More of the Mystery Tour

 Time for lunch!

Our next stop was at a soba factory that also had a restaurant and a gift shop.

We had to take a tour of the soba factory before we could eat. Lucky for us the tour only took a few minutes and then we were lead into the restaurant for our lunch was already on the table. 

Not only does the food look good, it tastes good too!

After lunch we got back in the bus and drove out to the countryside to visit a knife factory. This building is the for displaying and selling finished knives and other related products.

This building is the small factory for making the knives. 

The factory is set up so that people can observe the knife making process without being in the way of the workers and the equipment.

Forging, grinding and polishing... it looks like hard work to me.

Big grinding wheels; it's very noisy too!

This guy is forging red hot metal into the shape of a knife.

There are display cases showing the different products that they make.

When we went to the main office and sales room building we got to see this knife art!  

Okay, back into the bus and we're off to visit Daishizan Qingdao Temple.

Katsuyama City, Fukui Prefecture

There's a lot of snow here. The temple complex covers a large area and here near the entrance it looks like a hostel or dormitory for visiting followers. 

Go this way.

This place is big! And it's impressive too! We keep moving forward.

A long outdoor covered corridor... we keep moving forward.

That's our destination. There is supposed to be a big Daibutsu (Great Buddha) inside; we shall see.

Yep, there sure is a big Buddha inside.

It's hard to tell by these images how big this place really is.

This Buddha is 17 meters tall.

This room is full of small statues too!

We have plenty of time so I'm just walking around taking pictures of everything.

Well, that was enough time with the Daibutsu. Time to start heading back to the bus.

There are two long outdoor covered corridors to pass through.

Here comes Emi!

For anyone interested in more information on the temple this is their website:

http://etizendaibutsu.com/index.html

Now it's time for dinner! 

No, we didn't eat rabbit for dinner, they're in the petting zoo attached to the restaurant.  We had all-you-can-eat shrimp for dinner.

Cold beer too!

You look at the shrimp and the shrimp looks back at you! What a gourmet delicacy this is!

After dinner we got back in the bus and headed for our first night's hotel in Kanazawa city. That'll be coming in part 3 of this mystery tour. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Mike

Return to Tojinbo! (Fukui Prefecture, Japan)

 Emi and I recently went on a 3 day mystery tour. We were told to be at Haneda Airport (Tokyo) at 8:00 am to meet our guide and get our boarding pass. For the next 3 days we won't know where we're going until we get there. When we got to our boarding gate we found out we would fly into Komatsu airport in Fukui prefecture. When we arrived at the Komatsu airport there was a bus waiting for us and it turned out that the first place we were going to visit was Tojinbo. We had visited Tojinbo last year but when we did it then the conditions were not so good; this time it was much better!

To get to the sightseeing part one has to walk down a short street lined with shops and restaurants.

This is the first sight one sees of the Tojinbo sea coast. 

These steps that lead down to the ocean were roped off today. 

Some of the other people that are part of the mystery tour.

Everyone is taking pictures.

Other people are posing to have their picture taken.

Okay, it's time for me to leave the group and walk around to check out some other scenery.

This place is beautiful!

The last time I was here the sky was hazy and the sea was flat. 

This time is so much better.

The man standing on top of the rock gives one a good sense of how big the rocks are. 

We're here on a Wednesday; if we were here on the weekend it would be very crowded with other tourists.

We were told that it was snowing here yesterday. Lucky us, we have blue sky and nice clouds.

They have filmed movies and television shows here. 

I'm trying to see as much as I can before it's time to get back on the bus.

If I ever come here again it would be nice to be able to ride on that tour boat.

Well, it's time to go back to the bus.

All aboard! 

So now we're back on the bus and we don't know where we're going next. 

See you next time as we continue the mystery tour!

Mike

Bonus shots! Miura beach.