So in reality we started out our travels in Sendai for a day or two, headed out to Hakkodate. Next was Sapporo, took the sleeper train to Hiroshima, dropped in Kyoto for a little while then back to Sendai. Made a little stop at the end in Tokyo to visit Colin and hit some of the last few major tourist sights I may have missed. So when people ask where in Japan I went, I say the whole puppy! Here are some highlight pics from my camera!The both of us out side Hiroshima Castle. Sorry the pictures are not in a really great order. Oh well, it's our trip.
Hiroshima Peace Park. Such an eye opener.
Heehe. In Sapporo we did a lot of walking. Sean decided one evening after a long bout to find some rather out of the way churches/establishments that we ought to take a break and visit the massage chairs. And Japanese massage chairs are miles ahead of anything I have ever tried before. Your feet, legs, arms, hands, bum, back, and neck all receive very special treatment.
Also in Sapporo we saw festive dancers. We missed all the serious competition but saw some youth with awesome outfits that changed 3x in one song!
The Sapporo Tower. (Better than the Eiffel right?)
Golden Temple. This was really cool to see but hard to enjoy with all the school children.

PAGOTAS!!!!

I think this place is called Meijima -- could be really wrong.

He is so cute I just couldn't help but put a good picture where he was looking and smiling up!

Sunset at Hiroshima Castle. Such a beautiful day and the festival that night was so much fun.
The Romans had nothing on the Japanese. This pic is taken under a massive aqueduct near a shrine in Kyoto. We were too cheap and too pressed for time to go in the shrine. But I felt justly rewarded.

Sean just loves to pose for the camera!

The tallest wooden building in all of Japan. Inside is the biggest Buddah you have ever seen, but my camera had a hard time with it. Sean has immensely better pics of all this by the way.
I loved the Torii's. It was SO neat to be walking under 1000 lined up torii's all with that beautiful and unique orange. We didn't make it through them all (it was a little hot and I wanted to make it out to Nara to see the big Buddah!)
While I was going camera happy, Sean took a moment to really enjoy the rock garden. These gardens are unique little buggers. Beyond the fact that you can never see all 15 stones (unless you are 5.3 meters and stand in a certain place revealed on the internet), if you take the time to look at them they really do grow in beauty.