaches area of Scarborough for a while.  He currently lives in Greece on an island near Mykonos with his partner.  He’s done many trips over the last 25 years.  He took a bit of time off, but is back at it again.  A wonderful way to travel and see the world without costing anything!  But it’s not an easy job.  He speaks 8 languages fluently plus 1 or 2 sort of.  A wonderful person. So off we went back to Nagoya to catch the train to Kyoto.  The colours are starting to come out in the trees here.  A little later than us. The Japanese are very organized.  This is how to shop in the tr...

Today was a walking tour of Takayama with a couple of museums in the mix.  Takayama was an important lumber distributing area. There is a an outdoor market along the river we visited first. It was just fun to stroll along and look at the different things they had for sale.  This is very much an agricultural area, so there were lots of fresh vegetables and things like that too. This photo is from a liquor store.  Of course, that’s sake in those little barrels.  They had big barrels inside too.  I don’t think I could take those on the plane in my carry-on. Loved this sign. Next we went up a small street and there’s a Japanese home formerly owned by a wealthy merchant called the Kusakabe Heritage House.  You get an idea of the style of the house.  Mostly dark, but it surrounds gardens.  And of course they have their shrine within the house as well. Lots of toriis (gateways) to Shinto shrines everywhere you go — large and small. ...

This morning we had a fairly leisurely time.  We had to get up early for breakfast, but we weren’t leaving until 10 am. This was the view from our window, and there was a person hang-gliding too.  Well, not hang-gliding exactly because there was a motor.  Whatever that’s called.   I went out for a walk behind our hotel.  It was a residential area, but a very steep hill to get around.  For those people who don’t like driving standard, you sure wouldn’t want to be driving one here! We boarded the bus, the You Bus, to go back to Oganawa to catch the train to Nagoya and then change trains to Takayama.  Well, it wasn’t the Lucky Bus, but it’ll do. So we hung around train stations for quite a while today.  But...it’s better than airports.  We make the best of our time. You can buy food and drinks at kiosks between the tracks and they do it by dispensing tickets in a vending machine.  You then present them to the cook behind t...