Updated July 3rd

And so begins our first family trip... Flying to Japan with our 6 month old son Kyto to meet his grandparents for the first time is sure to be an interesting experience. For myself, although I'm very familiar with the Japanese culture, there's nothing quite like immersing yourself in it for a month to truly understand it. Being one of the very few foreigners in a small, country-side town with very limited Japanese speaking skills is also sure to give me a heightened appreciation of what my wife deals with daily back home in Canada. So without futher ado...

Flying

We flew from Ottawa to Toronto, Toronto to Tokyo and finally Tokyo to Fukuoka where we rested for a night following the 24 hours of travel time.

Asuka & Kyto at Ottawa airport
Kyto on plane
Kyto at hotel in Fukuoka

 

Our Apartment in Kashima

We rented a Japanese style apartment in Kashima.

 

Ushizu Station

 

Yutoku Inari Shrine in Kashima

Kyto, Asuka, Grandma and I visited the famous shrine in their city.

 

 

Many koi swimming in the pond look for food from the visiters passing over the bridge.

 

Roadtrip: Tara, Sazanka Park & Takesaki Castle

We took a drive along the coast of the Ariake Sea to through Tara, the home town of Asuka's mom and on to Sanzaka Park in the mountains. The coast is lined with tradionatl Japanese Inns and small restaurants offering up crab as the feature dish. On the way back we stopped at Takesaki Castle, a modern replica of an older era castle with brilliant views of the harbour and the Ariake Sea.

 

 

 

 

 
Well after a small setback with Kyto which involved a 2 night hospital stay, he completely recovered allowing us to venture on a few more day trips...one to Yoshinogari Historical Park just east of Saga and one to Nagasaki to visit the memorial museum at the WW2 bombing site.

 

Yoshinogari Historical Park

Yoshinogari is a recreation of a settlement from the Yayoi period that spans from approximately 300 BC to 300 AD and is based upon the ruins that have been excavated at this site. The multi-moated village which includes different style buildings, pit dwellings, market area and burial grounds is protected by walls, watch towers andmany rows of spiked logs angled outwards from the ground.

 

Driving through the mountains

The quality of these pictures isn't great as I took them from the car as we were driving from Kashima to Nagasaki but they give you an idea of the kind of terrain that is seem through much of Japan.

 

 

Nagasaki - Memorial Museum & Peace Park

The cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki where the unfortunate targets of the atomic bombs at the end of World War 2. The museum which doesn't allow photographs inside, paints a very vivid picture of the 3.5 km radius of destruction inflicted directly as well as all the consequential suffering. It's really beyond words to even attempt to describe it.

The museum grounds contain statues and moments addorned with 100's of multi-coloured paper cranes to symbolize peace. The hypocenter of site of impact is marked with a monument surrounded by concentric rings.

 

 

Just a short walk away is Peace Park. The rectangular shaped park is surronunded by art sculptures donated from different countries from around the world. The main path that cuts through the center of the park, has a fountain at the entrance which leads to a bell tower at the center of the park. It then opens up to a courtyard where the main focal point is a 10 m high statue of a man pointing to the sky.

 

 

Obama & Mt. Unzen

About a 2 hour drive away from Kashima, we travelled to the city of Obama to spend the night at a Japanese Inn to enjoy the hot spring baths and a huge meal served in our room. The entire Mt. Unzen area is filled with natural hot springs kept boiling by the vulcanic mountains that provide a majestic backdrop for the many small towns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unzen is a small town that thrives off of the tourism generated by Jigoku, a park and walking trail through rock, sulfur and boiling waters that rise from the ground and run down the moutain. This supplies all of the local Inns with hot spring baths. The word Jigoku translates to hell in english and the area has spawned many buddist tales of the 86,000 ways of suffering inflicted on those that must repent for the wrongs that they have done in their lives.

 

Nita Pass is a very narrow road that winds it's way up into the mountains and into Unzen-a Makusa National Park. With many vantage points along the way, on a clear day it provides amazing views of Mt Fugendake (a sleeping volcano) as well as the cities and sea below.