The last two days in Fukuoka have been largely unstructured just so we could ease into the time change and the long list of activities we have planned for the next few weeks. As a result, our sleep has been kind of all over the place but TODAY we have places to be and stuff to do. I knew that I wanted to bring Joanna to one of the two peace museums either in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Being in Fukuoka we’re about an hour from either city. Selfishly, I made the executive decision to just go back to Hiroshima because I wanted to eat Hiroshima style okonomiyaki again.

Woke up yesterday morning with rain outside our window. It looks like most of southern Japan was going to get showers the next few days which made it perfect timing for us to leave for the next place. A few years ago, my friend Luke recommended a place called Yakushima Island for my next Japan trip as it’s a designated world heritage site due to having Japanese cedar forests with trees that are several thousand years old.

I woke up randomly at 3:30am yesterday morning and wasn’t able to get back to sleep. When we first arrived, everything was overcast so you weren’t able to see the 3000ft tall Mt. Motchomudake in front of our minshuku. I looked out the window and saw that the clouds had gone and there were a bunch of stars out. This was probably the best opportunity to try taking a few pictures of the night sky. I still have a ton to learn about this style of photography but I think these turned out nicely without dedicated equipment besides a tripod.

When planning this week, I had intended on leaving the day after our long hike with a chill out day as I knew we’d be sore and immobile due to our old age of 35. Even if we wanted to go out and explore the island, Typhoon Marwar decided for us that it was not the day to do so.

I woke up this morning to heavy rain pelting the windows. Guess yesterday’s question of “are we going hiking today?” was answered. As I got ready for the day, the rain would stop and switch to mist which raised my hopes but then the mist turned back into sideways rain again within a few minutes.