Catching up...

Its been a few days since my last post so heres some pictures to get you caught up on my adventures...there are many stories to go along with them, but for now i will just try to include a few anecdotes. Most of my stories just invovle getting lost....



Vending machines in Kyoto...







After Kyoto, I took a long day's work to find my way to Mt.Koya...though the complicated Osaka train network, and poor maps to find the tourist information office...why is my backpack so heavy!?!

Dinner during my temple stay at Mt. Koya. I am not resilient enough to have sat like that the whole time - there was no circulation going to my feet!! But the vegetarian meal was mostly delicious, with some weird goopy stuff included. I only left the mushroom :(



My very own room!!







Along the Entrance Path- sando, lined with hundreds of year old cedar trees and thousands of grave stones.







Konpon temple.









A brif stop-over on the train to visit Himeji castle...beautiful!






Getting lost in Kurashiki...what stop am I going to!?!?!?






After getting terribly lost trying to find my hostel in Kurashiki, which included a brief stroll in the woods at night...creeepy. I was not at all happy with this place by night, but by day, they have this gorgeous little canal and awesome Ohara Art museum that houese Monets waterlillies, El Greco, and Picasso. Oh, and lots of cute things to buy for pressies "D



Onward to Hiroshima...mostly shot in Black and White - i thought it set the mood better.


The Atomic Bomb Dome.



Shadow left by the statue during the bomb.









A source of colour in a bleak story of history...colourful paper cranes. Still made as a tribute to the thousands who died, during and resulting from the bomb.

Hiroshimas Peace museum was also a brilliantly tragic display of the events of the day the bomb dropped and the horric scenes that were imagined throught the city. They don't hold back on showing how people really looked and what the devastating consequences. And there were many many school kids there, so the education of the new generation is continuing, and they admit that the war atrocities were not only one-sided...peace, that is the main message conveyed through all of the Hiroshima monuments, memorial and museum.

A brief trip over to Miyajima to see this famous Torii gate. There are many deer on the island, I took a picture of one, and then thought, I am from Canada...what am I doing, I see these at home all of the time. But my camera has not liked the rain so much and was malfunctioning after this picture...so I just went back to eat Okonomiyaki.



Onwards back north today, up to Takayama.

xx