Last Batch of Pictures

This is Adam, with another bunch of pictures for you!

This is from the shrine we saw after yesterday's shopping trip. I'm protecting our loot (including some nice prints) from the rain and the lagoon. Believe me, I was watching my step very carefully.

Bob took a photo of a Japanese couple, and they reciprocated here. I think this is the only picture we have of all three of us. This is the same gardens as in the above photo. This lake had tons of animals, including herons, koi, and turtles.

Kitty! Same shrine. Steve and I in front of a statue of some kind of big cat.

There was a total eclipse of the sun today...on some islands south of here. For us, it was only a partial eclipse. Through the clouds, you really could see the sun as a crescent. We tried to photograph it...but be warned that looking directly at the following JPEG may cause irreversible eye damage.

This is Bob and Steve near the living quarters of Nijo Castle. This was one of my favorite sites--the currators did a good job relating it with the rest of historical Japan, and the architecture had a real purpose, rather than just looking pretty. This fortress was the Kyoto residence of the Shogun, who held the real power in Japan during the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries.

Here's Bob and Steve at the inner moat of Nijo Castle. Yes, the moat really was that unhealthy shade of green. I have no idea how deep the moat is--it could have been six inches, and you'd never know it.

And here's me near one of the inner walls of Nijo Castle. 

Anyway, this is probably our last post from Japan. Tomorrow early we head back east toward Tokyo and Narita, and then we're out of here!