Japan.It's Bloomin marvellous.

[drron]

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The young local lads were playing a game trying to get a pine cone onto the material.

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The next visit was to the area's Museum-

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[drron]

To me this museum is amazing.The objects date from the first century when the antecedents of the Silla dynasty were established in this area.The dynasty collapsed in the middle of the 10th century so a lot of what you see here is between 1-2 thousand years old.So a random selection of the very large collection-

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[drron]

Now to the Golden age of this area.Gold first was introduced to the area in the 4th century.So this is a golden post!

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[drron]

More gold-

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Back to some objects with less glitter-

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[drron]

Now a bit of history of the Silla dynasty-

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And a model of the region in Silla times.The large elevated area to the left is the Royal Palace.The museum is on the left side of that area now.

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[drron]

The last of the museum-

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Interesting doors on the elevators-

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[drron]

We now wandered around outside and there are lots more objects to view-

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At the museum and at many other sites in the area there are headless buddhas.Have no idea why there are no heads-

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[drron]

Some of the flowers around the Museum-

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And a Buddha head without a body-

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And one of the famous exhibits-the Emille bell.Legend has it a young child was sacrificed by throwing the live body into the molten metal before casting hence it's distinctive tone.Like a child singing.Hopefully just legend.

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[drron]

Now our bus trip back to the ship-

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A temple,not a 20th century symbol.

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Now we were to stop at a tourist bamboo grove on the way back.Our bus driver lost his way and we went down this quite rural road until we reached a bridge the bus would not fit on.Personally that was more interesting than walking through a bamboo grove.

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And some signs that took my fancy-

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And a place that I probably needed-

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And so back on the ship and we set off for Shiminoseki in Japan.

 

[drron]

Overnight and we reached Shiminoseki.This though for us was just to do Japanese Immigration formalities.It didn't stop the locals from again welcoming us.They came on board to do it this time-

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No it wasn't silly hat day in Shiminoseki but the puffer fish is the symbol of the prefecture hence the hats.We each got a welcome pack with tourist information and a postcard.Mrsdrron was pleased there wasn't a silly hat in the bag.Then off and through Immigration which was quite a shambles.The Immigration forms had changed on April 1st.They no longer need to leave a departure card in the passport but none of the officers had the English to explain that to us.Once through though there were others to greet us-

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It was a 2 hour bus trip to Hagi.A comfort stop just before Hagi.I was comfortable so walked around for the 10 minutes.It was obvious though that peak blossom time was over.

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Those are the Chosu 5 who came from the Hagi area.They were smuggled out of Japan on one of Thomas Glover's ships.The first Prime minister of Japan and it's first Foreign minister were 2 of those 5.
In this area we began seeing lot's of citrus-

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We then reached Shizuki park and the ruins of Hagi castle.Note the ice cream.It is natsukan flavour,bitter orange.It was very refreshing.

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[drron]

Hagi is known for it's pottery and there are several shops here-

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And that is a Japanese orchid known as the samurai orchid.The an upmarket pottery place where mrsdrron managed to find something to buy-

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[drron]

So to the ruins of Hagi castle-

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The green cherry blossom-

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[drron]

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The midoriyoshino cherry outside the walls was in flower but this one was well and truly done-

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[jandj]

An absolutely delightful read drron and Mrs drron.
First time visit by us for a short (4 day) trip last November (BKK/Fukuoka/Beppu/BKK) and we both were continually looking at each other in wonderment at everything, visuals/food/people. Just loved Japan and your TR proves why. Cheers, John

 

[drron]

Last of the castle-

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Time for lunch.We went to the Senshuraku restaurant.

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And the after pic-

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[drron]

Interesting decorations at the hotel-

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Not surprisingly as the puffer fish is the prefecture's emblem you could get your fugu at the shop-

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As the fugu is meant to be cut very fine I don't think you should try the cheaper boxes.
The hotel is on a very nice beach-

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[drron]

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Then the street outside-

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We then got the bus to the old samurai quarter.The parking lot showed us we didn't miss peak blossoms by much-

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[drron]

We visited the Kikuya Samurai House.Interesting and a great little garden-

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[drron]

The office with computers-

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