9 more days in Japan

 On the cruise ship we stopped at three port cities of Japan, then we traveled over-land on trains to three cities, Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima staying three nights each. Three days from the ship plus 9 days over-land gives us 12 days total in Japan. 

Tokyo is really a large metro area with cities in it's boundary, our AIRBNB was in Shibuya, which is one of the cities in Tokyo.  The first night we saw Godzilla's on top of a building and eat at a wonderful restaurant. We walked across "Shibuya Crossing" the largest crosswalk in the world!  On a Friday night 3,000 people crisscross the road when the light turns green.

   

  

   

 

 

  

Kyoto is known for it's natural beauty and shines, however we found net Japanese things around each corner.  Girls dressed as gil, and cherry trees starting to blomsem.  The bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto took about two hours with speeds reaching 100+ MPH. 

   

 

  

   

  

 

Hiroshima of course is known for the bomb being dropped 80 years ago.  140,000 people died from the bomb and another 100,000 died from the effects of it since.  We took another bullet train and passed Mt. Fuji. The main reason for going to Hiroshima was the A-Bomb Peace Museum and Park, which didn't disappoint us.  The focus of the museum was the human cost the bomb made, leaving everyone thinking never again!

 

  

  

  

  

 

22-day cruise from Sydney to Japan

 We took the Diamond Princess cruise ship to Japan, stopping in Papua New Guinea, Conflict Islands New Guinea, Manila Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, three cities in Japan (Kagoshima, Kobe, Shimizu) and getting off in Tokyo.  The Diamond is one of two Princess' ships built in Japan and spends most of her cruising around Asia.  

We visited the U.S. military cemetery in Manila and watched the changing of the guard, it's the largest one outside the U.S, while Arlington has more than 400,000 graves Manila has 17,201 graves.

We went to the 89th floor of Taipei 101 skyscraper which was once the tallest building in the world and saw Mount Fuji!