Day 28-29

Day 28

I woke up this morning feeling exhausted so we just had a very chilled out day today to relax and recharge. We wandered around the city looking at a few shrines and temples and Jacob had a go using my camera and then decided he liked it so much he wanted to buy his own! So we found a camera shop and spent ageessss choosing a good camera which he is now chuffed with so it was worth it and then we spent a while playing with it and it’s such a nice camera - I’m a little jealous!

We visited the Shimane prefecture art museum and wondered around the exhibitions including one showing Hokusai who is famous for doing “the great wave” which I’m sure all of you have seen at one point and his “views of Fuji” sequence which is really interesting. As well as another collection of silk scrolls that had been painted on which were gorgoeus!

After wandering around the city for a little while longer we finished the day off with a delicious curry and then settled in for an early night.

Day 29

Today we headed to Izumo city which is famous for Izumo Taisha shrine which is said to be the oldest shrine in Japan and is deeply set in Japanese mythology which suggests that the gods would meet at this shrine. It was set in some beautiful gardens where Jacob and I enjoyed watching the birds bathing in the river and spotting the koi fish in the pond and trying to get some good snaps of the birds which always proves a challenge!

We then wandered up through the Tori gate with an absolute massive one in the distance which we later discovered was the Izumo Taisha Otorii.
After strolling around the huge grounds and the many temple buildings which was equipped with the most HUGE flag of Japan- (slightly random?!) I led us around the back of the temple and into the woods behind. After walking for a while we came across a small very simplistic shrine tucked away in amongst the trees. Beautifully peaceful apart from the flowing river it was a very nice spot to relax and enjoy! We then found a man made waterfall and went off the path to try get closer to it which we did manage to do but we weren’t able to go right up to it like I wanted but it was a very picturesque background!

After taking hundreds of pictures we headed back to the main centre and enjoyed the market shops before heading back for the night!Read more