Ise Jingu

It's hard to say whether we were lucky or unlucky with the weather yesterday.  It was a glorious day, lovely and sunny, a pleasant temperature, excellent for exploring.

The only problem with that was that everyone else thought so too, and it was public holiday.

We had intended to visit Ise Jingu on Saturday but the weather was so awful that we deferred the visit to yesterday and went to the aquarium instead. 

We should have gone in the rain!

There was a queue all down the road, with at least an hour's wait to get into the car park. The place was packed.

We gave up.

Kaori, Tatsuki, Lindsey and I hopped out of the car and went to look at a little shopping street. Austin went off to park the car.

The little shopping street was also packed!

There were places where there were fewer people

We met Austin at a convenience store down by a parking area down along the river and made our way towards home, stopping at a shopping mall for lunch en route.

We had pizzas from the shop next door for dinner.

And now we have reached Lindsey's last day. She's heading back to Australia tonight, for a conference on the Gold Coast. I'm staying on until Sunday. We have a number of things to achieve before she heads off, the most important of which is to pick up the glasses she ordered last week.

Pedestrian underpasses are very decorative in Japan:

Spain Park

We were very lucky with the weather. Where Saturday had been wet, wet, wet, yesterday's weather was glorious.

We took the hotel shuttle bus to the theme park. We knew that the return shuttle wasn't until 4:10, but had been told that we could take a local bus to the station, from where the station to hotel shuttle departed every hour. We only discovered once we got to the theme park that on Sundays there isn't a bus until 3:50. There didn't seem to be much point catching that. We were stuck at the theme park until 4:10!!!

It was a little too long for us, but in fact it was a very good day.

The park is laid out in sections. Rides over there. Spanish cultural stuff over there. Shows, exhibitions and a parade here in the main square. Eating places here. Shops dotted around.   Loos everywhere.

There was a steampunk outdoor theatre show just after we arrived. Of all the things I might have been expecting, steampunk in a Spanish themed park, in coastal Honshu, in Japan, was not one of them!

Don Quixote, of course
I rather prefer the penguin 😃

I do like the boom gates for the train

Steampunk:

Spanish village:

 

Unexpected Spanish galleon:

Escalator up to the castle:

Rides:

There is a museum in a castle. It put me in mind, a bit, of Jorvik in York. No little cars taking you round; you have to walk, but on the ground floor there are lots of representations of people doing ordinary things in medieval Spain

Then we went and waited for the shuttle bus back to the hotel. There was an ENORMOUS queue waiting for the bus to the station. So much so that they had to send extra buses to accommodate them all!

Back at the hotel, we had pre-dinner drinks and snacks. Kaori went to the onsen. We had all you can eat for dinner and Lindsey and I had the all you can drink package because it cost $50 for the two of us and a nice bottle of wine was $60. I do realise that we weren't drinking nice wine using the package, but we were happy to settle for slightly less nice wine for a $10 saving

There is a small observatory at the hotel. I have never stayed at a hotel with an observatory before.  It turns out Lindsey has. Around ten years ago she and Ian brought Stella and Tony here. Tony was VERY excited to have an observatory in the hotel

You could see a very clear image of Saturn through the telescope

Ise and Shima

It's a public holiday in Japan tomorrow so we have all five gone away for the weekend.

We drove down to Ise on Friday, after everyone had finished work and school. We stayed in a Toyoko hotel near the station and had dinner at a Coco Ichi curry place. Then we went to a DonKi for supplies.

It was raining!

I wasn't expecting to find a Gideon's Bible in a Japanese hotel
There was also a book on the teachings of the Buddha
and a couple of books of Japanese meditations

Katsu curry for me

I would have loved to buy these DonPen gardening shoes

You can see the rain in this photo

Breakfast from the buffet

We went to an aquarium in the morning, to avoid the rain. I quite like aquariums but this one was a bit disconcerting. I wasn't particularly worried about the fish, but they also had otters and seals, walruses and dolphins, capybaras and sea lions. To y mind their enclosures were too small. I realise that in Australis the zoos have all significantly enlarged the animal enclosures so the creatures have room to roam. I also realise that the Japanese people often have significantly smaller spaces than Australian people. Even so, I was a bit discomfited by the space allocated to the larger animals.

Still, it kept us dry and there were some fun things to see

And now you find us in the Okushima National Park, at the Miyako resort. Austin, Kaori and Tatsuki are in a large twin room on the fourth floor. Lindsey and I are here:

And this is what we can see:

And If I look up from my typing table

Definitely a Room with a View

Breakfast and dinner are (included in the room rate) All You Can Eat buffets. At dinner you can have a 90 minute All You Can Drink for an extra $25 each. We might have done that last night!

Most of the dinner photos are from Austin's phone

It is very tempting to sit here all day and just watch the view. However, everyone else is off to a theme park and I might get a bit bored on my own all day, even with a spectacular view to admire. I had best get ready.

PS I'm not sure we have enough snacks to keep us going

And on Friday, 1st November, the Halloween decorations came down, and these appeared