The Rigors of Archery

I need to work on my skills a little bit, especially holding the bow...

Ama No Hashidate: Island Bridge

According to the Online Japan Atlas, "[Ama no hashidate: or Island Bridge] ranks alongside Matsushima in Miyagi Prefecture and Miyajima in Hiroshima Prefecture as one of the so-called 'three most scenic places' of coastal scenery." It is on the sea of Japan across from Korea and Russia.

Here is me in front of a long series of steps.

Here is a stone lantern along the way.

More steps. They seemed very old.

I promise that this is the last shot of steps. But damn, if there weren't a lot of them!

Here is an old rock at the top.

I was told to take a picture upside-down between my legs. At first, I thought it was another joke on me, but I guess the sky does give the illusion that it is water.
Here is a picture of me taking that upside-down picture.

Here is a larger, upright shot.

I think these are stone monuments. I'll look into it.

Here is a cool koala bear stump drinking fountain.

There were some nice lodging at the top of the stairs. There was even a playground near by.

I really like this picture here. This is where we ate our lunch. My host mother and father didn't even know I took it.

Here is my host father checking out the scenery with binoculars, from the car...

On the way home, we stopped at a fish market.

I wouldn't be a tourist if I didn't get this picture.

The fish market was very crowded.

Here is some squid.

Here is some random fish.

Here is some crab.

Here is some really ugly looking fish. Thank goodness for the 8 megapixels...

Here is something cool. There was construction just ahead of this signal, and it limited the road to just a single lane. So this solar-powered signal would count down in forty second intervals so that cars could take turns passing through.

Ninja House and Tanukis

Here is me and my Otousan outside the ninja house.

Here is my friend Tom Ludlow from Lehigh and me enjoying some ninja tea.Here is a shot of the ninja garden.

For a small fee the ninja house lets visitors throw authentic ninja stars.

Here is me posing before my first shot.

My second shot was a bull's eye.

Here's a spider eating a fly.

These were some ninja tools on display. I was told that the ninja's main duty was to protect samurai and that they actually spent a lot of time making medicine.

Here is some ninja clothes on display.

Here is a map of the house, pretty unintelligible.

There were many secret rooms and pathways inside the ninja house. Next to this ladder was a sign saying not to use it.

Here is me passing through a secret door.

In each secret area, there was some sort of fake ninja. Here is me acting hard next to a fake ninja.

Here is me mimicking the kiddy ninjas.

Here is Tom Ludlow next to a picture of Harrison Ford.

This is a statue I liked inside the ninja house.

At first, I didn't really believe that this was a real hat. It was very big.

This is a tanuki, or raccoon dog. In Super Mario 3, you can turn into Tanuki Mario who has the power to turn into stone. Note the gigantic testicles.

Tanukis are pretty popular in Japan. Here is my host parents posing in front of a giant Tanuki phone.

Here is a Tanuki building in the rain from the opposite side of the car.

They don't just sell Tanukis, here.

...although there's a hell of a lot of them.

There's also this guy.

Musashi

This is Musashi, a Wal-Mart sized department store in the Kyoto prefecture.

Here is what they call the "Food DePO."

I have not clue what these are. Cucumbers?

Now, this is my kind of fish, booze.
When I saw this kid, I just thought he was hilarious.

Here is the second sleeping child I saw.

I was disappointed that this shot came out blurry. The reason it is blurry is because I snuck up on these people to take a picture of their sleeping child.

Here is a weird kind of escalator which carries people up an incline plane to the different departments: "Art and Craft," "Food Court" and "Parking."

Along the escalator I saw this ad which is for makeup, I think. The website name translate to "make young dot com." See if you can spot the spokeshomosexual.

Here are very many of those coin-operated machines for children. I have never seen so many in one place.

Apparently, they allow dogs in the store. Ironically, I asked permission to take this picture, and the owner helped me get the dogs attention.

Sweat, anyone?

While in the store, you're probably not supposed to open up magazines and take pictures of the pages inside, but I just had to take a picture of this Japanese girl riding some sort of machine (for exercise?). Also notice how Japanese magazines open the opposite way, weird.

This shot is from the parking lot. At first glance, I thought that the name of this car was "Enema." Some other notable car names I saw include: Hobio, FunCargo, Royal Saloon, Vitz, Fair Lady Z, and Zest.