China

The Great Wall of China. A friend had told me it would be more

dramatic and impressive than I expected and it definitely was.

It was the off-season and we had this section virtually all to ourselves

Forbidden City, Beijing, China

The Forbidden City, Beijing. It's an amazing place with lots of places

to wander around. It was also one of the coldest days I've ever experienced.

I look a little demented but I'm just looking forward to eating another delicious lamb skewer.

A scenic canal town outside of Shanghai. We missed the bus out there

and paid about $50 for a taxi. It cost us $2 to get back to Shanghai on a local bus.

Asking some local kids for directions. They didn't speak English so we'd have to write

down the Chinese characters of our destination and they'd point us in the right direction

Trying to decide between the watermelon or pineapple. Where is it coming from in mid-winter?

Standing on the glass-bottomed observation deck of the Pearl Tower in Shanghai.

I was hoping it might help me overcome my fear of heights but it didn't work.

One of the street food stalls just down the street from our hotel in Shanghai.

Western Japan

Kurashiki, Okayama, Japan

Part of the bike path from Okayama city to Kurashiki city in Okayama prefecture

Stopping for lunch at a shrine between Okayama and Kurashiki

Kurashiki, Okayama, Japan

Kurashiki back alley

Playing with a deer at Miyajima, Hiroshima prefecture

Itsukushima Shrine, Hiroshima prefecture

Akiko buying a snack from a stand Miyajima, Hiroshima

Tohoku, Japan

In August Akiko and I took a trip to the Tohoku area, the northern part of Honshu,

the main island of Japan. One place we went was a country town called Tono

where we rented bikes and spent a day riding through the beautiful countryside.

A train in Sendai with the the designs of famous locally-born animation, or manga, artist.

The entrance to our inn at Tono.

Taking a break on our day-long bike ride. It was at the end of the

only long uphill section so we were pretty exhausted by this point.

A well-deserved locally brewed beer with dinner at the inn after a long day!

Trying to make sense of the trail map on our bike ride in Tono.

The lonely Tono train station. About as far physically and mentally as you can get from Shinjuku, Tokyo.

Exploring Sendai in mid-August, the hottest time of the year.

Trying not to think of the heat and take it one step at a time.