Japan - 10

Hi, Our visit to Kyoto involved walking through a Zen Buddhist Temple along with a Buddhist lunch followed by a visit to the Kyoto Museum of Traditional Arts in the late afternoon. The lack of a crowd and the really excellent vegetarian lunch were huge pluses this day. Unfortunately there was not time to visit the world heritage temples in Kyoto.

On leaving the port of Maizuru we spotted this sign from the bus.  We turned right toward Kyoto instead continuing straight toward Obama.

The road to Kyoto was a limited access expressway.  We stopped at a rest stop and were amazed at its size and the variety of merchandise for sale (above and below).

The photos above and 18 below were taken at the Daitoku-ji Temple.  It was an inspiring place photographically.

Our lunch began with the tray in this photo.

However, the waitresses kept bringing bowls; none with a lot of food but all in all a huge lunch.  The photo above shows all the bowls at the end of lunch.

Cicadas are highly revered in Japan. This one was sitting on a wall.

I thought this bamboo made an interesting pattern.

On our way to the Museum of Traditional Arts we crossed this river.

The museum had three people demonstrating their crafts, two of whom are shown above and below.

The museum also has many examples of traditional crafts on display (above and two below).

Spanning the street to the left of the museum is a huge Torii arch.

Musicians playing traditional music on traditional instruments and dressed in traditional costumes greeted us on our return to the ship.  Thanks for looking.

Japan - 9

Hi, On this cruise we visited Busan, South Korea. Although Asian, like Japan and China, it has a very different feel.

Our shore excursion took us to a temple and then a dance recital.

Here is an interesting play on words for a restaurant name.

Our first stop was the Beomeosa Temple.  There were many interesting statues on the walk up to the main temple area (above and two below).

Here one of the statues sits above a column with religious writings on it.   There were many of these.

This is one of the three gates one must pass through to reach the main temple area.

One of the temple gates was guarded by six fierce warriors, three on each side of the entry way through the gate.  One of the statues is shown above.

The architecture of the gates and the surrounding areas made for some interesting design photos (above and 3 below).

Prayers were continuously underway (above and below).

Our second stop was the Busan National Gugak Center.  The center is devoted to the preservation of traditional Korean culture, in particular music and dance.  This is a pair of typical stringed instruments.

Please enjoy the photos (above and nine below) of the performers in traditional costumes.

I'll close with a typical street scene in a commercial area as seen from our bus.  Thanks for looking.