I stayed with a very nice host family in Hakodate on the south tip Hokkaido, and went to school most days to study Japanese all morning and generally do a fun cultural activity in the afternoon. I stayed with a host family, the Takahashi, who nicely took care of me, and thankfully were quite fluent in English as my Japanese was very limited when I arrived there.

A few pictures of my host family:

that was my first rotating sushi plates restaurant. where I was ble to invite my family to thank them for their hospitality

Hakodate had a hill you could take a cable car up to, or simply hike up, which I did one day (I used that time in Japan to get back in shape and lose a good portion of the weight I had put on in southern california):

the beach was used to dry out nori (japanese seaweed)

HIF students having fun

We spent a lot of time in school of course. Our teachers were great, and did a little show for us:

After school, while we spent quite a bit of time studying, we also had some cultural events, which were quite fun. Tea ceremony, flower arrangement, kimono wearing, and so forth:

hanami

One day, we went to a nearby town with castle grounds (honestly I forget where it is):

Another day, we went to a nearby school for show and tell, as well as summer games:

they're not screwing around :)

I was running inside that cardboard tube :)

we were nicely welcomed :)

Another day we hiked up a local mountain with some volcanic activity:

Summer season is also festival season, that was fun:

After our time in Hakodate was over, we went to Sapporo for a short visit:

And from there, we went in a small town in northern Hokkaido, where I got to try summer skiing and wood carving:

I also spent a few days with other Japanese families after school was over:

At the end of my trip, my then boss Byron was nice enough to offer me a bit of money sot hat I could spend 3 days in Tokyo before flying back, and my host family set me up with a family in Tokyo who very nicely hosted me those few days, and even took me to Kamakura. The pictures are pretty pityful (110 film in a $20 camera, scanned) compared to what I take now, 20 years later, but eh, that's all I have :)

Senso-ji

Tokyo Tower, which didn't fit in my camera at all :)

Zojo-ji, seen from Tokyo Tower

the famous shibuya crossing

The nice japanese family who hosted me in Tokyo:

trip to kamakura

This is the nice Japanse linux user who had the same laptop than me and we went out for a day together, including a few museums:

I had a great time with HIF and the Japanese Families who nicely hosted me. Sadly I never really got to go back to Japan for 15 years after that, lost most of the Japanese I did learn, and my wife speaks Mandarin, so that didn't help either (and no, I don't hold it against her ;-) ). However after 15 years, I was able to go to Japan again to present for Google at Linuxcon Japan, and I've been going back to Japan every year since then to visit it with Jennifer. Thanks to Pimsleur language program, I was able to relearn a bit of Japanese and manage very basic conversation when needed during our travels.

You can find he rest of my trips to japan here: http://marc.merlins.org/perso/japan/links.html (many much better pictures)

Jennifer was quite happy with the Japanese breakfast at the Kyoto Hana hotel with seaweed salad, the best breakfast ever!

I had plans that day for visiting the east side of Kyoto, although we started with picking up electric bikes I had booked (best plan ever for Kyoto). Our bikes had a 5KWh Li-Ion pack which was good for about 20km of assisted riding. We almost emptied them on the first day :)

Kyoto is full of temples, knowing which ones to see is hard since you neither can nor want to see them all. Using the rating on japan-guide.com is a good start. Next, you'll want to avoid the temples that ask for a bit too much money to visit them. Not that there is anything wrong to charge a bit to handle visitors, but some charge more and have less to see. Some even charge more than once depending on rooms or sub-temples, some of which really aren't that special. Also, keep in mind that it's easy to get temple fatigue, so more is probably not better.

After getting the bikes, we started with visiting the Kyoto train station. Turns out the views from there weren't that fantastic, and the sky garden were so-so, but I suppose if you're already there (we weren't), why not? We should just have skipped it to have more time for the rest of the day.

Happy Terrace Indeed!

We were supposed to go see the nearby To-ji and its pagoda, but I just forgot. So next, we biked to Fushimi Inari Taisha Temple, it's one of the best temples ever. It's a bit out of the way, but not a big deal with electric bikes (actually faster than taking the bus). It was great to visit, soo many gates. We took them all the way to the top, which maybe wasn't quite worth it since the top had no view whatsoever, but oh well. Either way, the temple was great.

many gates...

you can buy/sponsor your own gates

Next, we went to Tofuku-ji Temple, just a bit north from there. It wasn't bad, but they were a bit greedy on entrance fees (multiple fees for seeing multiple parts of it). To be honest, it wasn't bad, but it's skippable:

