Blogs from Aichi, Japan, Asia - page 3

Nagoya A day we wished we could start again :( We're feeling emotionally exhausted after the stress of today. We set off for our Toyota factory tour only to discover when changing trains that George had left his JR Pass on the train. It was a horrible feeling as we had planned another 8 days using the railway passes. Unluckily, the two station workers spoke little English and it took a lot of gesturing and drawing to explain the problem. The guy really struggled with the orientation of where we had been sitting on the train when the pass was dropped. Eventually he aranged for the train to be checked and we dashed off to the Toyota factory hopeful that we might see the pass again. The Toyota Factory was fascinating, we visited the welding workshop ... read more

Hello, We went to the Konomiya Shrine's Naked Festival on Saturday with Zoe and Martin. It was really good fun, we hope you enjoy the photos and bit of information below. Hadaka Matsuri officially called "Naoi Shinji", this festival takes place anually on January 13 of the lunar calendar. The festival started about 1240 years ago in the year 767 (Nara Period), when Emperor Shotoku ordered the entire nation to offer prayers to dispel a plague. The govenor of Owari Province (presently Aichi prefecture) thereby went to the Owari Sosha Shrine and founded the festival to dispel bad luck and calamities. Since it is said that touching the consecrated man, Shin-Otako, will dispel one's bad luck. A large group of naked men bravely struggle to touch the Shin-Otoka, who has been censecrated in a ceremony lasting ... read more

We've been busy lately, racing around the country using Japan's amazing train network. And thanks to our Japan Rail pass, we can use the trains as much as we want. So we'll start with Kyoto where we really only spent one day of tourism despite spending three nights in the city. That's probably sacrilege considering Kyoto is considered by many to be the best city in the whole country. We have our reasons for this which we'll get to shortly. For the day we had booked 8 hours of private guide service to show us around which was apparently enough to take us to 3 or 4 highlights. Just a small slice of what Kyoto has to offer. So we started out with the most famous site in Kyoto, Kinkaku-ji temple or the Golden Pavilion followed ... read more

Due to a public holiday on Wednesday 23rd November we went to Lake Biwa, it is very big and pretty as you will see. We walked along the lake to Hikone and visited Hikone Castle which is a National Treasure. We thought the outside of the castle was spectacular but the inside was just ok with lots of queues.... read more

Hello, This is our first blog, we hope you enjoy looking at our pictures and seeing what adventures we have been up to. Although I say we, Ben is at work so I'm doing it on my own which could be interesting. I hope this works. I thought I should tell you a little bit about Osu Kannon, it is a shopping area in Nagoya. It has lots of shops, food stands, restaurants and our favourite supermarket. At the weekend it is very busy and you can tell the popular restaurants because they always have long queues. Sadly I cant remember the historical information about Nagoya castle, I think it was pretty much destroyed in a war and re-built, sorry to be so vague. I do have one interesting fact we can see it from our ... read more