Shimuzu, a time for Sakura

Sakura is cherry blossom season and is celebrated across Japan for the beauty of the blossoms and as a reminder of how fleeting life is.

We hit peak Sakura in Shimuzu today as we visited a some local sites including an old Shogun castle that is now a public park and a nearby Shinto shrine. The clear sunny weather held true and we were treated to all day views of Mt. Fuji as we toured this busy port city of 650,000.

In related news, we successfully negotiated our first interaction with one of the 6 bazillion gazillion vending machines in Japan, 99.9% of which have Japanese only instructions.Read more