Next was Kiyomizu-dera, higher north, just before the beginning of Philosopher's path. It was quite popular (we had to abandon our bikes and finish on foot through a street full of things for sale :)

From there, we went up to the Philosopher's path starting at Nanzeji Temple.

big, this is

the rock garden rocks ran away?

aqueduct

Next was Honen-in, very nice and quiet. I think we got in right around the time it was supposed to be closed:

And Ginkakuji, Silver Pavillion, was last (by then we were running late and were pressed for time, everything closes between 16:00 and 17:00 or 17:30 if you're lucky):

if they had fish, they must have died from eating coins :)

Quite frankly, due to time lost in the morning with the train station, and hiking for over an hour at Fushimi Inari Taisha, we were running late, and we had to rush the last temples a bit, which defeats the purpose, but that's all we could do since the next day was going to be on the opposite side of Kyoto. The electric bikes thankfully allowed us to book it from temple to temple, but we didn't really get to enjoy the Philosopher's path, so we did so on the way back when everything was closed, although we managed to sneak in a few temples to have a peak (the grounds that is, not the inside of buidings of course):

friends!

After that, it was time to go for dinner, which we did around Gion, in streets totally packed with restaurants. It took quite a while to look at them and pick one:

And that was it for our first long day, which isn't bad considering we had arrived just the previous night and were still jetlagged :)

We randomly stopped by a temple on the way to Nijo Castle. Unfortunately, Nijo Castle doesn't allow any pictures inside its rooms, so I only have pictures from the outside.

it was schoolkid week, they were all over :)

it had nice gardens

We then rushed to the Kyoto Palace to get there just in time for our guided tour (in English, no less). The guide was very good, and the palace was very nice to visit (much much nicer than the Tokyo Palace tour which is totally something you can skip):

The palace is inside, it's big :)

On the way to the west side temples, we found some random ones on the way :)

We then went to Daitoku-ji which actually houses several sub-temples which each charge their own admission. To be honest, with the rest of what we saw, this was neither worth the time, nor the money, but eh, we were there, so we looked and paid the multiple fees:

Next was Kinkaku-ji, aka the Golden Pavillion, arguably the prettiest and most popular temple in Kyoto:

From there, we totally skipped Ryoan-ji since we didn't need to see another temple which was mostly known for its rock garden (thanks Arturo), and we went Toji-in, off the beaten path, not well known, but quite nice and worth the visit. Among other things, it had a great garden.

Last was Ninna-ji, which unfortunately was half closed that day, but what we did see was worth it.

we are so very sorry that we're working on the grounds

the cable, in case you're wondering, is a lightening rod

By then, it was 17:00 again, so most temples were closed, but Kitano Tenmangu closed at 18:00, so we went there to see the plum trees, but it had much more:

plums were there, but not in season yet

While biking back to our room, we found a grocery store, and ended up getting dinner for ourselves :)

dinner! :)

By then, I had also returned the electric bikes from Rent a cycle Kyoto Kenbunroku

Arashiyama is just outside of useful biking range (we'd have killed our batteries going there and back), so we took a train there, and we walked to the non JR Arashiyama station which had a bike renter with electric bikes (the others weren't electric, and considering how far we had to go for some things, electric definitely helped).

We started by going to Togetsukyo Bridge towards the Monkey Park, although I got lost with a bad map and we ended up at a random temple where the people were super nice in helping us even if we kind of walked into a church asking how to get to disneyland :)

Eventually we did get to the real monkey park. They had signs explaining how not to aggravate the monkeys in the forest, and not to ake them feel threatened, but somehow that didn't quite work out and poor Jennifer got attacked by a monkey that scratched her leg pretty well (poor thing still has a scar today).
One we got to the top, we could feed the monkeys from inside a cage for our protection probably more than theirs :)

they were afraid of attacking me, but they went after Jennifer when she wasn't close enough to me, and starred at them when she was worried instead of turning her back and walking to them

cute baby

even the small ones learned to pick up food :)

After the monkey park, we went to see the rest of Arashiyama, and got to see a lot more temples: Bamboo Groves, Jojakkoji, Nison-in, Saga Toriimoto Street, Adashino Nenbutsuji, and high up the hills for Otagi Nenbutsuji and its many cool statues. On the way back down from top of the hill, we stopped at a nice sake shop on Saga Toriimoto Street to get and buy some samples for Jennifer :)

This wasn't bad, but Otagi Nenbutsuji ended up being better even

After some amount biking up hill, and only thanks to a combination of google maps and OSM offline on my tablet, did we get there (the local Japanese maps and directions were limited to say the least). I was very out of the way and well worth the effort:

After being off the beaten path, we went to Daikakuji which was used to be a vacation residence for the emperor (very nice and worth seeing):

nice wall paintings with gold leaves

you can get to all the rooms without setting foot on impure ground

Tenryuji was last, just by the train station. It's supposed to be very nice, but it was being renovated, so there wasn't that much worthwhile seeing, especially after having just come from Daikakuji:

There was more to see in Arashiyama, probably 2 days worth at more leisurely pace, we got to see most of it, and it was definitely a worthwhile sidetrip from Kyoto center. The electric bikes were absolutely a lifesaver to cover that distance, especially for going uphill.

