Great director, and an awesome place too.

So while we were traveling, I wanted to head south int0 Kyushu because most people never go there when they tour Japan. Dad wanted to go to Beppu for the hot springs, but I wanted to go further and see what was out there. We quite literally had no idea where we were going, but we got on a train and went. We wound up in a city called Miazaki (Which is also the name of a famous Anime director, hence the entry title.) I think I wrote a bit about this place in an earlier entry, and its already late so I just wanted to post up some pictures of our time there. So here ya go.

They were conducting some kind of service within the main shrine, so we didn't actually approach the main building. but from the secondary gate that you can see in this picture, you could see a shrine maiden doing various chores in the main temple. After a short while the Shrine maiden was joined by a Shinto priest to usher in the guests and run the ceremony (I'm guessing its Shinto by the shrine style and the garb, but I'm not positive).



This is a shot of one of the stalls set up at the garden market thingy that we stumbled upon. Keep in mind this is in a vacant parking lot on a rainy morning. Its not a permanent nursery or anything.



Definitely a highlight of the trip for me. There were some maintained and better yet, Open to the public, traditional style houses. Normally stuff like this is fenced off, but I was actually invited to take my shoes off and step inside by the only other person there. (They were doing some cleaning when we arrived, but apparently had finished there task and left Dad and I alone to enjoy the buildings. I guess these things don't even need to be supervised, they just trust people not to mess things up. Apparently it works because the place looked amazing.)

On our way out we ran into what appeared to be a bride and groom about to have their wedding ceremony. They were kind enough to let us photograph them, and even posed for us. We also got our picture taken with them, but you can see more of the outfit detail in this shot.


Anyway, Sorry for the delay in updates. I actually wrote this yesterday but I wasn't able to get the pictures to load properly. So I've been trying to figure that out since then. It turns out that I was just trying to upload too much at one time, So I had to upload them individually rather then all at once. Now I know ( And knowing is half the battle. G.I. JOE! (....... maybe this is the wrong crowd for that reference, oh well.))

~Daniel