Well, the main reason I came to Japan this time was to go to Ise Jingu, and now I’ve been.

There isn’t a lot to exactly see, as such, because everything important is hidden. But the train trip was relaxing and the grounds were enormous and peaceful. I also watched a ritual food carving ceremony, hochoshiki. That was neat

I spent some time at a second-hand kimono shop. Such beautiful clothes, and not necessarily cheap either.

The most interesting thing of the day was a kind of show at Bansho-ji, a popular temple in a shopping mall nearby.

Not my video, but here it is. There’s also a mechanical man.

There’s almost always some kind of shopping street or arcade near shrines and temples. So that’s convenient for worshippers. They can pray and then get the cabbage needed for dinner. At this particular neighborhood, theres three very popular shrines or temples and 1200 shops.

It got cold so I called it a day after that.

Today I’ll go to Inuyama, a small city nearby that has the oldest remaining castle that’s never been burned down or rebuilt.

Rode the bullet train to Nagoya yesterday. What a delight! So convenient.

My hostel is very small and very quiet…except for the musak. It’s in a shopping street and the canned music plays nonstop. It took about 2 hours to learn to ignore it.

Had a great afternoon at the Toyota Museum in town. The company got started by making spinning and weaving machines. All of the displayed machines were working, and the dudes would operate them if you looked interested. Neat!

On the car side, there was the original prototype, the A1. The guy bought a 33 Chevrolet and just copied it, lol. He thought “I wanna make a car. Ill just copy this one.” It took a year to make the first one.

Anyhoo you can read about on the he internet.

Today I’ll go to Ise Jingu, a very important shrine in the countryside. Its two hours away, a bit far but ive got a book to read.

Didn’t do too much.

So there’s this thing that people do here. They walk or run the entire circle of a particular train line, the Yamanote line. It takes hours and hours and hours.

Im doing this too, but only a piece at a time. So I cracked out 5 stations yesterday. When my feet were just too soggy, I had a coffee.

Before my walking tour, I found a Chinese restaurant for lunch. The ordering system was not in English, and by mistake, i ordered a hilarious amount of food. When the guy brought it, im pretty sure he was confused. I did my best and left with a stomach ache.

Im moving on to Nagoya today.

Sundays are for coffee, long walks, and reading…anywhere i happen to be.

So that about wraps it up

Also, i had dinner with Allison, someone i met in Kawaguchiko