After Tenryuji, we took the train back to Kyoto, and from there to Nara where we spent the night to be onsite for the next morning's activities.

The week we were there, was also "schoolkid visit everything" week, so we saw many everywhere :)

Todai-ji, which houses the great Buddha

it's supposed to be good luck to go through this hole in a pillar

We then continued our tour of the park and its sights, with Mino-San's lead:

Eventually came time for a nice lunch:

Speaking of lunch, Nara Park is known for deer which are used to being fed, and can be very hopeful and begging. If you have something that looks like a rice cracker in your hands, it might be eaten :)

first, they look cute and all

oh, there are more :)

this one knew where the rice crackers came from :)

hello, pet me and I'll eat your map :)

some school kids started being overwhelmed by the attention a bit :)

And back to our visit to see more of Nara Park and we finished outside the park:

And after parting ways with our guide (thank you), we went to sake tasting, and learned about neko cafes, cafes where you can pay for some amount of time to interact with cats if you don't have your own (not a bad idea actually):

Later, we walked back to our Ryokan through a nice park, and deer feeding locations to use up the crackers we had bought:

nice and quiet after everyone has left :)

From there, we headed to Hotel New Wakasa, our great ryokan for sunset from their terrace, dinner served in our room, onsen, and some good sleep, not excluding a nice breakfast served in our room the next morning too.

Yum!

And sleepy time after dinner:

And a nice breakfast the next morning:

Bye bye Nara, we'll remember you :)

This started with a fast direct train from Nara to Kyoto (just 40mn) and a quick Nozomi ride from Kyoto to Nagoya with the now typical bullshit "how about you wait 20mn to take that other just as fast train that will also do the same stop, but isn't called Nozomi and isn't any more or less full than this one leaving now".

Once in Nagoya, we found lockers where to put our luggage (that was kind of a tight fit):

And a cab later, got ot the Nagoya City Science Museum. It probably is only worth 1 to 2H at most since it's all in Japanese (I knew that). Unfortunately Jennifer doesn't quite share my phylosophy about it being "efficient" when visiting something that was less worth our time but still worth seeing, so we ended up spending a bit longer than necessary there.

Next, we took another cab to the Toyota Museum of Industry and Technology, which would have been worth more time than the 2H or so we had, but we made the best of it. The first part of the museum was when Toyota (then Toyoda) was in textile way before they ever got into cars. They had impressive machinery on displays along with demos:

We were hurrying at the Toyota museum a bit so that we could get to the Scmaglev and Railway Park, which is definitely a not miss. We had just a bit over 1H there, but that was enough to see the highlights:

Shinkansen simulator

this is why they're called bullet trains

After the Scmaglev and Railway Park, we went back to Osaka train station and had a bit over an hour to burn, so we looked at the building in the train station and went to the top to see a few city views before taking our train out to Kamakura:

It was a bit too short, a longer day would have been better, but Nagoya was definitely worth the stop. Thanks to Arturo for recommending that we stop there.

Since we slept virtually on site, we started with the quiet Temple of Engaku-ji:

Next, we went to Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, a major shrine in the area, and it was definitely impressive.

After that, we walked back up to Jufukuji, as our gateway to the hiking trail to Daibutsu (the great Buddha in Kamakura). To be honest, the hike wasn't fantastic (we were expecting better views), but pleasant nonetheless:

We finished by visiting Hasedera temple, which is also a great temple with statues, and an unusual cave you can visit.

From there, we took a train to Enoshima and got on the nearby island to spend the rest of the afternoon.

view from the island

When we were done, we went back to our hotel to collect our luggage and travel to Hakone (we even got to use a hanging monorail for that trip), and picked up some food by Ofuna before going to Hakone. You had to order your noodles by clicking on a vending machines with what kind of soup and ingredients you wanted. It was a challenge, but Jennifer prevailled ;)

The cool part (for me) is that I had been to Kamakura during my 3 day visit of 1997, and quite frankly had forgotten pretty much all about it. After the fact, I found some very old analog pictures I had, and found out some looked kind of similar to the new ones :)

2013

1997

2013

1997

2013

1997

We only spent about 1H at the open air museum, and it's worth more time, but I was mostly interested in having a look and keep more time for the Hakone loop and the next train back to Gora to take the connecting cable car and start our loop.

back across the river flowing from Hakone to get to the HakoneYumoto train station towards Gora

view from the very slow train to Gora

finally made it to open air museum

oops, the chute didn't open :)

inspired from MC Escher?

