Monday, November 24, 2008

The beauty of Autumn!

At 1200 metres it looks more like Winter than Autumn.

Even dead leaves have their beauty!

John and Sue Burch have been to visit!















We have had a great time visiting with our good friends John and Sue. They have joined in with our teaching activities, we have visited the MTW team ast Nagoya and we have done some sightseeing in beautiful Autumn weather.
Here are our ladies cooking Taiwanese food. It was delicious. We had sweet and sour pork, beef with singapore noodles, lotus root cakes, broccoli and spare rib soup, fresh and dried fruit and oolong tea.

Sunday, November 09, 2008

October holiday

Do you like persimmons? Come and help yourself! We are privileged to have a tree laden with beautiful orange Autumn fruit




This tree is in our front garden.
Recently we took a trip to Kyoto, Hiroshima, and Himeji castle. It was almost Autumn and we saw some beautiful colours in beautiful gardens.








Outside Kyoto, there is a beautiful bamboo forest which we walked through. The bamboo was almost a blue colour. It was very peaceful and cool.
























We took a romantic tram ride through a river valley. The scenery was fantastic and we were able to see several boatloads of tourists taking a ride down the rapids.




































We were most impressed with the 'bullet train' - nizomi shinkansen! What a surreal shape!












On the island of Miya jima, we took a ropeway trip up to the top of the tallest mountain. We were warned about the cheeky monkeys. They provided free lockers for us to store our bags and food because the monkeys are know to quickly attack and grab whatever they can. they were very noisy and active and lived up to their reputation.











The views over the many islands was magic. It was a very beautiful spot. It is a world heritage site.














































































































Warren didn't go anywhere without one or two cameras. It is photo heaven. What a lot of beauty is found in Japan.













Anyone for carp?

























The use of the colour red is used very dramatically in the many parks and religious shrine areas.


























This is a famous tori which is in the water on the island of Miya Jima.







































I don't know the significance of this structure but everyone was lining up to take a photo of the tori through the central hole.










Hiroshima memorial park is certainly dramatic and an emotional experience. You can see the original bomb dome through this memorial structure.












This is the closest remaining building to ground zero.
























Our last stop was HImeji castle. It is very large and set in beautiful gardens. It still looks like the original castle.