Kyoto AGAIN!

Peter Update: Peter recently spent about a week doing a training exercise in Djibouti. According to him, this was the most fun he's had yet on this deployment...which means I probably don't want to know what he did! Only about six weeks left on this deployment! We're getting closer!

Kristin Update: Meg and Moira came out to visit about two weeks ago and we took a trip up to Kyoto and Tokyo. Pictures speak louder than words, so here are a few photos from our trip. I'll try to get some of the Oki photos up soon!


Another geisha photo.


The cherry blossoms were a little bit past their peak, but we did get to see a few nice weeping cherries. We got luck and stumbled on some that were lit up beautifully at night!


These photos are torii gates at the Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto. There were literally hundreds (maybe thousands) of them spread for 4km up a mountain...we had a great morning hiking around in the woods enjoying the shrine.


These gates were set in a beautiful forest...the walk in the woods would have been pleasurable even without the shrine!
There were many little side shrines as well...buy a baby torii gate for only $40!

The candles were in one of the little side shrines at Fushimi Inari.


I assume these two statues are Buddhist...but I don't know much about their meanings, I just thought they looked cool.

Spring has definitely arrived in Japan...just about everything was in bloom, not just the cherry blossoms!
In one of the gardens I found a crane.



We spent a single evening in Tokyo, which is a lot like New York or LA.

The city lights were beautiful at night!