Time to go to Gora and the cable car up to do our loop. We went to see the sulfur and nauseous gases, including the sulfur pool where they boil eggs that also turn black in the process. We got our black eggs like some good tourists :)
Once we were done with the top, we went down the other side towards Asahi lake, for a cruise across to the town, where we picked up some sake, visited the local sights and walked to the Palace detached garden:

then gondolas up from there

and the way back down connecting to the pirate ship

there was a cable car with a view up there, but covered in clouds

Eventually we got to Kuzuryu Shrine before taking a cab back to Gora Kadan to save time and enjoy more time there:

they all have huge containers of sake

Once in Gora Kadan, we did our best to enjoy the great facilities there:

I went to check out the beautiful onsen

this is where you wash yourself before goign in the main bath

out there

Our room was great of course:

very comfortable raised futon. Almost a bed really

our private patio wasn't bad :)

if relais et chateaux said it's good, it must be :)

Then came time for a really good dinner:

After dinner, we got to enjoy our private bath:

And a shot from just as good breakfast the next morning. Jennifer complained that she only had 30mn to enjoy it (we had to get an early train out to get to Tokyo in time to meet our guide that afternoon.

Gora Kadan was definitely a great experience, probably more than Hakone itself, even if its price was a bit up there. Eh, you only live once :)

On our way back from Hakone, we stopped at the Odawara Castle between train changes, to visit the castle.

changing to a better train at HakoneYumoto towards Odawara

view from the castle

Odwara Station

Another forbidden Nozomi

Next, we went to Ueno station in Tokyo for lunch to meet a nice local volunteer, Zama-San who spent the afternoon with us to show us around. We started with Ueno Park, and eventually went in the science and nature museum there which is quite good. We got there a bit late, so it closed up on us before we could see it all, but what we saw was nice:

this guy was good

Zama-San then took us to Kappabashi street to see many plastic food samples (used by restaurants), fantastic knifes, and then we walked to Nakamise Dori and Senso-ji Template by Asakusa to finish the day.

this looks real :)

Thanks to Zama-San for taking us around.
On our way back, we stopped at Ueno to have dinner (Kaiten Sushi) before picking up our luggage from a locker and go to our hotel where we be stayed for the following 3 days while I was at the linux conference.

long day :)

Turns out that Hotel Chinsanzo is a super pretty hotel used for weddings and receptions, and has a great garden that is a small Japan condensed, so here are a few pictures:

We started by looking around Shinjuku at night before going to the robot restaurant:

Shinjuku

Patchinko machines sure got fancy since last times I saw them

Tobu and Seibu are absolutely huge department stores, you could spend hours in there

And eventually we went there for our scheduled show. What can I say, it's crazy stuff, it's ridiculous, it does have scantily clothed women dancing, the food is pretty bad (better not to eat it), and the experience is well worth it, and something you won't get anywhere else. Jennifer wasn't exactly going to get a whole lot out of the women dancing, and she loved the crazy show nonetheless.

the colors, my eyes!

those giant ass robots are indeed giant!

For a better idea, see some videos:

On our way there, I had noticed a Neko (cat) café, and we went to visit it

they had nice fancy breeds, even if most didn't seem super friendly

Those were a fun few hours in Shinjuku for views and "only in Japan" stuff :)

Tosho-gu was by far the most awesome temple we had seen anywhere in Japan. It's a great thing we saw it almost last, because it would have ruined all the other ones. The amount and quality of various art on the temple is just mind blowing. I'm not an art guy, but it was difficult not to appreciate this gem.

the art is absolutely beautiful

On the way out, we went through an open market and two more temples:

We then took a bus to lake Chuzenji to see Kegon Falls, the lake, a nature museum, and some quite snack by the lake while enjoying the views:

that monkey was trying to scare me off. I held my ground and it left :)

The bus ride down was fun, it was a fantastic road I would have loved to drive with the right car, and went to Pension l'Escale for the night where the owner, Fujita-San (Kaz) also cooked for us. The dinner was quite yummy and he was a great person to talk with (luckily in English since my Japanese was a _lot_ more limited than his English).

We were happy that we were able to sleep there and only worry about the 2H+ train back early the next morning.

