Revisiting EXPO 1970 and Lake Biwa

 April 15, 2025 Tuesday

Art and I both got up at 5:00 and had breakfast at the hotel buffet with my cousin and Nancy. 

9:00 AM  We left the hotel for the EXPO 1970 Commemorative Park. 

Art and I had both been to the 1970 Osaka EXPO. 

Art was in the Air Force at that time and I was there with friends on the University of Hawaii (Arts and Architecture) tour.

A very friendly couple from Taiwan took our photo for us. It's always great fun to meet people from other countries on the trips that we take.

This tulip garden was close by.

As I recall, my friends and I had a great time 1970. We were high school and college classmates.

I was still a student with a cheap camera so my photos are not great at all.

You can see the Tower of the Sun in the background on the right.

The US pavilion was very interesting and we enjoyed seeing the moon capsule and the rock they brought back.

Art went in spring of 1970. I was there in July and we didn't know each other.

We would meet the following year and therefore felt we needed to experience the EXPO again, but together this time.

One very interesting, gorgeous sight we saw in Japan was this flowering peach tree. 

At least, I think it was a peach tree. We asked Erica and she asked a vendor close by who told us what it was.

Art just looked on Google Lens and discovered that it is indeed a Stellata Peach. 

We were then in the Shiga prefecture for our lunch. Lake Biwa is the largest freshwater lake in Japan and is located in the Shiga prefecture. Our bus passed alongside it as we traveled through the area.

Got this from Wikipedia:

Japan is divided into 47 prefectures, which rank immediately below the national government and form the country's first level of jurisdiction and administrative division. They include 43 prefectures proper, two urban prefectures, one regional prefecture and one metropolis.

We had lunch there of Omi beef which we got to cook ourselves. Yes, it was very good. 

This is our Tohoku tour escort, Micah wearing a paper kabuto (ancient Japanese helmet). He is part of a well known Hawaiian entertainment family. It turned out that yes, he knew our nephew, Shawn who is also a musician/singer.

We traveled on to our next hotel and had dinner there.

This hotel had an onsen but none of the women I hung out with wanted to go and I'm too shy to go on my own. 🙈 You need more courage than I have to take off my clothes with people I don't know and go into the hot springs.

Art, on the other hand had no qualms about it and totally enjoyed it. 😄