Breakfast at Tully’s - Peace Park and Museum - lots of time on four (!) trains to commit oneself to working for world peace - a sobering day, indeed ....
This time around, I decided to use my iPhone to record and edit a brief daily video of our activities during each of our eleven days here in Japan. My first entry was shot during our three hour layover at the brand new, just recently opened, Inchon International Airport outside Seoul, South Korea. The second catches highlights of our Sunday visits to sites in nearby Osaka while Heidi and I await the late evening arrival at Kansai International Airport of the remaining six family members joining us on this adventure. The cherry blossoms were nearing their peak at Sakuranomiya, a famous riverside promenade known for its seasonal splendor, and visible, too, at Shitennoji, Japan’s oldest Buddhist temple, within the vast complex dating back to the third century. We took the opportunity to work out the kinks in my travel smarts and managed to get all the way back “home” again with only a minor mishap or two! ... and on a bright, sunny day to boot. Looks like we...
Fifty-three years ago to the day, Heidi and Lee were married at Christ Church in Bangkok by the Reverend John Ironsides. It really took! We came to Japan on our honeymoon, and now we find ourselves here yet again - this time with a son, daughter-in-law, great family friend, and three grandchildren in tow. Quite amazing, especially when considering there are still another eight relations back home in the United States! The run up to our three nights in Tokyo enabled the grandparents to let the “youngsters” go off on their own. They shopped along Takeshita-dori, stopped in at a cat cafe, subwayed out to Nakano Broadway for a bit of roller bar sushi and to take in all the local anime, manga and video game stores in the area. Heidi and Lee, meanwhile, sauntered down Kagurazaka, an upscale tree-lined street, stopping for lunch at Paul, the city’s best French bakery. The neighborhood also houses narrow alleyways lined with exclusive restaurants, often fronte...
Our intrepid group of travelers visited two contrasting worlds on Thursday, both within five miles of one another, one urban, the other rural. We first strolled through Takayama’s designated historic district, dominated by three streets of preserved tradional urban shop-residence facades running parallel to the adjacent river. Most of the interiors have been remodeled into contemporary shops and restaurants, making for a great interaction between commerce on the one hand and historic cityscape preservation efforts on the other. The warm, sunny weather added to the ambiance. Heidi even shopped a bit as we wandered about the town. In the afternoon we bused to the outskirts to Hida no Sato, a beautifully sited and arranged selection of authentic traditional residences representative of the various architectural styles of traditional Japanese rural life in the Japan Alps. The variety is ascribed to climate variation from region to region - steeply patched roofs i...
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