Subayashi's dad, who runs the famous Sushi-ya in Ginza that the movie is based on

The 'apprentice' who had been there for a mere 17 years or so :) Thankfully he had spent time in Australia and spoke English well

it looks the same, but it's not :)

it comes from a pretty big shell

needless to say that this just melts in your mouth, no chewing required

more sushi, oui!

finishing with the fluffy tamago omlet

the unknown bill until the end at least includes a picture if you wish :)

Pretty bullet train on our connection back to Tokyo from Nikko

The lobby of the Hyatt we left our luggage at before going out to the MET for city views

On our way to the Edo Tokyo Museum, we went by a sumo stadium

The Edo Tokyo Museum was a nice museum on early history of Tokyo, back when it was called Edo instead of Tokyo

nice way to get around in style

nice little lunch in the museum

Next, we walked towards Asakusa to see it during the day, with some views of the Tokyo Skytree on the way. This time we were able to get into the temple.

Next, we went to a nearby park before going up to the Mori tower for some great views:

you can actually walk on the roof of the Mori tower, for a great view

After the Mori tower, we went to Subayashi Jiro for some very good sushi (albeit very expensive, $700 bill for two). You don't actually know how much you're going to pay in advance since it depends on what they're serving that day, and there are no prices the entire time, even for drinks or options. You only get a piece of paper with a number to pay at the end. It's the Japanese way I guess :)

Subayashi's dad, who runs the famous Sushi-ya in Ginza that the movie is based on

The 'apprentice' who had been there for a mere 17 years or so :) Thankfully he had spent time in Australia and spoke English well

it looks the same, but it's not :)

it comes from a pretty big shell

needless to say that this just melts in your mouth, no chewing required

finishing with the fluffy tamago omlet

the unknown bill until the end at least includes a picture if you wish :)

After dinner, we went back to Mori tower for some great night views, before heading to our hotel for some rest:

cannot beat his smile, though :)

I'd have spent more time there, but I had to rush out to make it back to the skytree just in time for our timeslot to go stand in line to buy tickets (only 2H in Akihabara, barely enough...), and we got there by just 3mn which allowed us to go to the top and enjoy about 1H there before having to come back down and go to Ginza.
The unfortunate time pressure came from the fact that our second sushi dinner at Sushi Mizutani in Ginza was at 17:00. We got there for more hand made overpriced Sushi deliciousness (unfortunately they don't like pictures while they're working, but the chef will take one with you before you leave if you ask). That sushi bill was a bit cheaper than the previous day (we also had a little less) and it was also excellent. Mizutani was also a disciple from the original Jiro.

After dinner, we finished the evening in Ginza at the Sony showroom, and Don Quijote, a 24H store that has everything you need and don't need day or night in a super compact space. Amazing how compact it is :)
Oh, on the way back we went back to the top of the MET for a few night pictures there.

After going all the way to Tokyo Skytree just to pick up tickets to come stand in line later...

we went there first, but by the time we got there, it was already too late, there was a 3H wait. Grr...

I elected to go to Akihabara to see a mix of anime, fanboys, maid cafes, and of course computers and electronics:

Maid cafes, we'll get back to this the next day...

dual screen android phone, where have you been when I needed you? :)

Gamers was both weird but kind of worth seeing

pictures in the elevator. No comment...

Some singer of the day, till she turns too old and gets replaced with another one

even the urinal is a video game, you play with your stream (no kidding)

old consoles from the 80's

oh my, this brings back memories :)

there were buckets of electronic stores with all kinds of components

But before long, it was time to hurry back to the Tokyo Skytree for our ticket buying time. To be honest, I could have done without the extra running around, it was unnecessary extra stress, but we got up too late, and got there too late, so now we had to deal with the ticket buying bullshit.
We got back there in time to go stand in line 30mn to buy a ticket (with 3mn to spare), and after 30mn queueing, we got a ticket that would allow us to go stand in line with our ticket another 30mn to get up. A line to go stand in line to buy a ticket to go stand in line, yeah!

Ok, it was a pain to get up there, but the view from that high up was interesting. In theory, you're supposed to stay there and shop and do local things while waiting for your turn, but we didn't really do that:

By then, it was more than time to go to Ginza for our sushi reservation at Sushi Mizutani

I wasn't supposed to take pictures inside as I found out later, but got a few before I was asked to stop. The chef did however agree to take pcitures with us at the end:

can't argue with that outburst of happiness :)

Next,we wwent to the Sony showroom and walked around ginza some more, finishing at Don Quijote:

Before going back up to our room, we went to the nearby MET for some night pictures before going to bed:

After packing up, we started with a visit of the Google Tokyo office, and had lunch with a couple of cowrkers as well as a quick visit of the buildings.

