More Pics of My Trip

Hello bloggers!  Today's pics are all from Japan.  I do have to apologize a bit though as my cell phone is very old and the camera on it isn't the best (and neither are my photography skills or lack thereof! LOL)  The first six pics are from a shore excursion we did,  The gardens were absolutely beautiful and well manicured. It wasn't a park, but rather it was the grounds around a kimono factory we visited.  We were not allowed to take any pics inside the factory though, but the grounds were the real surprise for me.

 

The next four pics were from the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest.  I have always wanted to visit it even though the pictures online are always so crowded with tourists.  We lucked out as it wasn't too bad the day we went there.  There were lots of young gals walking through the forest dressed in beautiful kimonos.  The day was incredibly hot too, but the shade in the forest really helped us beat the heat for awhile.  

Our next stop was in Nara.  I wanted to see the bowing deer and this place did not disappoint either.  This is a pic of the Todai-ji Buddhist temple.  You can see the large buddhas inside, they were huge.  There was an interesting statue on the grounds that was gold colored and a spiral effect to it.  The deer were everywhere and they would follow you if you had any food.  They were polite and always gave you a bow before taking the food.

This was the last excursion we took from the ship and we saw several waterfalls, but that was also the only day it was raining so I didn't take very many pics that day

We had one full day in Tokyo after the cruise and we decided to take the Shinkansen Bullet Train up to see Mt. Fuji.  We really enjoyed the trip up and back as the train goes 200 mph!  There were only a handful of people on the train with us too, surprisingly! Unfortunately, we never got to actually see Mt. Fuji from the train as it was steeped in cloud cover, but we did get to catch a glimpse of it from a beach on one of our previous tours.  Yes, that is Mt. Fuji in the final pic (I don't know who the people were in the pic though). It is still covered at the top in clouds, but at least we saw part of it that day!  

So we flew back from Japan via California and we had a nine hour layover there.  It wasn't an issue as that is where my daughter lives so she met us at LAX and we went out for a  lovely lunch together before heading back to the airport for our red eye flight back to Florida.  So we actually left from Florida and flew east all the way around the world before we returned home.  That is the first time I have ever done that!  The jet lag was real though as it took about two weeks to get past it fully!  Our trip really was spectacular, everything I had hoped it would be!  The cruise was with Celebrity and it was really lovely too, some of the best food we have ever had on a cruise too.  I hope you have enjoyed my pics!  Back to some cards tomorrow!   All for now, Sue x