Japan 2006
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Our friend Jonnie invited us to Tokyo to be guests at his traditional Shinto wedding in September of 2006. Having an actual reason to go to a place is the best. We went right out and bought suits.
Tokyo
We flew into Tokyo and stayed there five nights. We had two days to sightsee in the city, spent one day on an excursion to Kamakura, and one day was entirely occupied by the wedding and its various parties. More pictures...
Kamakura
Kamakura is a short train ride southeast of Tokyo, on the ocean. It is a very old city full of shrines and temples. More pictures...
The Wedding
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Hakone
We spent a night in Hakone, a geothermally active area in the mountains below Mt. Fuji. More pictures...
Kyoto
We continued on to Kyoto on the bullet train. We spent three nights there in a very nice Western-style hotel which was part of the massive modern train station complex. The first day of sightseeing was on our own, and on the second we were showed around by Ken Katayama, who we'd worked with at Opcode, and who works now for Digidesign.
Kyoto is much, much smaller than Tokyo, and it is littered with temples and shrines everywhere you go. More pictures...
Himeji
We checked out of our hotel in Kyoto, sent our large bags ahead to Nara, and took the bullet train to Himeji, where there is a famous castle. We spent the day there, and then took a complicated succession of trains through Osaka to Nara, stopping in Kobe to have some Kobe beef. Ken-san stayed with us through the whole process to make sure we got on the right train. More pictures...
Nara
Nara is a very old town with many temples in the area. It's quite small, and much of it is a park where a large herd of deer wanders around freely. We arrived after dark, and found our ryokan without too much difficulty. We stayed three nights, giving us a day plus an additional morning to sightsee in Nara, and another day to see some nearby temples. More pictures...
Signs & Desktops
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