From there, we went to see the Emperor's palace on a 75mn guided tour. In hindsight, that was a mistake, it was totally not worth it and we should have spent more time at Google. The imperial east gardens redeemed the visit somewhat. The former imperial palace in Kyoto was much nicer to visit IMO while the Tokyo one was a Japanese only tour and the location was a bit sterile, despite the guide who actually seemed to be a comedian but his humour in Japanese got lost a bit for us :)

From there, back to Akihabara to try a maid café as recommended. It was overpriced but lighthearted fun, and we spent the rest of the time in Ikebukuro at Amlux (Toyota showroom), Sunshine City, and walked through a huge department store, Seibu, before taking a train back to Shinjuku to get our luggage and a bus to Haneda airport.

while most of their food looked bad, the ice cream was quite good

if you say so, by the way for next time, it's sympatique :)

And that was the end of 15 crazy sightseeing days in Japan :)

I was thankful to have learned some Japanese, and while I did not remember a lot of it, I was able to relearn a lot in just a few weeks with pimsleur tapes in just a few weeks, and have enough Japanese to survive in places where I couldn't expect locals to speak much or any English.

I'll finish the tour with a few random pictures on these topics.

Japan has hilarious signs, even if you can't read Japanese:

the very sorry sign is very sorry and sad

don't mishandle the deer in Nara :)

Japan still rules for vending machines, available almost everywhere (although that's a lot of trash and there were very few or no places to recycle containers :( ).

common sight, lots of choice

Orangina, score!

A fully digital vending machine (all pictures were changeable drawings on a screen)

And of course, you can't talk about Japan without talking about trains:

The train displays were colorful and clear

Gotta love the nose :)

of course they had slower trains too

good luck with that if you don't have transit navigation on your phone, it's only one map out of 3 different systems.

this one makes it easy for tourists not to get lost :)

other train companies could learn from this, it shows you exactly where to stand for your wagon

Other random things I noted and tips:

I stopped counting how many of those we went through, they were my nemesis :)

to be honest, I felt a bit bad for the guy, but I guess it keeps more people employed

And that's it for Japan. Again, we had a great time, we got to see way too much in too little time, and hopefully we'll get to go back.

monorail in Okinawa

finally arrived in Yonaguni in 'great' weather

The weather sucked in Yonaguni, we were not able to dive on the first day, we stayed in the villa from the diving shop. To be honest, Yonaguni really doesn't have much to visit, if you're not there for diving or get away from everything else, you're likely going to be bored:

You can go to the Yonaguni Diving Page to see the dive pictures from Yonaguni.

This isn't the rental car we picked up, but that was tempting :)

We first went to the Navy Underground Headquarters where the Japanese Navy generals hid and fought to the death when the US Marines came to take the island. It was both interesting and depressing:

some committed suicide by killing themselves with grenades

Next, we went to the Okinawa Caves and fake village to amuse tourists:

Next was the village:

Another day, we went to visit Shuri-jo, the main castle at Okinawa:

And we went to the Okinawa Museum (natural history and art):

snake skin banjo like instruments are common in Okinawa

Our hotel was actually a huge furnished apartment by the sea wall. One night, we had sushi at home, and in the morning, we could see F18s take off towards the ocean:

Obviously most of our time in Okinawa was actually for diving, and you can find those pictures on the Okinawa Diving Page to see the dive pictures from Okinawa.

The aquarium is 3rd biggest one in the world (#2 is Dubai and #1 is Atlanta), and the only one with 3 whale sharks, and the Expo Park it's in has plenty of other things to see.

Since we had left early, we entered the aquarium right after 08:30 on a monday morning when it opened, so thankfully we avoided the crazy crowds that can be there.

The outside flower statues were fantastic:

There are many displays on fish obviously, but the main attraction is the huge whale shark tank (below):

giant lobsters, too much to eat for a single person on these :)

The Aquarium is of course known for its 3 whale sharks (which are actually sharks, not whales). It's the only place in the world where you can see 3 of them, especially of that size. They may actually have the biggest habitat of any aquarium:

The rest of the aquarium was also good:

very deep sea

The rest of the Ocean Expo Park was good, although the dolphin show was maybe not Sea World level :)

flying dolphins :)

Manatees

Prostetic tail for an injured dolphin

After the aquarium (which is actually worth 3-4H if you include some of the movies they show), we went to see the rest of the expo park, which had an okinawa village recreation and a very nice botanical garden:

And after over 6H in the park, it was time to head back. We could have spent a bit more, but we got a good overview. Maybe we'll be back one day.

