Trip to Japan: Day 7

Everyone was getting enough sleep now and having joyful, delicious breakfasts.

We departed the hotel at 8:00, ready for the adventures ahead. Reiko would give us a wonderful cultural lesson on each bus ride and then show us a map showing where we would be going. She would highlight each day's journey with a different colored marker. Today was black.

Our first stop was the Ise Grand Shrine which was once considered the most important shrine for Amaterasu.

"According to the Nihon Shoki, around 2000 years ago the divine Yamatohime-no-mikoto, daughter of the Emperor Suinin, set out from Mt. Miwa in modern Nara Prefecture in search of a permanent location to worship the goddess Amaterasu, wandering for 20 years through the regions of Ohmi and Mino. Her search eventually brought her to Ise, in modern Mie Prefecture, where she is said to have established Naikū after hearing the voice of Amaterasu saying "(Ise) is a secluded and pleasant land. In this land I wish to dwell." --Wikipedia

Before entering every shrine you had to wash your hands and mouth properly at the Temizuya.

Reiko told us that every 20 years, the shrine and everything in it must be remade/rebuilt alongside it. The latest rebuilding was in 2013 and took 7 years to complete. It cost 480 million dollars. We offered our coins and made our wishes there. This top photo is the Grand Ise Shrine.

The entrance to the shrine was a good place to have our tour photo taken and it does make me smile to see the friendly faces we got to know so well in such a short time. It was certainly a perfect day for photo taking.

We had a cafeteria style lunch at Shufu no Mise. Lunches with Kobayashi Travel were the only things we had to pay for ourselves, but they were relatively inexpensive and fun to choose.

The shops were great places for me to buy little trinkets for the grandchildren.

After a 1 hour 20 minute bus ride, we were able to board a small boat and enjoy the beauty of Katsuura Bay on the way to the Hotel Urashima. This is why we had to pack the overnight bags. It would be hard to cart all of our luggage there on the small boat.

Reiko called Katsuura Bay the Matsushima of the the Kii Peninsula. Matsushima is a group of 260 tiny islands in the Miyagi Prefecture. Many of the islands there are covered in matsu (pine trees), hence its name and is ranked as one of the Three Views of Japan.

We'd been to Matsushima several times since it's close to Mom's family so I was looking forward to seeing Katsuura which has 130 small islands. It was lovely on a smaller scale.

Hotel Urashima is a huge older hotel with an onsen in a cave. You know we had to try that. I went with Ann and Wendy. Like I said before, we were best of friends now because we couldn't hide anything from each other at an onsen.

There are 200 hot springs in the Katsuura. I only tried the one in the cave and that was enough for me.

The one thing I remember most about this hotel, I'm ashamed to say are the bon bons. I know. I know. Those were my favorite dessert and if we weren't all counting how many bon bons we were having, I would have had more. The above photo shows only one bon bon. Ummmm.... I went back for more.

The tour members were all feeling like our adventure was now winding down. The days were passing fast, and we knew we'd be sad to say goodbye to each other.