Weekend Bus Trip to Kyoto

It's early Saturday morning and we're leaving the North Gate of the base on a tour bus headed for a weekend in Kyoto -- and we're very excited! Kyoto has over 2,000 temples & shrines, 2.5 million residents, and 38 million tourists visiting each year. It was the first capital of Japan, and embraces its traditional culture like no other city in Japan. Kyoto was not destroyed by the ravages of WW II -- in fact, the United Nations petitioned the US not to bomb it because of its historic significance and the volume of national treaures, monuments, and artifacts contained there. And yes, those are real guns the gate guards are holding . . .


The sun peeks out of the clouds over the sea as we head north and east from Iwakuni.