Osaka Aquarium is not as nice as the Okinawa one, but it's still quite nice, so we went to see it.
Like last year, it was school kid week, there were busloads of kids, and oh my god were they obniously loud in the aquarium:

argh more kids, at least they're nicely arranged by hat color :)

They also have a single whale shark in their smaller tank. We were lucky to see it feed:

Of course, they had more in the aquarium:

the seals were playful and would look at you and interact through the glass

so much food in them :)

The touch pool was fun :)

After the aquarium, we went through the food court nearby and the ferris wheel:

After that, we went to Osaka Castle:

Next, we went to downtown Osaka and its arcade towards Namba

We then headed towards the Uema Sky building to get up before sunset:

a freeway overpass going through a building, brilliant.

Then was time to go back to Namba for dinner:

Nice murals in the train station:

In the morning, I went to Shitenoji to see an old temple with a pagoda you could actually climb to the the top of (pretty much not possible for most of them):

I then went back to Osaka station to pick up our luggage and take a train to Nara:

train driving is serious business :)

We took the loop line to arrive in Nara by the south so that we could stop at Horyu-ji, the oldest Japanese temple located in Nara. We got super lucky and got a retired engineer who spoke well English and gave us a detailled personalized tour for free:

Overrun by kids again :)

After the temple, we went to Nara proper, but got there a bit late to see anything, so after plyaing with the deer, we backtracked to our fancy Ryokan to enjoy the onsen and a yummy dinner

Except for trying to see a bit of Nara after arriving there instead of just calling it day when we arrived a bit late, we did well :) We just spent more time to finish up Nara the next day

I'm not sure Jennifer needed to go anywhere that morning :)

Then again, when I mentioned breakfast, she was up :)

After a good breakfast, we went for an early visit of Nara before the crowds showed up. So nice early in the morning.
We started with Kasuga Taisha, which we had seen before, but it didn't hurt to see it again :)

do not feed the deer bad food, or they get sick and sad :)

Next was Shin-Yakushi-ji:

We then cut through the park to get to Kofuku-ji, which we didn't have the time to enter last year:

We then went to Yoshikien again because it's nice and it was on the way :)

And we figured, what the hell, we had of course visited Todai-ji the previous year, but since we were walking in front of it to get back to our room, we went inside for a peek again:

Next, we went to Toshodai-ji and Yakushi-ji on our way to Kyoto. My plan was to store our luggage in the lockers by the Kintetsu train station Nishinokyo, but the lockers were too small for my big luggage :( In the end I had to lug it to both temples, but since it was raining anyway, we just took cabs:

That was a good run for Nara, so we ended there, and took the kintetsu to Kyoto (just 50mn), checked in our hotel across the train station, had a quick loook at Kyoto tower but didn't go up since we were warned it was overrun with kids by the people selling tickets (also the weather was poor), so we went to Kyoto station instead for good views, dinner, a visit of the inside (including the awesome dot matrix display built into the stairs, and back to the room).:

And this concluded another nicely filled day.

After getting breakfast, we got our electric bikes at http://www.kyoto-option.com/ , bar none the best place to get electric bikes in Kyoto, with service in Englsh, and extended hours (very early in the morning to late at night).

We started with Toji, wihch has the highest Pagoda in Japan, but it's actually a huge complex with much to visit:

high tech or backup fire suppression system :)

beautiful!

Next were Higashi and Nishi Honganji, which were huge and well worth the visit despite the renovation work that's going on:

We then stoped at Shoseien, a nice garden:

which then led us to Nishiki Market, wihch was just what Jennifer was looking for :)

After returning our bikes, we took a couple of trains to Kurama, a village up in the hills north of Kyoto for our Ryokan there:

After a yummy dinner, time for a confy bed :)

I had originally planned most of a day in Kyoto to do the east side more leisurely, but since we didn't get to see Kurama the previous day, we went around Kurama in the morning (cable car and hiking to a remote temple high up in the woods). Next to the temple, there was also a treasure museum/nature center worth visiting:

this is where we went hiking to see the temple high up in the mountains

I love those trees

There was a small museum showing what can be found in the mountains around:

can't argue with a map like this :)

lying is bad for you :)

After our walk and collecting our luggage, we took a train back to Kyoto:

