5/19-21 Monday-Wednesday:
More schoolwork... not much else to talk about...
5/22 Thursday:
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| From Japan: Day 052 |
Miedo Gate at Higashi Honganji
Another class trip today. This time it was to Higashi Honganji, one of the big temples nearest to Kyoto station. Unfortunately the main building was under repair (until 2011), so I don't have a nice picture of the main building, although I did get some pictures from the inside. The main gate should give you some idea as to how the main building would look. A couple of pictures of Kyoto tower in the near distance. Plus some pictures of interesting things like a coil of thick hair rope (kinda hard to see though) and some kind of theater that kept repeating a video about Budism in Japan (or something).
5/23 Friday:
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| From Japan: Day 053 |
Atomic Bomb Dome at Hiroshima.
Over 390 pictures! The most I have taken so far in one day (and probably will ever take). Today was the start of the long weekend, mostly paid for by Bing! First stop: Hiroshima. We, of course, took the Shinkansen. I took some pictures of our group on the train, pictures of people taking pictures of each other, pictures of people taking pictures of people taking pictures of each other... yeah, ok, we got goofy. Anyway, we arrived at the station in Hiroshima and unloaded our bags (to be sent to our hotel in Miyajima). A couple of people started playing patty-cake-like games... don't ask me why. I saw a cute little waypost sign indicating the directions and distance to London, New York, Sydney, and the cafe. We got lunch at a nearby building that had a floor full of okonomiyaki (which Hiroshima is famous for) shops. We eventually chose one of the shops and I got a soba/meat-filled one... it was soo big I couldn't finish it >_<. We then all got on a bus and went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Finally a museum I could take pictures in (although not with flash). So I took a lot of pictures there. Somewhat similar to the museum in Nagasaki, but many people thought that this one was done better. After the museum we took the bus to a boat that took us to Miyajima (aka Itsukushima). At the ferry dock I took some pictures of the chestnut stand and the frozen yogurt (with edible scoop) I bought there. On the boat ride we could see the Otorii (torii on water) so I tried to take a couple of pictures. We then took a minibus to our hotel. This hotel was more like a Ryokan (Japanese-style hotel) with sliding paper doors and tatami floors but still had a couple of western-style beds along with the futons that you can use to sleep on the floor. We had some time before dinner so we walked around some. We saw some deer (which are everywhere) who would gladly eat anything you gave them... including paper... I also saw a cat and a Tanuki (and no, a Tanuki is not a Racoon, nor a Badger, nor a Dog, it is a Racoon Dog... whatever that means...). The tide was out so we could walk right up to the Otorii (I got some good pictures). We did some more walking around, saw more deer, some shops (including a wooden-spoon shop) as well as the world's largest wooden spoon (I think...). It's a little hard to see, but I took a picture of some lady who was feeding a bunch of cats and a Tanuki. We then went back to the hotel and went to the onsen there. After that we had a traditional multi-course Japanese dinner (Kaiseki), although it was VERY uncomfortable to sit and there really wasn't anything I could stand to eat. After eating a bit, some of the students provided entertainment through traditional dances, magic (ok, that was actually a teacher's daughter), kendo, and random dancing... Last is a picture of me in my Yukata.
5/24 Saturday:
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| From Japan: Day 054 |
Otorii at Itsukushima Shrine.
Today we started with a traditional Japanese breakfast... again I didn't eat much of that. Then we started our tour of Miyajima, in the rain (I hate rain). Fist stop was the Goju-no-to Pagoda. Then we went to the Itsukushima Shrine where we saw a traditional Japanese wedding group walk through the shrine to get their picture taken there (I also got a blurry shot of a cute little kid who wanted in the picture). There was also a traditional Noh stage there. After the shrine, everyone was free to do whatever they wanted, so I went with three other people to Matsuyama (since it seemed interesting and I had nothing better to do). We took a boat back to the mainland and then took another boat (which took a few hours) to someplace on the west coast of Shikoku where we took a train to Matsuyama. We got there kinda late so we didn't really have much time to do stuff. We dropped our stuff off at the Youth Hostel we were staying at, did a little walking around of the main shopping arcade downtown, had dinner, and went back. Nothing too exciting (besides the Ghibli goods shop we discovered, I'll have a picture tomorrow).
5/25 Sunday:
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| From Japan: Day 055 |
Beautiful Matsuyama Castle.
Today was probably the best day of the trip. First we went to the Dogo Onsen , the oldest and most famous Onsen in Japan. From there we stopped by the Ghibli goods shop again (I took some pictures this time), where I bought some new friends (I'll have pictures later). From there we went to Matsuyama Castle. In order to get up to the castle we took a little single-seat ski-lift-like lift up to the castle. The castle and the view was amazing. I got a lot of pictures inside and outside the castle. After the castle we decided we wanted to save some money and took the slower train (not shinkansen) back to Kyoto (getting some beautiful views from the train travelling between Shikoku and the main island of Japan). We also had a short stop at Okayama on the way to Kyoto.
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