As promised, the pictures!!

Japan is the land of cute-ness.






Armed with just three words, I managed to make it through a nine-day trip starting from Osaka, and working my way through Kyoto, Hiroshima, Kagoshima and finally, Tokyo.
The further we were from the capital, the less English people spoke. Luckily, I am well-versed in body language, and my three words -- "Thank you", "Excuse me" and "Yes" -- took me a long way!

Of course, there were days when ordering food was a bit of a stretch, especially when the menus looked like this, and there were no pictures or plastic food anywhere.




The famous floating torii gate of Miyajima island is one of the main sights and representative icons of Japan, much like our Merlion.




Even Japanese weeds are beautiful.



(Or maybe I'm just a good photographer!)

I made it a point to visit Hiroshima, where the first known atomic bomb in the world destroyed and shattered the entire city in 1945. I have lots of stories to tell but some other time perhaps. Let it suffice to say that the city and its people are strong advocates of peace, and are very anti-nuclear arms. Every mayor of Hiroshima writes urgent telegrams to any country in the world that has announced nuclear tests or has not dismantled its nuclear programmes all the time.





This is the cutest sign in Japan. New York, London, too far. But if you need a place to rest and have a cuppa, the cafe is just 3 metres away!

More pictures can be seen here.

Enjoy the pictures!