Today started with a bullet train ride to Hiroshima.  This was our second bullet train ride, and it's still pretty neat. Hiroshima though, as you can expect, was no laughing matter.  I don't have words to describe how depressing it was.  I'll just say that it was a really well done combination of museums and memorials.  They combined the science and details behind what happened with the human stories.  Near the end, there was a old man making paper cranes (Google paper c...

Today started with the Fushimi Inari-Taisha shrine.   Like the many shrines before it, it was neato spegetto.   I *think* that was first at least… I’m sitting here talking to my daughter about it now, and we can’t remember perfectly 😊   A good portion of it was another indoor-take-your-shoes-off thing.   Was really cool though, because it has models of people in the different rooms in the Shogun’s house…. With descriptions of what the r...

Today started with a tour of the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest in Kyoto.  Before we even get started on the Bamboo forest though, Kyoto itself seems to be a really nice city.  The guide was saying that it was originally the capital of Japan.  I've got some of that story on video tape. Anyway, back to the bamboo forest.  My movie training was WAY off... every instinct I had told me that ninjas were just about to start flying through the tops of the bamboo... but it didn't happen...

Today's awesomeness started with driving to Mount Fuji.  After we parked the bus, we had 45 minutes to hike as far up as we could.  There were a couple kids on the trip that made it higher than me, but I made it higher than any of the adults.  My goal was to make it to cloud level... to where I was surrounded by the clouds.  I accomplished that goal!  The thing that really drains you when you're climbing up is house thick the gravel can be.  It's obviously steep, bu...

Today we finally headed out from Tokyo. We hopped on a bus and headed towards the Fuji-Hokone-Izu region.   On the way, we took a trip to see the Great Buddha of Kamakura.   I have to say that it is a well named Buddha… it was huge!   After exploring the shrine at this location, we walked around Kamakura a good bit.   I finally had my first sushi in Japan, and it didn’t disappoint.   I would describe what I had, but I don’t know what it was&helli...

So, yesterday was spiritual, but today was techy.  We started the day at a place called Joypolis... which is basically an indoor theme part with lots of tech things.  The best ride was definitely the "Tokyo Halfpipe", which was where you got on a giant "skateboard" with a partner, strap in, and it rocks back and forth.  You have to time leaning the skateboard correctly to go higher and higher and eventually start it spinning.  We did that twice, back-to-back, and had the over...

Day 2 in Japan (still in Tokyo) started with a surprisingly awesome breakfast at our hotel.  I was expecting a normal "Here's some pastries and fruit" kind of thing you get at other places in the world, but this is just a huge buffet of awesomeness.  I would tell you what I had, but I know the names of none of it Our first destination was the Meiji Shinto Shrine where we prayed, and participated in a paper fortune tradition.  I had a bad one though, so, as I was instructed, I...

So, the flight went well... ~13 hours I think.  I was lucky that I was able to upgrade to an exit row, which makes a big difference for taller folks.  Like normal, I wasn't able to sleep much, and so I was going to write some code.  As it turns out, that's hard to do without internet access.  Other than the obvious Googlin' things, if I decide I need some random package, I'm SOL.  I ended up paying for wifi access, but it only lasted for ~30 minutes before breaking. ...