Having already seen a major shrine and a major temple on Miyajima, we decided to go up to the top. We later returned, not only to sea level but below it so we could walk close to the floating torii.

We had one last full day in Kyoto and decided to not pack it too tightly. We did make it to a castle, a garden, and had some really good tempura for dinner.

Starting the second half of our trip, we went to even more temples. We got more familiar with yatsuhashi. And we saw kids taking field trips. Lots of kids, all around.

Having been to the current capital (Tokyo) and the former capital (Kyoto), it was time to visit an even earlier capital of Japan (most of the 8th century, known as the Nara period) and frolic with the deer. Well, we didn't actually frolic.

Yes, we visited another temple today. It had aspects of several others we've seen; built on a mountain like Kiyomizu, took a while to walk through like Kinkaku, and had a long tunnel of torii like Nezu. It was, however, more so for each of those aspects. We also went through another shopping street, Nishiki Market.

Another day of temples for us, in addition to getting more familiar with the Kyoto bus system. And even though we were there when we arrived in the city, we went back to Kyoto station to check out the architecture.

The plan for the day was to do things which would work in the rain since that was the forecast. We continued our walk around Higashiyama and ended up our evening at a demonstration of several forms of Japanese performance art.

Time to go back to a big city. We left the quaintness of Hakone for Kyoto and had time to visit a temple, a mausoleum, and a shrine before settling in for the evening.

Our last full day in Hakone was spent along the Old Tokaido Road and the south end of Lake Ashi. Rain from the previous day was nowhere to be seen, so we held out hope that we would see Mt. Fuji. Spoiler: we got a great view.

For a day in which we really only did one thing, it was plenty. That wasn't unexpected since we like having a “down” day every now and then. We also got our first rain of the trip; good thing we were prepared for it to start.

It may sound like we've already been to a lot of temples and shrines, but we took quick peeks at more of them today. But first was a visit to Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, both the grounds and its greenhouse.

We spent most of the day out of Tokyo, going to Nikko to visit Nikko National Park, which houses several prominent shrines and temples. We went to Toshogu Shrine and Taiyuinbyo.

On this day we a more successful shot at seeing the Tsukiji market, looked through some of the Tokyo National Museum, went through a lot of Ueno Park, and not much else after that.

We decided to not do too much on our first full day in Tokyo, so we started at the Hamarikyu Gardens, took a ferry up to Asakusa, wandered around the Sensoji temple area, then walked around Asakusa. The evening's excursion was to Tokyo Tower.

Just as Monday was a short day, so was Tuesday. We landed at Narita International Airport around 3pm, and it took us almost a couple hours before we were on the train to the city.

We're setting out today on a month-long trip to Japan. This day will be quite short for us; our trans-Pacific flight took off at about 1:30pm, so we set our watches ahead to 5:30am Tuesday. It's like living in the future.