Coming Home 11/3/10

We are at the Osaka airport waiting for our flight and they have a free internet service here so I thought I would finish up our Japan story. We went to the local bakery after breakfast to pick up muffins for our train ride and then the group went for a walk with Junko to visit a nearby garden - Shukkeien. Because today was National Culture Day, the garden was free! There were many people in fancy dress (including ladies in kimonos) who came to the tea house to celebrate the day. The garden was lovely - we saw lots of koi fish and turtles in the large pond, many curved and colorful bridges and green trees. We also saw a small garden with green tea bushes growing. They had a wonderful display of chrysanthemums outside of the tea house - quite beautiful! We came back to the hotel to pick up our carry-on bags and walked over to the railway station where we boarded the bullet train to Osaka. We then got on a local train which goes directly to the airport which is located on an island off the coast. We traveled under the two and a half mile car bridge over the water: Inland Sea on one side and Pacific Ocean on the other. We picked up our large baggage at a storage booth and stowed our small bags in the space we had left for that purpose. After checking in, we headed to passport control where we said our final "boo-foo's" to Junko who stood at the window until we had all cleared the x-ray machines. What a doll - she took care of so much for us, we didn't have to think at all about arrangements. She is so good at what she does. We will certainly give her a glowing report when we fill out the survey for OAT. We just looked up the political news on The Day, but the Judge of Probate position hasn't been decided yet as there was no information. We will have to get home to find out if Dean won or not.

Island Hopping 11/2/10

at 9:00 to a nearby garden and then will walk to the train station at 11 to wait for the bullet train to Osaka. There we will ride the airport We didn't walk this morning as we had to leave early for our trip to the islands. John didn't come on the tour as he was having a little tummy trouble and thought it best if he had a slow day. Today was a real transportation mish-mash. We left the hotel at 7:40 by taxicab to be dropped at the bus station. The regular highway bus drove us through the mountains and onto a series of four bridges (one of which is the world's longest cable bridge) onto the islands in the Inland Sea. After getting off the bus on Omishima Island, we were picked up by a jumbo taxi (van) and driven to the Oyamazumi Shrine. This is the shrine of warriors and the sea. We saw two of the oldest camphor trees in Japan. One was 2600 years old and the other 3000 years old. The taxi driver then drove us over a bridge onto Ikuchi Island. Here we visited the IkuoHirayama Museum of Art. He was a native son who went to Hiroshima to study art and survived the bombing of Hiroshima. He spent his life seeking the origin of Japanese culture produce by Buddhism and traveled the Silk Road to sketch the scenery and the people. He traveled and painted along more than 200,000 miles. His art was contemporary, but captured the spirit of the older Japanese paintings. He passed away last year. Our next stop was to the Kosanji Temple. We ate a picnic lunch in the temple courtyard. Junko had brought rice and salmon "sandwiches" wrapped in nori, rolls filled with bean paste, almond cheese crackers (yum), chocolate filled cookies and fresh tangerines (they grow on the islands along with lemons and limes). Kelly brought a package of rice crackers and Lana contributed a box of assorted maple leaf pancakes (from our trip yesterday): chocolate filled, bean paste, green tea, and custard. We truly had a feast! We saw some people from the temple burning tea whisks. Junko said that because the tea service is rather sacred, you don't toss the used items, but bring them to the temple on the appropriate day and they are incinerated by the priests. The temple was founded by Kozo Kosanji. This man lost his father at an early age and his mother single-handedly raised he and his younger brother in the 1890's when being a single mother was rather rare. To thank his mother for her devotion, he built her a lovely villa - just magnificent: lovely painted woodwork and ceilings (see photo), beautiful gardens, lovely wooden floors. Some of the rooms were covered in tatami mats and some of the mats had wonderful Chinese oriental rugs on top of them. Kozo became a Buddhist priest and built the temple to pray for his deceased mother. The temple is patterned after notable temples in Japan. I must say it was the most colorful temple we visited (see photo of temple door). There was a lovely koi (see photo) pond with pink and purple water lilies in it. We walked up the hill above the temple to a garden made of white marble. The views were spectacular from here and the sculpture was quite lovely. On the way back down, Dave, Kelly and I walked through a cave system which runs under the main temple. There were hundreds of Buddhas and a series of paintings on the wall depicting Hell and redemption. We left the temple area and walked down a small shopping street. The town was rather sad as they don't get a lot of visitors except for those who come to the museum and the temple. Many of the stores were shuttered. There were a few food stores with produce and dried octopus (a specialty of the area). We did find a confectioner's store where they sold lemon cookies so, of course, we bought a box. We will bring them on the plane in case we get hungry. We met up at the ferry dock and took a 25 minute ride back to the mainland where we caught a train back to Hiroshima. Dave and I stopped in the food market in the train station to pick up some of the almond cheese crackers for our trip. We got back to the hotel and had about 40 minutes until dinner. We ate in the hotel dining room and had a lovely dinner - without chopsticks! Junko said we have to get used to using forks and knives again because we could be going home tomorrow. Two of the highlights of the dinner were cream of pumpkin soup and concord grape sorbet! Tomorrow is our last day in Japan. We will take a walk with Junko at 9 to a nearby garden and then walk to the train station at 11. We will take the bullet train to Osaka and then the airport limousine to the airport which is on an island. So it will be Sayonara to Japan. We have had a wonderful time and have learned much about the culture and the people. We will miss our new friends, but it surely will feel good to see our old frends and family and sleep in our own bed!

