Excursion Fail

There was a super-cool sounding event at the Kintai Bridge.  The premise, as I understood it, is that hundreds of years ago, the important dude who lived in the castle wanted to keep his vassals under control.  So he made a decree that they had to come see him every other year. This snowballed into a display of one-up-manship between the vassals and they all tried to out each other in their processions across the bridge to see the important guy.

April 29 commemorates this event and they reenact it.  Doesn't that sound fun?!  Joshua was going to help with the even with the Boy Scouts, and I sent him off to meet the troop and catch his ride out. Then I told the girls we were going to go as well. They were unenthusiastic.

We made the drive out just fine, and 1/2 mile from the event, we hit dead stop traffic.  We sat there for 20 minutes.  We eeked forward very slowly for another 15 minutes.  We were  almost to the traffic light where we could actually see the bridge when the Japanese police cane down the line of traffic and told us we had to turn around. (Not sure if parking was full or the parade would pass that way.) Everything ahead was apparently being closed off.

Since there had been much murmuring and unhappiness from the backseat, I made the executive decision to abort.

The girls were mostly appeased by a stop at 7-11 for delicious food and ice cream.

(Joshua had a great time.)

So close!  I could see the castle from the car! 

But on th plus side, I finally got a photo of this shrine.  We drive by it to Kintai and I always want to stop and check it out.  We sat in front of it for way too long this day.

Mt Shosha Anniversary Trip

 To celebrate our 17 years of wedded bliss, Dan and I went on a trip.  A day trip.  A touristy little day trip.  We signed up for the Mt. Shosha trip. It was an all day trip to Himeji to see a bunch of Japanese temples and shrines.  Because I want to sound cool, I will tell you that one of the structures there on Mt Shosha was used in the movie "The Last Samurai".

It was a 4 hour bus ride up (and back!) and they showed the movie on the drive.  The tour guide was nice enough to pause the movie and post out the temple that we would be seeing in real life.  When we got to the mountain, we got to take a gondola ride up the ropeway to the middle of the mountain.  Then we spent 2.5 hours hiking all over the mountain to see a bunch of different shrines and temples.

It was so beautiful there.  Japan is such a gorgeous country!

Getting started on our hike up the mountain to see cool stuff.

(Yeah, I'm wearing my glasses.  I have an eye issue and my contacts are not working right now.)

All the cement posts have writing on them, but i can't read Kanji. 

The start of the trail to the really cool stuff.   It gets steep right around that corner.

So much random! Japan is just the coolest. 

This is the main temple. You can't tell, but it is built on a steep hill and surrounded by thick trees. this was about the only open space.

There were neat things everywhere. 

Lots of detailed stuff. 

And we ended up on this little trail for a bit.  I can't believe none of my pictures show how steep some of the paths were! This one was a little crazy and a lot of work.  A lot of fun too.

 Check it out!  I'm at the Engyoji Temple, the one they used in the movie. I feel so famous.

A better view of the entire temple area. Probably the largest flat space on the entire mountain.

Look!  I'm on top of the world!  This is how high up we were!  Crazy!

Beppu: Hells 5-8

The kids were really good sports for the 3+ hours I spent dragging them to all the Jigoku, or hot springs.  The springs were interesting enough that they did have a good time. Mostly.

Hot Spring #5 was had a crocodile farm! 

It was a lot more impressive in person to see all these large crocodiles in the pen.  There were also smaller pens, all with crocodiles in them.

Of course Callie and Rylee need a picture with this guy! 

This spring was so steamy it was hard to get a picture of anything but the steam. 

Hot Spring #6 had several tanks of fish to admire.

And it was a pretty spring.  It also only had one steamy spot. 

I admit, it was getting a little old at this point.  But they had landscaped it beautifully and I enjoyed that very much. 

And Rylee wanted a picture with everything! 

She cracks me up!  Look at her face!  I love this kid. 

Hot Spring #7 was suppose to be the "blood red" one.  And I guess you could stretch your imagination and see it. 

It was kind of cool. 

And it had this gorgeous little stream with koi. 

The kids just wanted to check out the fish.  Callie managed to touch one. 

Stats on the spring. 

Hmm... the view from higher up was about the same. 

I love my silly girls! 

Another hot foot bath.  It was so hot you could barely put your feet in. 

Hot Spring #8 was a geyser and we had to wait to see it.  Thank goodness there was gelato in the gift shop!  Mostly because I had promised them all ice cream if they made it to the last one. (The gelato was delicious, by the way.)

Info on it. 

To kill time before the geyser, Callie wanted pictures in the surrounding area.  It was a lovely place. 

They are so cute! 

Such an awesome kid I have.

It finally blew!  And it went for 5-10 minutes.  They have built this structure around it to contain the water so it doesn't go everywhere, and they can keep it to a smaller area.

It went forlong enough to get all the photos I needed.

 And, of course, to get a selfie!

Beppu: The first 4 Hells of Beppu

 The city of Beppu is known for it's hot springs.  They have a bunch of them, and have immortalized 8 of them for touristy purposes.  We were incredibly lucky in that one of Dan's co-workers gave him a golden ticket.  It got our entire family in to all 8 of the hot springs for my favorite price- free! Otherwise it is about $4 a person per hot spring or $20 for all.  Somehow not paying for them made it more fun and relaxing. (Maybe because there was no pressure to enjoy it and get our money's worth?)

We did go to all 8 of them.  The first 3 are all next to each other, and 4,5, and 6 are a short distance from them.  The last 2 are 3 km away, so you have to drive.  I wasn't sure the family was going to agree to drive to the last 2, but encouraged by the promise of ice cream and the lure of collecting all 8 stamps for their booklets, they did.

It was a lot of fun for me.  We meandered through them and looked at everything.  Each "Hell" had a stamp and we collected them all.  Most of them had something else to enjoy in addition to the spring.

The first spring.  It was really pretty.

It really was that color!  No adjustment with photo-shop. 

Hot Spring #1 had pretty stuff to look at and walk around.  There was a lily pad pond and this torii and shrine area. 

I just love Japan! 

You could walk up to get a fuller view, so I did. 

 Next to and included with Hot Spring #1 was this reddish one.  Very different! 

And it had a place you could soak your feet in real hot springs... that was not a temp to actually burn you.  But it was toasty! 

Delaney did not last long.  It was really warm. 

The kids loved it. 

Hot Spring #2 was this cool mud one.  Each of the rings is where the water is just hot enough to boil, so it bubbles up in right there.

Trust the Japanese to make it look like a zen garden. 

Hot Spring #3.   

It was not spectacularly exciting, but it promised animals.  I had forgotten that PETA does not exist in Japan.

The little ponies were scrawny but sweet.  For $1 you could buy them carrots, so of course we did. 

Even Marian was happy to pose for a picture. 

Hot Spring #4.  It looked a bit like the first one.  The water was really pretty.

And I just love all the shrine-y stuff.  So lovely. 

This spring only had one plume of steam. 

And Rylee could not resist this!