Okinawa!

Here are the pictures from Okinawa! I tried to keep the number of photos to a decent amount so it would be easier to view, but I failed. I had a great time meeting all of my relatives and cousins and can't wait to see them again! We'll have to work hard to keep in contact with all of the relatives from Okinawa.

沖縄の写真です！見やすいようにこんなにたくさんの写真をアップロードするつもりはなかったけど、やっぱり無理でした。みんなに会うのはとってもよくて、楽しくて、次に会う事に楽しみにしています！沖縄のみんなとの連絡をなくならないように頑張らなきゃ。

pictures are here

Pictures from Taiwan

For those of you who aren't on facebook.com (i.e. my family), check the link below for pictures from my Taiwan trip with Jennie. 17 days!

以下のリンクをクリックすると、僕の彼女との台湾旅行の写真が見れます。

pictures

Izu Hanto Peninsula

In my long consecutive string of weekend trips, this will probably be my last one for a bit. Hopefully! It's crazy that thoughts like "hey, this is the first time in awhile where i'm getting to sleep in on a saturday" are popping up in my head.

This previous trip consisted of a number of places, including Yokohama, Kamakura, and parts of Tokyo, but I'll focus on, in my opinion, the most interesting place we saw: Izu Hanto. And I've noticed that on all of the trips that I've planned so far, they've included these 3 things: lots of time on trains, small boonie towns, and onsens, which is probably why I enjoyed Izu the most.

Anywhere from 2-4 hours away from Tokyo city, this peninsula is full of little villages and towns that pride themselves on their onsens. The other great thing that seems to be pretty prevalent here is rentable bicycles! I can't say how much I love exploring a small town via bicycle, going at my own pace but speeding up and skipping the boring stuff when necessary. And once you're finished seeing what you've wanted to see, getting back to where you started is a lot faster!

To start this off...

Shuzenji!

There's some nice onsens here, as well as a free mixed onsen that was under construction when I went.

500 yen to rent the bike

small town in the country!

small streets to shop and eat at

From Shuzenji, you can take a 1.5 hour bus ride through the mountains and along the coast to the next town, Dogashima. Really nice scenery!

you can also borrow a bike in dogashima from the information booth for free!

dogashima's typical scenery consists of these cliffs and boulders that line the coast. and lots of people fishing on them.

guys fishin!

how'd he get out there?!

another great thing about dogashima is the Sawada Rotenburo Onsen (outdoor onsen - 沢田露天風呂) that sits right on the cliff. you can see it in this picture on the right side

the onsen - really tiny! no place to wash or anything - just strip and get in!

Another nice thing about the Dogashima coast is that there's a number of hikes that you can take that afford really nice views! And instead of backtracking after you're done, you can just take a bus back to where you started. Perfect.

the different trails

views

From Dogashima, you can take yet another 1.5 hour bus to Shimoda, the town listed in Lonely Planet as the one town you should check out if you only have time for one. Not really true...but it was okay. It's another big fishing town but I definitely liked Dogashima much more.


And to finish the 2nd day off, we stopped at the Rendaiji to check out the Kanaya Ryokan's onsen. It was 1000 yen but definitely, a nice onsen!


Check this area out if you're ever looking for something different from the bigger cities like Tokyo or Kamakura!

Traveling Solo in Shimane: Part 2

On Day 2, I started out with heading from Izumo (stayed at an internet cafe - cheap but not as good as ones in bigger cities) to Iwami for its famous Silver Mines (UNESCO World Heritate Site apparently).

Iwami

This area is a really tiny town spotted with temples here and there, some hiking trails in the mountains, and the silver mines at the northern end of it. You can rent bicycles from 2 different areas in the town which I opted for.

tiny bakery. good stuff!

another temple!

and then my foot started to hurt

all of the bicycles

I really enjoyed exploring this town and the scenery surrounding it, but unfortunately, my left foot starting hurting really bad midway to the point where I had to stop walking and just turn back. Luckily, I had rented a bicycle so it was easy to get back, but for the rest of the day, I was limping. Not a good way to, more or less, start the 2nd day of my trip!

After Iwami, I headed down to Nima to check out the sand museum. I noticed a small library near the museum and actually spent some time in there sketching and relaxing. I must say that one of the things I love are these wood construction buildings that I've been able to find in the small towns.

the library

the library interior

small stream between the library and the museum

relaxing and resting my foot

i was munching on some bread and admiring this hawk until all of a sudden, i noticed that one, it wasn't in the sky, and two, there was a huge shadow over me. at that point, the hawk had swooped down and tried to take my bread from me. that bastard missed but he scratched me in the process. i then took one more bite from my bread and chucked it for the hawk to take (which he did).

a nice little park with a HUGE slide

the sand museum (view from below)

1 year hour glass

From Nima, I decided to start on my way back and skip the AQUAS aquarium in Hamada. At this point, I was literally limping around with my foot hurting like hell. It was good decision, though, as I ended up making it back to Iizuka really late, even with starting out from Nima at 5PM or so.

goin back home!

i actually forgot that shimane was on the ocean coast

Overall, it was a great trip but I definitely want to head back to Iwami someday and explore it fully, as well as check out other places that I missed.

Again, thanks ojisandake for the information! お世話になっております :)

Solo Trip Number 2: Shimane-ken! Part 1

In my quest to travel and see as much of Japan as possible before I head back to America to begin "real life," I've been traveling a lot; some of those trips have included solo trips taken with the intention of forcing myself to sketch more.

This last one, one of those solo trips, was to the Shimane prefecture. It's juxtaposed with 4 prefectures on its right - Tottori, Okayama, Hiroshima, and Yamaguchi - and surrounded on the other side by the sea that sits between Japan and the rest of Asia, whatever it happens to be named (:

I got there via overnight bus from the Tenjin Bus Center to Matsue Station, one of the main hubs in the northern part of Shimane.

8800 Yen for a one way ticket leaves 9:50PM daily and arrives the next morning at 6:50AM for a total of 9 hours

I was there for just 2 days, definitely not enough time to see all of anywhere, but I did see a lot and sketched a lot (see previous post)! Here's the first day which was spent in Matsue and Izumo.

And before I begin, I have to give credit to mr. ojisandake for all of the information that both he and his blog posts provided me with! The fact that I was able to find that much information about Shimane through his blog was one of the main reasons why I chose to go there. Thank you once again!

seaside, near the art museum

the art museum

Matsue Castle

the start of a long approach to the Izumo Taisha shrine, one of, if not the, oldest Shinto shrines in Japan

big rope and people trying to lodge coins in by throwing them up

a step back

and near there, a museum on Ancient Izumo designed by mr. Fumihiko Maki, the same japanese architect who did the sam fox buildings anad steinberg

structural detail

the approach from the back

a big gate near the Izumo Taisha shrine

and last, my "'requisite onsen visit." located right behind Izumoshi Station. really nice onsen. and on top of that, when i visited, they were having a sort of anniversary celebration and thus were giving out free towels and face soap as well as a ticket that could be redeemed for a free 5 minute massage, a beer, wine, yogurt, or body-fat test. there was a 30 minute wait for the massage, so i opted for the beer. i think the free towel, soap, and beer paid for the 600yen entrance fee. even without the free stuff, i'd definitely go back!

and that was day 1!

Megahiro: Snowboarding in March

We were a bit late, but we were able to get some snowboarding in at Megahiro in Hiroshima last weekend!

For 11,000 yen, we got:
- round trip bus from Kokura (about 3.5-5 hours)
- snowboard and boot rental
- ski lift ticket

Check out the awesome snow.

on the lift up

at the bunny slopes before we started

goin up

goin up

done!

these things are money