Digital Depictions & Photographic Portrayals

One of my favourite things is to look at pictures. Another one of my favourite things is to share pictures! Here's a pictorial narration of some of our adventures in Japan so far!  

My first glimpse of the Land of the Rising Sun.

Jet lag in Tokyo meant getting to see the city streets before they were crowded with people...

... like this. Takeshita Dori, a very popular street to shop.

Hachi at his station.

The busiest intersection in the world, Shibuya Crossing.

My tour guide.

A giant praying mantis that scared me half to death one day.

Our little square-ish home.

After sadly leaving our mint plant in Canada, I was ecstatic to discover that our lawn is primarily made up of... mint! (peppermint and spearmint, since you asked). Plus, no mowing!

Our area has many, many bridges.

Mountains, trees, and rice fields.

We took a day for historical exploration. This is Narakawa, a post town that was built along an ancient foot-highway. It is one of a handful of post towns whose original Edo Period buildings have not been destroyed by earthquakes or fire.  

A historical Buddhist temple in Narakawa. Buddhism is one of Japan's two main religions.

The temple bell.

A Shinto shrine in Narakawa. Shintoism is the other primary religion in Japan.

The shrine "guardian"

Once again, my loyal tour guide and translator.

In a house-museum was a handful of historical art. This is a painting of a tiger. Small ancient tigers once roamed Japan, before becoming extinct. This is not one of those. In more 'recent' history,  tigers were sometimes imported to Japan as gifts, and images of them were popular and thought to be good luck.

More super cool, very old tiger drawings.

Chestnuts are aplenty in our neighbourhood! Don't be fooled by their adorable facade. They hurt.

Spam sushi, obviously.

We don't have an oven. Microwaves in Japan doubles as conventional ovens (and toasters). I tested it with these sorry muffins.

Sums it up.

Japanese Tree Frogs are probably the cutest wildlife I've seen so far. Unless chestnuts count as wildlife.

The Yasuoka Road Race, with races up to 10km through the mountains. Apparently they had an Olympic Gold Medalist participate a couple of years ago. Justin and I opted out of dying, and the local food vendors were the main attraction for us.  

Truthful advertising.

I was ridiculously excited to see wild bamboo stands! I made Justin take a picture of me beside one.

Onigiri, one of my new favourite foods. Rice, wrapped in seaweed, with a delicious filling!

See that bridge?...

... we took narrow night roads through Japanese jungle mountains to get there. Scary times...

... but totally worth it to catch the sunset.

  

Our new favourite picnic spot.

A pretty suspension bridge at our picnic spot.

Our neighbourhood.

Tucking in for the evening.