The reef

Today we swam in the ocean.





One of the great attractions of this location is that, from our hotel, it's 50 yards to walk to an ocean beach where we rent fins and snorkels, and then swim 50 yards out to a reef. There are likely better reefs in the world, but this is convenient. It's why I recommended this spot to Donna.




The water is a near perfect temperature, and there are dozens of species of fish, as well as sea turtles!




I bought a special but inexpensive mask with built in camera--not only still photos but video. The video may take time to figure out how to upload.


By late morning the wind had picked up making the surf choppy, so we had lunch in our room (bought from a local grocery store) and then sat by the pool reading. That lasted about 2 hours, so then we drove across the island, where we found the viewpoint to the lush (and carefully guarded) Waipio valley.

First day on the Big Island

A beautiful day here on the Big Island. It is King Kamehameha Day, celebrating the first king of the unified islands.


Here is the view out out hotel--not directly of the ocean...


But it is less than fifty yards to walk to the ocean, and then another hundred yard swim to the reef off shore--easy with swim fins and a snorkel. Which is what we are off to do!

Hawaii

We're taking a long weekend in Hawaii, as an early celebration of our 10th anniversary. The flight out of LAX was delayed over an hour, as we waited (on board) for a cargo door handle to be fixed, but as that was our last leg it was fine, only meant that we were tired.

On the Big Island, staying at Waikoloa (the Marriott). Took a quick dip in the pool and the jacuzzi to untense from 7 hours on a plane. Tomorrow we'll swim in the ocean and then start looking for ways to relax!

Home!

All went smoothly. Weeds in the yard but otherwise all seems to be well....

So until our next trip--and we have made no plans--cheerio!

Osaka-jo

Our last full day in Osaka we took easy and struck out for Osaka-jo (Osaka Castle). From the nearby Sakuranomiya station on the Osaka Loop Line, we went to Kyobashi station, although it turned out we should have gone one stop further, to Osakajo-koen. From Kyobashi we walked through Osaka Business Park and finally found the castle grounds.

Osaka Castle was built at the beginning of the Edo era, when shoguns unified and ruled Japan and closed it to outsiders. (It was during this era that the book and TV series Shogun was set.) It was alternately destroyed and rebuilt, most recently in the 1930's, with a tall central tower that is a famous sight on the Osaka skyline. Inside the tower is the history of the castle and of the beginnings of the Edo era.

From the tower we could easily see our massive hotel.




After Osaka Castle we strolled the grounds, then took a forty-minute Aquabus tour along the rivers that thread central Osaka.




.... (later)....

Now at Kansai airport, on our way home. Everything smooth so far. No volcanic ash, at least.

A Japanese Wedding

Our main purpose for this trip was the wedding of our friends Aya Higayama and Kazushi Ohmura. Donna shared housing with Aya in Seattle when Donna was in law school.

This was a western-influenced "hotel wedding," where both the ceremony and the reception are held in a hotel. Many hotels, including the Imperial Hotel Osaka, have Shinto halls and Christian-style chapels for this express purpose. The Christian-style ceremony, complete with hymns ("What a Friend we have in Jesus" sung in Japanese) prayers and a reading (in Japanese) from 1 Corinthians 13, for Aya and Kazushi was held in a chapel, although they are not, to the best of our knowledge, Christian, and presided over by an American (of European descent) minister who spoke both in English and Japanese. Such weddings are very popular in Japan. Sometimes couples will also have a shinto ceremony just for the family before hand; we don't know if Aya and Kazushi did so. The actual civil wedding license was granted back in December, so this was a celebration for family and friends.

And what a celebration it was. A very elaborate and carefully staged banquet followed. We had wonderful food--Japanese-style appetizers, followed by a fish course with a citron-lemon sauce, grapefruit sorbet, beef with sauce bourdelaise, cherries jubilee in full flame, and finally the wedding cake (though the massive cake in the banquet hall was just a prop--Aya and Kazushi mimed putting a knife, or more like a small sword, to it, but nothing was cut). All of this was interspersed with a toast, speeches, and a video retrospective of the happy couples' lives.



We certainly enjoyed the ceremony and the banquet. We hope the couple did--they had 2 changes of clothes, from their western-style wedding clothes, to traditional Japanese including a beautiful kimono for Aya, and finally formal evening wear. They hardly had time to eat, it seemed, but were kept busy while the guests ate and drank.

The guests also received gifts from the couple, as is traditional--mostly specially packaged foods. We gave our gift to them as well, by tradition cash in a special envelope just for this purpose. The bills are supposed to be new and uncreased, and we resorted to ironing the money in our hotel room the morning of the ceremony. Japanese custom suggests that the number of bills be an odd number; one explanation being that if it were divisible by two, it would be too easy to split in half and lead to a split marriage, but an odd number would have to be truly shared in common. It's all symbolism, of course.



A happy ceremony, with a beautiful couple surrounded by family and friends.

In the evening we went over to Osaka central station and walked around, including Joypolis, a gigantic games area, populated mostly by teenagers (although after 7 pm no one under 17 allowed, apparently.)

Kyoto to Osaka

With an early start to our last day in Kyoto, we headed over to the Nanzenji complex of temples and gardens that circle a massive sanmon (three-doored gate, san = three and mon = gate). First the beautiful gardens, both wet and dry, at Konchi-in.

Then the gardens that thread through the abbot's quarters or hojo, where we encountered (again) a horde of Japanese school kids; many are shy, but many others eager to practice a little English with us, to ask us where we are from--and to have their picture taken with us.




Finally we ended with the garden at Nanzenji-in. All these temples have enormous history, with emperors, shoguns, priests, poets and architects playing a part.





After checking out of our hotel, to Kyoto Station by taxi and then a train ride to Osaka. There was no direct route to the hotel, so we had to change from the intercity line to a local circle line (which took a few minutes to figure out maps, tickets, and so on) and a short walk to the Imperial Hotel.

Imperial is right, and our hosts reserved for us a room on the Imperial Floor--I'm not making this up--which only special key cards get access to. More luxury than we can stand. A wonderful view of Osaka--which is known more for industry and shipping rather than culture--from our window.



In the evening we met with our friend Aya and Kazushi (who are the marital couple) and another couple from America.