Japan Adventure

Beautifully-painted structure inside the soy sauce factory. This family business has been here for centuries and still makes it's famous & delicious soy sauce for sushi and sashimi (raw fish without rice balls) all over this area of Japan.


You can see the vats of soy sauce fermenting at the rear of the building, which can be accessed and are maintained from a set of stairs to the left of the photo. It smells wonderful in here! Those are paper goldfish decorations hanging from the ceiling. The wood rafters are handcut and massive in this ancient building!


Back out in the nearly-deserted White Wall district, a Japanese flag is flying. Normally, there would be lots of flower pots outside shops, and banners flying to denote the shops are open.


A towering pine tree whose trunk has been carefully trimmed and trained to grow in a zig-zag pattern, which is considered more attractive than a straight trunk.


Driving back toward Iwakuni on Hwy 188, along the sea. This seawall was extended several years ago, after a typhoon came over the wall and flooded the area.