Time to move on from Fukuoka where we could have spent more time to further explore Kyushu - more ideas for the future. Next stop on the schedule is Hiroshima, another city neither Nobue or I have visited. Exploring the memories that still linger there is top of mind going there.
Hiroshima is a short hour and 30 minute Shinkansen ride from Hakata station in Fukuoka.
After the Atomic Dome, probably the most visited site around Hiroshima is the ancient shrine, Itsukushima Jinja, with it's huge off-shore bright orange Torii (gate). It takes about 30 minutes by what is essentially a commuter train and a short ferry ride to the island.
Sitting in Narita with hours to kill, I thought I'd try to get one more post out. I'm way behind, but I decided it is time to give my audience what they really want, some FOOD PORN...
Travel to Osaka was a short Shinkansen hop from Hiroshima. The trip was made to feel longer by the accumulated exhaustion catching up to us after a week of ambitious tourism and lots of walking in not always gentle terrains. Our energy level results in not much tourism stuff and fewer pictures.
We had a day to do more wandering in Osaka before heading off to Sapporo. Marie' was off to Kyoto to visit friends and we tried to figure out what we might want to see in Osaka without too much work. The couple of things that popped up were the Tsutenkaku Tower, the Osaka equivalent to Tokyo Tower, sort of, and Dotonbori, the riverside food/tourist district. Off we went...
As I wrote before, Osaka is a good place for side trips. Since we've been to Kyoto and Nara many times, we decided to go to Kobe where we've never been.
Hakodate is the Hokkaido city that we've most visited. Past visits were mostly in the snow, flying up from Tokyo to cross country ski and wander the city in the snow. It is far more interesting and historical than Sapporo - more like Otaru, but bigger. The city has built up the historic areas directly focusing on tourism, both foreign and domestic.
About a half-hour train ride from Sapporo, Otaru is a popular side trip for tourists (both Japanese and foreign). It is most famous for 3 things:
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- It's canals lined by old warehouses |
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Some paying attention will notice that Day 20 has been skipped over. Nothing much happened - we visited Marie' at her new job near Roppongi with a few shots, but not worth a full post. Some of the better shots include the go-karts at Roppongi Crossing, and a Green |
I took a couple hour wander through the lower altitude Berkeley Hills - the Berkeley Foothills to me - and took the big camera. This was mostly to test a new lens. I came back with some decent shots and this blog is just hanging out here, so why not.
Time to move on from Fukuoka where we could have spent more time to further explore Kyushu - more ideas for the future. Next stop on the schedule is Hiroshima, another city neither Nobue or I have visited. Exploring the memories that still linger there is top of mind going
After the Atomic Dome, probably the most visited site around Hiroshima is the ancient shrine, Itsukushima Jinja, with it's huge off-shore bright orange Torii (gate). It takes about 30 minutes by what is essentially a commuter train and a short ferry ride to the island.
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After the uneventful |
Sitting in Narita with hours to kill, I thought I'd try to get one more post out. I'm way behind, but I decided it is time to give my audience what they really want, some FOOD PORN...
While we've done a lot of good
Travel to Osaka was a short Shinkansen hop from Hiroshima. The trip was made to feel longer by the accumulated exhaustion catching up to us after a week of ambitious tourism and lots of walking in not always gentle terrains. Our energy level results in not much tourism stuff and
As I wrote before, Osaka is a good place for side trips. Since we've been to Kyoto and Nara many times, we decided to go to Kobe where we've never been.
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It was a drizzly day as we started the trip with a walk to our |
We had a day to do more wandering in Osaka before heading off to Sapporo. Marie' was off to Kyoto to visit friends and we tried to figure out what we might want to see in Osaka without too much work. The couple of things that popped up were
This will be a bit different post. Because of timing and weather, the wanderings in Sapporo itself were limited. We always planned to spend a good bit of time at the Sapporo Brewery, but the weather was a disincentive for some of the places we wanted to go; Sapporo is
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