Miyajima 11/1/10

The trio went for a walk this morning, but didn't find anything of interest except the river. We will have to try a different route tomorrow. Today we had a new taste at breakfast - a mug wort roll - green both in color and taste. I'm glad I tried it, but I don't think it will make the top ten list. I chatted with Junko after breakfast about the drinking age as we have seen so many vending machines that dispense beer. She said that the standard age for drinking, smoking and voting in Japan is 20. We also talked about tattoos because I haven't seen any (at least blatant ones) since we arrived here. She said that it is considered a gang symbol so no one does it. We got on a local train today and traveled to a small city on the Inland Sea where we caught a ferry boat to the island of Miyajima. There are only 2000 people living on the island (12 square miles) and they all live near the ferry dock on three short streets. There were deer on the island, but they weren't as persistent as the last ones as the tourists don't feed them. This island is famous for a 50 foot tall Torii gate (see photo) which stands in the water at high tide. We got there at low tide and you could walk out and touch the bottom of the gate, but when we left the island, the tide was rising and the bottom of the gate was in the water. There was a kindergarten class having their picture taken in front of the gate. They were very cute. The Torii gate is in front of the Daisho-In Temple. This was an enormous complex of buildings including a five story pagoda. At one building, we saw a priest giving a blessing of purification to three business men who had come to thank the gods for their success. We were able to spin the prayer wheels as we descended one staircase. We say many statues (some of them quite impish - see photo) and a reclining golden Buddha. We also saw a statue of a Tengu, a winged creature with a long nose, who supposedly possesses supernatural powers. We also saw a statue of a tanuke which is a comic badger figure. Because the island is considered sacred, no one is allowed to die or give birth on the island as both are considered unclean. We figured we would have a very safe day. We saw a highly arched bridge (see photo) that was only open when the emperor's envoy came to visit the temple. He would wear his formal wear and wooden clogs so they would build a staircase on the bridge so he wouldn't slide to the bottom. We then went on a nature walk up the mountain. It was a beautiful day today except for a few brief passing light showers. The walk was lovely and we stopped in a small oyster restaurant for lunch. This island is famous for two food items - one is oysters. In fact, we saw a number of oyster rafts in the sea as we were coming over on the ferry. Lana, John, Dave and I opted out as we are not fond of oysters - so we had other choices. After lunch, we went to have dessert. This is the other famous food item. They are small maple leaf shaped pancakes filled with a variety of things. We chose chocolate and they were served WARM - yum! We could see the whole operation through a glass window. The machine making the waffles was very interesting. In our wanderings, we came across the world's largest rice scoop! I suppose everyone has to have a tourist draw. After poking around on the shopping streets, we headed back to Hiroshima. On the train, there were some primary school children from a private school who were taking the train by themselves because school had let out. I don't think they could have been older than 8. They were very cute, but didn't want their picture taken - very shy. We checked out the shops above the Hiroshima train station and will go out to eat about 6 tonight. Just got back from dinner - we checked out restaurants in the train station and the department store, but Dave had a hankering for beef or at least something where he didn't have to guess what he was eating so we split up and Dave and I went to McDonald's (not my favorite, but it was okay). We will have to find out tomorrow where the others had dinner. We walked down to Seven-Eleven (yes, they have them here, too) on the way back to the hotel to pick up some snacks for the plane ride home. We have a long day tomorrow as we will travel by bus to visit some other islands.