Kurama was nice, but we only got back to Kyoto electric bike rental shop around 13:00, which barely give us 4H to see eastern Kyoto. Anyone who knows Kyoto knows it's totally impossible in a day, never mind 4H, so we pressed on :) We started with Sanjusangendo with its 1001 statues (minus 3 that are on loan to Tokyo, which we got to see later, impressive to say the least):

many many statues :)

this is where they are housed

Then we hiked to Higashiyama street to see Tainai Meguri next to Kiomizu Dera which is now a big mess of renovation. Turns out Tainai Meguri was a bit gimmicky and not worth the trip, but oh well. The shopping street on the way there was fun seeing again though:

Next, we went to Ryozen Kannon which was closed by the time we got to it last year, but for which we saw the buddha sticking out. It's a very nice peaceful temple that has also become a war memorial:

And from there we worked back up and stopped at temples on the way. Chion-in which was mostly closed for renovation too, so we went to Shoren-in instead. After that we went back to Nanzen-ji because we were not able to climb its wooden gate last year, and that was worth it:

This time we managed to get in Eikan-do Zenrin-ji just before it closed. Well, the entrance closed 1h before actual closing time, so we kind of snuck in :) It was well worth it, it's not top on any lists, but it actually has plenty of nice things to see, I'm glad we got to see it:

Next, we went back to Honen-in which doesn't really close, and is nice and peaceful, except for 3 male ducks fighting over a single poor female :)

By then it was past 17:00 so we didn't try to go to the Silver Pavillion which we had seen last year anyway, but biked up there, so that we could bike down the Philosopher's Walk (Tetsugaku no michi) back to where I remembered the outdoors tea room with cats was, and sure enough the cats were there :)

We then went back to Maruyama Park and finished by going through Yasaka Shrine which helpfully does not close, and finished with dinner by Issian Pontocho:

This was a good day in Kurama and Kyoto thanks to the electric bikes again, not bad for a half day in Kyoto :)

For most people, Nagoya is a day stopover between Osaka/Kyoto and Tokyo. If you are very limited on time, fair enough, but otherwise there is more to see (3 days worth actually). If you go through Nagoya and do not stop to see the Maglev Train Museum, you are definitely doing it wrong :)

We got up from in Kyoto and directly went to Nagoya, where we were going to spend one night. I chose a top floor room with view at the Marriott in the main train station, which turned out to be a great call:

We then started with the Nagoya Castle. It's not the best castle to visit in Japan due to its renovation going on, but still worth a visit if you're there:

Next, we went to Tokugawa Garden and Museum:

Next, we went to the Toyota Automobile Museum, which was a bit out of the way:

our nozomi train

San Francisco could learn a thing or two about this and rebuild 101

Jennifer then found a very nice restaurant for dinner:

And we retired to our room, with the fantastic view:

The main hall shows the evolution of Japanese trains over time.

While the shinkansen (bullet train) between Tokyo and Osaka is actually not that fast (a mere 280kph) due to limitations from the train tracks built for much older and slower trains (the French TGV peaks at 350kph on newer commercial lines), the technology is nonetheless impressive, especially the part where it tries to counter lean in turns to go faster on curves that are too sharp for higher speeds.

the 3 Japanese trains that broke world records

What the new maglev will look like

The main hall is of course where all the trains and history are located:

but waiting for 2027, that's a long time to wait...

in the meantime, you can ride the short test line for fun :)

They had plenty of simulators for people to play with and demos. There is a long line for the shinkansen simulator, but to be honest I don't think it's that fun or impressive to drive a train :)

The diaroma showing the shinkansen line going through Nagoya was quite good:

The displays showing how often the shinkansens run in a single day, and then how they are maintained was quite interesting. Watch the movie if you can:

Then plenty of time to look inside all the trains:

Older trains too:

It was a great visit, really worth the time.

After waking up in our room with great view on top of the Nagoya train station, we enjoyed the view outside while having breakfast:

We took the longish journey to the Toyota Factory (about as long as taking a fast train to Tokyo :)), for our toyota factory tour (on its on page)

Next, due to how long it would have taken to get around with public transport, we took an expensive but much faster cab directly to SCMAGLEV and Railway Park which we had seen quickly last year (1h15), and I thought was definitely worth a longer 3H+ visit.

Lots of pictures from museums on this Nagoya's SCMAGLEV and Railway Park page

After a good long visit of the train museum, we went back to Nagoya to pick up our luggage and take a train to Tokyo:

We took the elevator to the top, sunshine 60, for an awesome clear view after a storm. Sunshine 60 was the tallest building in 1985 and had the fastest elevator in the world .We got to see Mt Fuji for the first time (which is rare in summer):

Tokyo Skytree

We had some nice shots of Mt Fuji (thanks to my 30X zoom):

Mt Fuji in the background

Tokyo Tower

Then, we went to another Neko cafe, because why not? :)