Monday's Adventures

What a day!

We set off just as the sun was peeking over the horizon. From what we could tell, Okayama was a nice town. We believe it is a university town. We drove past the stadium and a few campus looking buildings. It struck us as fairly new. The streets and sidewalks were wide. It is amazing how small the sidewalks are for a country whose people do a lot of walking and cycling. Guess land is at a premium.

Here is a fairly typical picture of what driving on the espressway is like. The country for the most part - at least the parts we've driven through - is mountainous. It is AMAZING how many tunnels they have on these expressways. It seems like at least %25 of the road is tunnel. (Surely that must be an exaggeration.) Several of the tunnels have been in the 3-6 meters long range.

We stopped on the eastern part of Hiroshima to be tourists! We took a ferry over to the island if Miyajimi which according to the guidebook is one of the holiest places in Japan. We captured our versions of the famous "gate" that stands in the water. There is actually quite a town there. we walked around a bit, saw several pagodas, the shire (which we did not go in) and lots of deer. They are quite tame as kids were petting them but Joe read a sign that says they may bite. Lots of shops and PEOPLE. It was a national holiday here as well! We arrived around 8:30 AM and left just as the crowds were arriving a couple of hours later. There is very little English so you need to bring your own tour/historical info. we didn't even hear a tour guide speaking English.

Along the way, we stopped at one of the numerous roadside rest areas which, like those in Europe, have convenience stores, restaurants, large bathrooms, vendors and gas. This particular one wasn't as large as some so there wasn't a Starbuck's or a huge inside food court, but it did have a number of outside vendors. I found the bakery inside and found 4 yummy looking breads. Joe found a kebob of some type of meat that he found pretty tasty. the pastires were tasty as well although one of them had some unidentifiable "gel" inside that didn't smell apetizing by our standards, so we decided to leave that one alone. It kindof smelled like curry mixed with soy sauce?

We left there and continued our trek south to Miyazaki which is where we spent the night. Joe had wanted to travel to the airfield where the Kamikaze flew out of, but we ran out of daylight.

We did have to fill up the car with gas again, and as you would have it, the pump was different and required the help of yet another attendant.

Checking into the hotel with the car was again a bit of a challenge. This front desk spoke no English. And, the car... This garage is an elevator system where you drive your car in and walk out. You evidently push a button and it goes up and is stacked on above the other. It appeared to hold about 20 cars. Anyway, the really nice front desk girl came out to help us, but evidently the car was too big and we had to go park it in a lot down the street. should have had that whole event on video. Again, it would have been helpful to have been able to read the signs.

OK, we need to get going. Have a great day. We plan to take our first F4 pictures today. Sunny forecast so all is well!