A recuperative and restorative Japan trip

A quietly beautiful corner of Japan

 

Puppet Ponyo visited still more religious sites 

during this recent Japan trip

My shadowy self-portrait in Matsushima

When I fell ill earlier this month, I got to thinking that it was a good thing that I did so when I did rather than later since I was due to fly off to Japan in mid May.  Because of my recovery from my cold getting complicated by my also having come down with eye and ear infections though, it turned out to be touch and go for a while there as to whether I'd be able to go on my latest Japan trip (whose flights and accomodation I had booked and paid for a couple of months back).   

 

Fortunately, by the day of the flight, I felt okay enough not only to travel but feel confident that the health inspectors would let me into the Land of the Rising Sun.  And even though I didn't quite feel 100 percent fit on the first couple of days of this recent trip (which saw me visit Tohoku for the first time as well as Tokyo once more), I managed to enjoy myself even while feeling obliged to take things more slowly than I usually am inclined to do.

 

In retrospect, I think that the plentiful amounts of fresh air, walking exercise and good food I got on this trip was just what the doctor would have ordered.  In any case, I got to realizing that my appetite had returned with a vengeance by dinner time on the second day of the trip -- and that I ended up walking over 19,900 steps that day without meaning to (and despite spending a good chunk of the day moving around by train and also a motor-less boat powered by a man with a pole with enough energy to also sing a couple of songs along the way)!    

 

On day four of this trip, my pedometer registered more than 24,000 steps -- a good number of which had been taken uphill while visiting a sprawling temple complex in a historic town that's a UNESCO World Heritage-Listed site -- and I figured that I was well on the road to recovery.  And while I was afflicted with a bout of nausea early on day five of the trip, it was less because of any illness I had contracted and more because I had been on a high hotel floor when an earthquake occurred and caused the building to sway for a bit (and actually less violently than when another earthquake occurred I was in a bar in Tokyo four years back but still enough for me to feel and be negatively affected by it)!

 

In the end, not even two days on the rainy side failed to dampen my enjoyment (or set me back health-wise); this especially when I actually experienced more days when the weather was glorious -- with the sun out but the temperatures being on the pleasantly moderate side.  On those days, I definitely made hay while the sun shown.  All told, this latest Japan trip turned out to be far more recuperative and restorative -- as well as enjoyable -- than I had hoped.  So, almost needless to say, I do plan to head back to the Land of the Rising Sun once more before too long!