Summer 2019 (Cumulative)

I timed the ferry back quite well, the sun was setting and giving some great light to the waterfront of Sydney.

Sunset behind the Sydney Harbor Bridge. If you look closely you can see groups of people climbing up the bridge. I thought about doing this myself, but it was that or make a car payment - I chose a car payment (it’s a tad pricy!)

Selfie!

The Opera House looked pretty cool at twilight as well.

A closeup of the tiles that make up the outer structure of the Sydney Opera House

Circular Quay waterfront at dusk

Sydney Opera House

After my photobinge, I took another ferry ride to Darling Harbor. Nice view of the town as we passed under the bridge.

On my last day in Australia, I took a two hour train ride to the Blue Mountains National Park. There was a lot of hiking and sightseeing to be done! The morning mist that greeted us as we arrived was quite beautiful.

The three rock pillars are named the “Three Sisters”.

A nice view of the Three Sisters a little later in the day.

Waterfalls

One last view of the Blue Mountains and Australia itself. The Eucalyptus Trees in the area give off a blue haze - giving the area its name.

A view from the top of Himeji Castle of the town of Himeji (or at least a small part of it). A view of all of the trees below highlights why this must be an absolutely amazing site when Cherry Blossom time comes in April.

My first site to visit in Japan was Himeji Castle. This is one Japan’s most beautiful castles, and one of the few castles that wasn’t destroyed by war or fire. The inside is all wooden (there’s not a ton inside worth a photo...plus it was quite dark). It was pouring rain when I arrived at the site...luckily, it soon cleared up (and I got to lug around an umbrella for the rest of the day!)

The second castle of the day was the lovely Osaka Castle, in the large city of Osaka. This is not the original...it has been destroyed and rebuilt many times. One of the most recent was some unnamed country bombed it in 1945. Quite a beautiful place in the heart of Osaka.

Another nice shot of Osaka Castle. The inside of the castle is pretty much a modern building. I was able to get to the top of the castle...view wasn’t the best on a slightly gloomy day. One interesting view was a field full of police vans for transporting arrested people. Now, Japan is a pretty peaceful place - this huge number of paddy wagons seemed strange. Then I remembered that the G20 Summit (featuring 20 of the most important governmental leaders and all of the associated protestors) had finished in this very city the day before. I never really noticed anything other than the Bullet Train I took on the way down saying that they had removed trash cans from the stations for the G20.

Nice detail work! There’s something quite beautiful about Japanese castles compared to the European ones (one important one found later in this album excepted)

That night, I explored downtown Osaka. Shopping is a very different thing in Japan than anywhere else I’ve ever been. It’s something you’ve got to see to believe. This was the Shinsaibashisuji-suji area - right near the famous Dontonbori food street. The LED sign of the running man is a very iconic sign in Osaka - everyone was getting a selfie with the running man.

Many restaurants lined the river.

Every Japanese city that I’ve ever been to has a long pedestrian outdoor mall (usually covered, but certainly outdoors) spanning several city blocks. This becomes a big hangout place where you can find all manner of things to buy and eat. Osaka’s Shinsaibashisuji-suji area was more than I had ever seen before. As you can see in the photo, people are packed together as far as you can see. It’s miles of stores - including several indoor malls (that are so incredible that they deserve their own post. Imagine Amazon, but everything is there in front of you - there’s NOTHING like it in the states). I don’t love being in large groups of people typically, but there was something about the anonymous nature of being in your “Gaijin Bubble” and being able to move through the crowds as if they weren’t even there.

The next day, I took a train to Nara. Nara is famous for their deer - the deer are roaming free and are totally used to humans. Indeed, many of the stores sell “deer crackers” for people to buy to feed the deer. The deer are pretty smart...they’ve learned to bow when someone bows to them (Japanese people love that stuff - hilarious to watch). They’ve trained the humans to do dumb things to give them the crackers. The temple stuff there was pretty cool as well - Five Story Pagoda!

This is a big cool looking gate in Nara. You can probably see a bunch of Japanese school children under the gate - they were to be found a lot of the sites I visited. All of the students had the prototypical Japanese schoolboy/girl outfit on with slight differences between the different schools.

I’m a sucker for pouring water.

Baby deer!

Big temple with Buddha sitting in the middle. It was being reconstructed. I could have gotten in if I paid a couple bucks - but honestly, at this point the temples were all sort of running together.

Nice view of the Five Story Pagoda

The deer was explaining to me that he was actually the deer that stole that poor old lady’s purse. He didn’t have a ounce of sympathy...cold blooded.

The next day, I travelled to a city that I had been to before, but it had only been for a few hours to sleep and do laundry. As it is the cultural center of Japan, I figured that a more proper visit would be good to do. This first site is the Kiyomizudera Temple. I’m not sure what the red building is, but the dragon sculpture is pretty awesome.

You’ll see a scene like this at most temples (usually without the sign). Many Japanese people who visit the temples will use the ladles to wash off both of their hands, then they will take some water in their mouths, wash out their mouth, and spit it out. This is a cleansing ritual for visiting a shrine or temple. It was interesting seeing the Japanese seriously take part of temple proceedings in the middle of all the tourists.

Artsy-fartsy shot of a cool temple in the distance.

Otowa Waterfall. Each of the three streams of water will give a different benefit; longevity, luck at school, or a good love life. The trick is, if you drink from all three you are greedy. Before you ask, I didn’t drink from any of them. Thought about it but figured it’d be weird. I don’t mind observing other religious (even though I’m not sure this counts) practices...I just don’t take part in them unless they are mine. In other news, this photo was taken from the grand porch of the Main Hall. The Main Hall is a very famous beautiful building. Sadly, you won’t see any photos because it’s all covered up for renovations and it’s not much to look at at the moment.

This is what a shrine looks like. Japanese people could come up to one of these, usually give a few coins in a box, clap their hands, and bow their heads in prayer. I am certainly not the expert in all of this, but I saw it a bunch.

Pretty flower.

Later in the day I made it to one site that I very much wanted to see - the Golden Pavilion (actual name of Kinkakujicho). It’s absolutely stunning to look at - it is covered in gold leaf.

Neat shot of a cool looking sign. Right after I took this shot, I was asked by four Junior High students in their teacher to do a quick survey so they could practice speaking English. It was quite fun hearing them trying to put together sentences and then reply back to them in a simple way. They called me “Chris-Sensei” after I told them that I was a teacher! It was a fun little interaction in a country where you have very few interactions.

Artsy-fartsy shot of the Golden Pavilion.

Nishiki Market - good place to buy some food, both prepared and not. Again, you can see how these shopping areas work...this area goes on for several blocks, and it intersects with other areas for different things (fashion, etc...)

I am not a fan of fish...my body doesn’t react well to eating it. But I’ve always been interested in sushi (by the way, this is what real sushi is...it’s more than just the rolls). This one store was offering Beef Sushi - truly a delicious fish. I wonder what the English name for this type of fish is ;). The meat was quite high quality and very lightly cooked (it wasn’t raw)

Last time I was in Kyoto, there was one place I really wanted to visit (once I realized it existed) but I got there too late. That is the Kyoto Railway Museum. The Japanese love their trains - it’s how I mostly get around towns (although I was a bad boy and took a bus to the train museum...). This museum was AWESOME - they had a ton of exhibits on old trains, the science of trains, how the railway systems work, model trains, etc... This is the first ever bullet train to come to Kyoto (they look much cooler now - I ride them all over the place!)

This is a shot from the top of the Museum showing the entrance to Kyoto Station (The station is in the background). Madness!