Day 3

On our last day, Heather drove us to Izumo, along with Hiroshi from her and Justin's karate club. First we stopped at the Shimane winery, where instead of going to a counter where you ask a server for a taste of a specific wine, you serve yourself from a choice of 10 punchbowls of very sweet wine. It's hilarious, you can have as much as you want. Could be potentially very dangerous! Especially on such a hot day- was about 35. We stuck to a few civilized samples and went on our merry way.

Next we went to Izumo Taisha, a famous shrine. Every October, the Gods from all the other shrines come here to hang out and have a meeting, they even have a building for them to stay in. It's also a shrine for marriage, so you pray in a particular way. First bow twice, then clap 4 times- twice for yourself, twice to call your future partner, and then bow once. The grounds of the shrine were nice, and it's surrounded by mountains, quite picturesque. We bought some good luck charms and piled back into the car to go to a nearby lighthouse.

I'm used to taking my shoes off when entering buildings here, and actually quite like walking barefoot around an izakaya, but I thought it was funny that you had to take your shoes off to go into the lighthouse and climb up the narrow spiral staircase. The heat made us pretty lethargic but we made it up, and the view of the Japan sea was lovely.

This was our last sightseeing stop, so we headed back to Matsue station to catch our bus back to Osaka. It was 22 minutes late which was causing us some concern, as this is unheard of in Japan. Usually all transporation can be counted on to leave on the dot, don't know how I'm going to cope when I'm in SE Asia and things don't run like clockwork! But we made it back safe and sound, feeling a bit tired and grumpy from the ride but otherwise ok. So don't want to go back to work! Such a great weekend.