United Kingdom / London

During the Japanese holiday of Golden Week, last week of April actually, I made my first trip to the United Kingdom and visited the cities of London, Edinburgh, Leeds and Cambridge.

Above was my first view of the UK, looking back on Paddington Station after exiting the train from the airport.

April is rainy season in the UK and almost daily some rain would fall.  I was lucky to constantly be leaving the place where it was raining and going to the place in the country where the sun was shinning.  Above is the Marble Arch, not far from were I stayed in London.

Above is Buckingham Palace, home of the queen.  I missed the changing of the guard by one day.

All over the city these red phone booths still exist.  Japan, the city of Nagoya still has lots of phone booths, but I think the US has more or less got rid of these.

My first day in London it was raining, so I decided to visit some museums. Above is a view from the 4th floor of the Imperial War Museum.  They have great preserved planes on display.

All over London and the United Kingdom are old-school pubs.  I had fish and chips at many of them, great dish but more food than I'm use to eating.

Craft beer was normal everywhere!

I visited St. Paul's Cathedral and felt a little guilty about snapping a few photos, which is not allowed.

But this past week, I saw the Diamond Jubilee, the queen has allowed to take video and everything in here.  After that, I did not feel so guilty.

You can walk up to the top of St. Paul's Cathedral, all over the UK are monuments where you can walk up 100's of steps to get a great view of the city.  Above I'm 1/2 way up the cathedral.

Looking west from the top of the cathedral.

St. Paul's seen from across the street.

Above is the Monument to the Great Fire of London.  Like the St. Paul's Cathedral, you can walk up there.

Here is a view looking down through the spiral stair case from near the top of the Monument.

London Bridge!

I walked all over London and my path to and from where I stayed took my past the Palace of Westminster twice.

It's an amazing building, very parliamentary.

Hyde Park still uses gas lamps.

All over London was signs about stuff you can't do.  For example, the sign above is missing 'NO FUN.'  Other popular signs was no cycling or no pickpocketing.

This restaurant near Marble Arch called Nagoya did not serve any famous Nagoya foods.   I did not bother having Japanese food in the UK.

Taxis outside Sendai Station

I thought this was kind of cool, as I was leaving Sendai to return to Utsunomiya a few weeks ago, these taxis cabs were lined up outside the station waiting for the next bullet train to unload.

This is typical outside of large train stations in Japan. These cars are made by Toyota, the same kind of car I used when I failed my driving test in Nagoya.

Transit of Venus

In the past month I have been lucky to be in the right place at the right time to witness two rare cosmic events.  A few weeks ago, from Utsunomiya Japan I was able to watch the solar eclipse ring of fire.  And today from Handa City Japan I was able to see the transit of Venus.

The transit of venus started at 7am and lasted till about 1:30pm.  During lunch I went to a park near where I work and tried to take a photo of Venus.

As you can see, the photo was epic fail.  This was taken through look-at-sun glasses, but venus was to small to be seen by the camera.

Matsushima Bay

Matsushima is an a beautiful area of northern that is not far from Sendai.  This is the second time I have visited this area but the first time since the March 11th earthquake.  Although was near the earthquake epicenter it did not suffer as much damage as costal areas north and south of here because it is naturally protected from the pacific ocean with a series of islands.  This area is considered one of the most beautiful areas of Japan.

Above is Godaido island, it is connected to the mainland with a couple of small bridges.

This is one of two bridges you have to cross to get to the island above.  They are very Japanese in style but can be dangerous because there are a lot of holes in the floor of the bridge. 

Above is the main tree line path leading up to Zuiganji shrine, this is all at sea level and nothing really seems damage.

There are many statues around the park leading up to Zuiganji.

Inside the shrine there are many mountain pass throughs, I'm not sure if these are natural or man made, but they seem man made.

 Shrines are also built into the side of mountains.

Above is one last monument inside the park leading up to Zuiganji.  It's hard to see but there are two large steam train wheels at the base of the shrine.

 This is the Bentendo, it's on Fukuurajima Island.

I think this boat is being used to collect garbage from the bay after the earthquake / tsunami happen here. There are a bunch of random nets and bouys in there.

 Here are a couple of views of the bay.

I think I took them both from Fukuurajima.

Akita

Akita is the capital city of Akita Prefecture, just west of Kakunodata.  It is a really laid back place, good for relaxing but not much to see within the city center.  

The main tourist spot in Akita is Sensyu Park, just northwest of the Akita station.  It's a large park that has many gardens and other attractions.

Sings in the park are marked up in English too, almost providing to much information.  I was hoping to see the marble statue.

Above is the bronze statue of Yoshitaka Satake, he was the final leader of the Satake clan.

Me in one of the temples within the park.  I backed my head into the orange torii right before the photo snapped.

Akita castle is also in the park, but this is a reconstruction.  But for 100 yen, you can go up to the 4th floor and get a great view of the city.

I don't normally read menu's in Japan, I just sit down and order what I think the restaurant serves.  But at this small ramen shop in Akita, the menu was hard to avoid because it was posted right on the counter.  As I glanced at it the second menu item caught my eye, it says baka-negi-ramen.... 750yen.  When translated that means stupid onion ramen for $9.60.  You don't normally see the word baka printed anywhere in Japan, so when I read that I looked up at guy running the shop and said 'baka?"  He confirmed it was stupid.

I did order the stupid onion dish and was kind of disappointed, the amount of onion on top seemed reasonable.  I was thinking the onion would be falling over the side of the bowl. 

Here is the shop seen from across the street.

Kakunodate Samurai Village

For the past 5 weeks I have been traveling all over the place, both in Northern Japan and the United Kingdom.  One of the places I had a chance to visit was Kakunodate, an old well kept village of samurai houses.

Above is Kakunodate station, the main gate to the samurai village.The 

The houses are easy to find, but once you get there information in English is difficult to find.

 All around the city is statues and monuments.  I'm assuming the one above is for reading or academics.

Each house had beautiful gardens and were connected between houses with paths or bridges.  You could also go back out to the main street and travel between houses.

Another simple garden above.

Each house belonged to a famous samurai family in the past, but again most of the names were in Japanese, so I was not really sure who lived there.  I even think I went up to a few houses that were not part of the the tour.

The tatami room inside one of the houses.

A popular dish in Kakunodate is mochi in tube shape with miso paste on it.

Another old school tatami room.  This is an interesting samurai house because the 12th generation of the original family still lives here in the back room.  I guess by day they stay in the back room but at night they come out and live in the rest of the house.

The tradition of thatched roofs are still alive here.