Miyako, Japan

For our tour today, we left Miyako just as fast as the ship passed customs. We had a eight hour tour and our ship was only going to be in port for eight hours.

We have been lucky because we are one of the first on the buses each day. We asked for help getting Sharon and the walker on the bus before the rest of the people come for the tour. At first Sharon was not too happy about using the walker but she has now learned that she can go places that she wouldn't have been able to walk to without it. There has been a lot of uneven walkways and trails that she might have fallen without it. The nice thing about it is that it has a chair that she can sit on when she gets tired.

Our tour started with a two hour bus ride through the mountains. The best part of today's tour was seeing this beautiful valley with small villages and many golden fields of rice waiting to be harvested. We decided that everyone there must be a master gardener. They don't have grass or lawns like we do but everyone has some kind of garden beside their homes or in the fields behind their houses. All their gardens looked great. The mountains we went through were so green. Much of these mountains have been replanted since the war.


Once we got to our designation we saw buildings known as magariya. These are L-shaped farmhouses. In years long ago farmfolk and their prized horses all lived together under the same roof, but in different sections.


We had a Japanese lunch that I have to admit that Dennis tried more of it than Sharon and me.

In this Tono valley they have a legend about a small creature called "kappa". We saw many different places that talked about the kappa.



We went to the Jokenji Temple to see a 55 foot wooden Fukusenji Kannon statue. They wouldn't let us take pictures in the temple so I took one of the postcard that Dennis bought. Legend has it that the kappa, contrary to their impish nature, once put out a fire in the temple.


After the temple, we had a two hour bus ride back in which I got car sick!

For some reason I have not been able to upload any pictures to my blog since Seattle.
I want to thank Chelsea for helping me. I send them to her by email and then she puts them in my blog. THANKS CHELSEA!!!!


I have been asked what the floats were made of. They are made from paper and formed over wire and wood. They then were hand painted. Some of the floats had a few holes in them but some were as old as 25 years old. They have been stored there for people to come and look at. They are made by towns not individual people.