I kind of appreciate the wide variety of tourists and foreigners in Kyoto.

More Osaka, and some Kyoto

So what else did we do in Osaka? We went to the castle park one day, and had a picnic.

We also went to the ultra-modern waterfront, and rode the ferris wheel.
It was too rainy and crowded to actually go to the aquarium, but we did wander around the Universal Studios shopping center. Hopefully we'll get to go back soon.

By the way, these pictures are all on Siena's facebook page. I think you need to be her friend to see all of them, so I'll still upload a bunch, but there are more (really cute ones) over there.

Now I'm in Kyoto, where I've already gone to a ton of cultural things.

Like Arashiyama (super popular bridge and garden),

Ryoanji (zen rock garden),

Kiyomizudera (drank from the holy spring, forgot to do the womb tunnel),

and the National Museum exhibit on Zen treasures.
I like how this museum, built in the late 1800s, looks very European.
Except they used Eastern gods of art and culture for their relief.
By the way, my favorite artist was Hakuin, from the Edo period. This is a portrait of Bodhidharmu, known as Daruma in Japan. This portrait is huge, and I saw it in real life.

Oh, and Kyoto Station, which is not ancient at all but still really awesome.

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I feel weird sending postcards from places I haven't actually seen, but I feel weirder sending multiple copies of the same postcard. I understand that this is silly.

Yesterday, I was eating a ビビンバーガー bibimburger (bibimba is a Korean dish, and this bakery decided to put it in a bun) by the side of the river in Shijo (between the Geisha district and the shopping district), and a HAWK FLEW DOWN AND SNATCHED MY LAST BITE. I think that is my craziest experience in Japan so far.

Also yesterday I located an outdoor supply store (in that shopping district), right underneath an anime store I'd been to twice. Anyways, now I have a new bag for my tent, and padded biking gloves. Hurray!

Kyoto

central Kyoto has a classic feel to it, a beige and mahogany tone to the streets. i like that, even if im not that taken by Kyotos attitude as the arbiter of japanese high culture.

I have officially given up on japanese beer.

Days in Kyushu with Mom

The best thing about Kyushu was the food. This is what we ate for lunch on our first full day. It was all delicious.

We only stayed in Fukuoka for one night (although it was a really cool city). The tonkotsu ramen was pretty awesome, too. I found a good route to take up the next few days onbikely.com. Then we dashed off south to Kurume 久留米, a town that has a bike path, and headed northwest. The bike path stopped at Harazuru　原鶴, a little onsen (hot spring) resort town, where we stayed at a real hotel. My mom was excited to wear the yukata robes.


The next day we backtracked a bit to see the 8th biggest tree in Japan. It's supposed to be 1500 years old. My mom also took pictures of three little old ladies who were tending their gardens right next door.

Next we passed through a cute Meiji era historical town, crossed a mountain path, and headed to the Yamakuni 山国bike path.
Here's a torii gate with a tunnel dug by monks in the background. The actual shrine is behind us, but you have to pass between a gas station and a convenience store to go there, and we didn't want to photograph them.

At the end of the bike path was Nakatsu 中津, with a lovely castle and shrine. There was a cute high school couple eating lunch in their uniforms to the left that I really wanted to photograph.

And those are my Kyushu pictures. The main thing that's missing is the landscape, which is much more spacious than Shikoku or western Honshu, and the wheat fields. Also the Shinkansen, which I was very excited to take back to Hiroshima. Also, it's funny how no one outside the area knew of any of the towns except maybe Kurume.

So, I'm in glamorous Osaka, after a short stay in Kobe. Here's a picture of the Kobe waterfront, from a hip new shopping area called Mosaic (pronounced Mozaiku).


Osaka is great, although I kinda miss the countryside. Yesterday we took the train to Takarazuka, home of the all-female revue (which is famous for its actresses who play male roles),

and hometown of Osamu Tezuka, the "God of Manga."
This is the Phoenix, from his epic life's work. (Oh, and I bought a new shirt!)

Then we went to Namba, Osaka's equivalent of Time Square. Siena will probably post better self-portraits on her Facebook.
Now I'm gonna post some pictures from Kyushu.

水虫

It kind of disturbs me that athletes foot is called みずむし "water bugs" in Japanese.