Gallery • 9 Photos

Piper Clark

Temples in Fushimi Inari-taisha

I recently went on a trip to Japan to go to my foreign exchange student, Manami’s, graduation. We first left the morning of the 23. To get to Tokyo, we had to take two separate flights that lasted around 15 hours total. Unfortunately on the flights, I learned that I have motion sickness so I wasn’t feeling too great when we landed. We met with Manami and her mom at the airport and I took my first bullet train to Kyoto. The next day, we went to the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrines. We then took a taxi to Hokoku-ji, a bamboo temple. We walked on a trail through the bamboo forest before heading to our last stop for the day. Finally, we went to Kinkaku-ji, also known as the Golden Temple. That night, we took another bullet train to our hotel in Hiroshima. The next morning, we took a ferry over to Miyajima, a small mountain island.  It is famous for the Itsukushima Shrine on the shore nearby. We took photos with lots of Sika Deer and went to the food market. From Miyajima, we took another ferry to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and visited the Atomic Bomb Dome. Of course, we took another bullet train that night to Yokohama. We took a rest day and went to a karaoke bar. The next day, we went to The Making of Harry Potter and took a 4 hour tour. On the 1st, we met Manami’s parents at a revolving sushi restaurant. Her mom and brother took me to a pet shop and they had me hold a Maltese puppy. Our Maltese had recently died so the puppy cheered me up. That night we took, yet another, bullet train to Nagano to see snow monkeys. We had to trek 1.6 kilometers up the icy mountain to get to the actual park. It was filled with at least 50 monkeys and I took some really cool photos with my camera. The walk back was the hardest part but we stopped at a cute cafe and got some food. On our way back to Yokohama that night, we stopped at the Sky Tree in Tokyo. We went 35 meters high and could see miles out into the distance. The next day, we had to wake up early to go to Manami’s graduation. It was a little confusing because we couldn’t understand anything they were saying but her parents helped us out. That was also our last full day in Japan so we went to the mall and got some gifts before packing the remainder of the day. On the day of our flight home, we went to Starbucks before heading to the train station. We had to say goodbye to Manami and her family at the airport and left to board our flight. You can find clips of Manami and I at some of the places we went in TTV season 8 episode 1!