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Welcome. The following are the last 5 or so pictures to be uploaded. To view more pictures click on Photos to see more.
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Time to have a look at what the Japanese call a castle and this is it. Hikone Castle, more walking as usual, a twenty minute trot from the train station on achy feet is more than enough until you realise that you then have to march up a load of stairs. It’s not a bad sight and is in pretty ground with much Cherry Blossom again but it does make it look all the more better since the sky was grey. Nothing much more to do today except for stop at Kyoto and get some Shinkansen tickets for the trip back to Tokyo for our airport hotel.
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There were three things on the list today in Kyoto. We had to visit the observation tower which no self respecting Japanese city as without from our current experience of three Japanese cities. We had to visit the huge Budda at Ryozen Kannon and we had to visit the Market at Nishiki. There was a lot of walking today as Kyoto is quite large and despite all the places looking really close on Google Maps, hey all took about 30 minutes of walking to get to each which tends to really dampen the spirits in hot sun when your feet hurt. However we did pass through the Gion district where you can catch a glimps of Geisha, which we didn’t (of course) but we did catch a lot of people in Kimonos.The impressive thing about the Buddha is that you can see it from the observation tower with the naked eye, so it’s not small.
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We decided that today was a great day to go to Hiroshima, unfortunately so did the G7. What was going to be a rather simple trip to the Peace Gardens and the A-Bomb Dome became slightly more complicated when the G7 decided to take over the Peace Memorial Park. Lots of waiting ensued as the security made sure no-one got anywhere near the park. Finally we got there and found the place mobbed with TV cameras all trying to mop up shots of the wreaths and talk to school children who had been there. Still we made it, and I got this rather predictable shot of the dome in Hiroshima.
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Today’s shrine was all about deer. They are allowed to roam all over because they are seen as heavenly animals as a mythical god arrived in Nara on a deer to defend the newly built capital. As usual with Kyoto, the place is littered with shrines that the deer walk through, however they do tend to stick to places where they can be fed deer biscuits which you can buy from sellers all over the park. Naturally the deer all quite tame as no harm will come to them, so they are not above giving you a shove with their head/antlers if they think you’re witholding deer biscuits as I found out.
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It was a visit to a shrine today and Kyoto is packed full of them. This one has a train of red arches that run up the mountain, which we started following, but after a long while decided that our progress was not enough for us to bother carrying on with. On the way up there are smaller shrines often including foxes which are revered and can possess you via your fingernails, probably started as a parent’s tactic to get their kids to wash their hands properly.
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