Earlier this month I bought a last-minute plane ticket to Shizuoka for a four-day weekend. I flew in to the new (and small) Shizuoka Fuji airport, only completed in 2009. It was the first time I've been back to Shizuoka since moving away almost three years ago. I got to meet some old friends, and take an fantastic road trip with one of them to Ise (home of Ise Grand Shrine, dedicated to the major deity Amaterasu, goddess of the sun in the Shinto religion). This is considered to be the most sacred shrine in Japan, though it was my first time there. Interestingly, every 20 years the main buildings of this shrine and destroyed and rebuilt nearby to the previous. When we were there the new ones were currently in construction.
Also on our jaunt to Ise we visited a huge aquarium, or at least the largest one I've been to. The trip overall was packed to the brim with activity and nostalgia, and could hardly have been better.
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| Fujisan from the airplane on approach to Shizuoka airport. |
