Well, it’s time once again to say Sayonara to my dear Christo and head back to sunny Coronado.  But before I go I want to share some more experiences from my time here.  Last weekend Chris and I drove to the Dassai Sake Brewery up in the mountains nearby.  Chris found this place on one of his bike rides.

From here we drove along some of the tiny back roads that Chris loves to bike.

This is a typical countryside scene here.  I never knew there could be so many different shades of green in one place.

We stopped here for Chris to show me one of his favorite spots.  This tiny stone bridge.

And over by our car (did you see our little Cube in the background above?) was a beautiful garden and shrine

and this very steep stairway to heaven.

We didn’t climb these stairs this time.  Chris has done it and said there’s a real pretty temple up there.  When we got home we switched from the Cube to the Breezers and biked to another of Chris’ favorite spots that he wanted to show me.

This is a tiny, tiny store.  I’m standing in the opposite corner to take this picture.  And for those who might not be into this, what you’re looking at is a wall of very good scotches.  It’s amazing what you can find in this funky little town of Iwakuni.

So that was Saturday.  On Sunday we hopped on our bikes and rode along the river

to the Kintai Bridge, Iwakuni’s famous landmark.

We wandered around the park on the other side of the bridge

where I found a  hint of cherry blossoms

but most will bloom right after I leave.  We wandered through the Iwakuni Art Museum which had a lot of pottery, Japanese swords, Tsuba (sword guards), body armor, helmets, and folding screens.  Out front was this “Charcoal Gas Engine” Jeep that was used from 1938-1946.

Then we wandered over to the food booths and parked our bikes

and checked out the stuff on a stick like fish

and  ? ? ? ?

And then there was the ice cream (not on a stick) but how to decide what flavor to get?

On the way home we rode by one of the two sake breweries by our house to see if they were open.  Here’s Chris chatting with the proprietor.  Neither spoke the other’s language at all but sometimes that just doesn’t matter.

Chris bought one of their higher end sake’s and this fellow ran back and gave us these two beautiful sake cups.

I took this picture that was on the wall while they were chatting.  Look familiar?

From here we stopped by our little market to buy the fixin’s for sashimi to enjoy with our delicious sake purchase.

What a wonderful way to wrap up our time together here in Japan.