Business Hotel Hakutenko Kochi

... together and ended up all taking the stairs the last bit up, which, by this time, was not easy.

Finally at the top of the second highest point, Misen at 1974m, we all stopped for some much needed rest and food. Interestingly enough, right up on the top at 1974m, there was a temple, an inn and a restaurant. Very strange.

Despite the chains being ice cold, nearly vertical and quite high, you felt relatively secure, nestled in against the cliff, surrounded ...

... concert at the castle, which I dragged myself out to see. Thankfully the rain had ceased and the castle was really lit up with lights and decorations. Caught some traditional kata music and there was a Shinto play at the top of the castle. It looked like an entire family participated, banging drums, dancing and bowing. There was a teenager who was spinning like a dervish with a tray of rice, which surprisingly he kept from flying off ...

... mentre fuori diluviava. E prima di arrivare li sono stata in un onsen con vasca all'aperto vista fiume, e pioggia. Un tantino stile decadente e malinconico come panorama, ma bellissimo. Ora sono diretta a Muroto misaki, il capo a sud di Shikoku. volo a prendere il treno. Baci a tutti!

Primo traghetto che personalmente a me da una particolare libidine caricarci la moto e navigare per mare ogni tanto. Fiondo nell' isola di Shikoku , l' isola di un pellegrinaggio Zen da 1500 km attraverso 88 templi . Io la taglio a meta' naturalmente per montagne e dormo a Kochi altra citta' di mare e naruralmente si cena a base di sushi freschissimo . Sto viaggiando un po in fretta un mio amico a Shizuoka mi ha invitato ad andare ad Iwata a visitare la fabbrica della Yamaha .Potevo dire di no?

brianne made the mistake of NOT coming home and sitting right down to enter these details.... so now she barely recalls them :( ~but to make a long story short.... my friend shannon copp (a shiga JET) invited myself and two other shiga JETs (Nan, and Anna) to ...

In Hiroshima I visited the famous or infamous Atomic Dome(ground zero August 1945)and learned a lot of interesting details. The first atomic bomb was detonated at 600 meters above the city to maximize its lethal potential. It resulted in over 140,000 deaths including 14,000 Koreans who were forced in to ...

... of Mac and Yuri and the art of mime. We swapped numbers at the end of the night and she promised to come and visit me in Kobe. Went to bed that night ****** and now very trusting in the kindness of strangers. 5. PEACE MEMORIAL PARK On day two I headed straight to the Peace Memorial Park, which is home to the Peace Memorial Museum and many monuments dedicated to the lives lost in the world's first atomic bomb attack, dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Was keen to ...

... of the grocery store parking lots and made our way over to the shrines. Brian talked to one of the shrine pullers, and he mentioned that the main event had already happened 2 hours prior, of which I forget, but he also mentioned that they would be pulling the Danjiri into the river the next day, which was supposed to be pretty spectacular. Dammit. We got our closer look, watched the last of them leave, and got back in ...

... Taeko-san and her husband, and returned to the dizzying shinkansen of Honshu to head south. Stopped off for a few hours in Hiroshima to see the memorials. I'm now in Nagasaki, my final spot in Japan, and both cities are as you'd expect - modern normal places that look like all the other places I've seen, but thought-provoking. I'll try to post a brief entry about them and about byzantine slipper rules before leaving Japan. Cheers to you all.

... We were led into the pit fighting ring, where it was surrounded by posters of fighting dogs, banners, and other religious paraphenalia. I'm guessing that like sumo, dog fighting has some ties to the Shinto religion. I guess it mimics the sumo in more ways than just the rankings. See pics to see the ring. They first announced the yokozuna dog - they brought him out and dressed him up in all his aproned glory (these are the similar aprons that the sumo wrestlers wear when they come ...