The Wolfe's

We just went to Cancun. I had a work event and so Doug came. A lot of people have been asking me what has been my favorite trip and I would say this is not my favorite. It was fun and we did have a lot of time to relax, but it was a little boring. The beaches there were very nice.

This was a senota we went to a limestone cave with a pool at the bottom. It was really neat.

This was a cute lizard I saw.

This is one of the buildings at Chitzen Itza.

The Observatory at Chitzen Itza.

Another structure.

The main building at Chitzen Itza

The main structure at Chitzen Itza is now one of the new wonders of the world. You can see in this picture the triangles and at the bottom is a snake head. Twice a year when the sun sets the triangles are lite up and the rest of the structure is in shadow, creates a snake.

This is the beach at our hotel in Cancun.

This is from our balcony in our room.

One day I made a starfish and Doug made a pyramid in the sand.

These are the pictures from our Tokyo trip. I know I should have done this post sooner but I have just been really busy and it actually takes a long time to put together a post. We had a really good time. We did see a lot of temples and shrines. The 2 main religions are Buddism and Shinto. They actually said that most people believe both religons. Shinto is for when you are living and Buddism is for when you die, since Shinto does not have an afterlife. Most temples and shrines actually have symbles from both religons.

This is a Shinto shrine

At this shrine they we doing a ceremony but we could not take picture of that. That is why there is so many people there

I loved all of the gardens so you will see several picturs of gardens. They were all so pretty. That is what I enjoyed the most. The trees were so pretty.

This was Sunday and so a lot of people where at this Shinto Shrine all the barrels are saki. They verious saki manufactures donate them to the shrines

Behind us is the Shinto Shrine you can see smoke in the background because they belive she smoke from the incence will make them wiser and smarter. So people by the incense and then place it the designated spoke and wave the smoke tward themselves. (there are a lot of little things you can buy for good luck and blessings)

This was a view from a resturante we ate at by a river. It was nice.

At one of the shrines they had this little play going on.

I don't know if you new Tokyo had a statue of liberty. I didn't until I was going on this trip

We went the fish market, the largest in the world. It is huge. But this guy was cutting up this fish.

There is so much random stuff at the fish market I think you could find any kind of seafood there.

I though this fish head was funny

This is in Nara (a town outside of Tokyo we went to). This is one of the largest Budda's. They built the Budda by building up sand and then pouring the bronze. Once the Budda was finished they build this structure arround the Budda. So you can see it is quite large.

This is the budda and it is made of bronze. You can't really tell how large it is but is was big.

This is another Budda in the Temple

In this temple there is a little hole in the base of this column. And the belief is that if you fit through you would go to heaven. So people lined up to fit through this small hole. It was interesting.

Another garden picture. Alot of gardens are set up with a pond and so the reflections in the watter are so pretty.

This is at another Shinto Shrine. At this shrine they have somewhere between 1000 and 3000 deer that live on the land. They are accostomed to people and so they come right up to you. You can by food for them and feed them.

This is a bady deer. And we all know how much I like baby animals. I really wanted to pet this one but it was behind fences.

Here is a picture of all the deer waiting by the stand where you buy food so when people buy food they follow them until they get some.

These are lanterns on the way up to another Shinto Shrine. Once a year they light all lanters and there are like a 1000 of them. I think that would have been so neat to see. But this area was really pretty.

You can see there are a lot of lanterns and they line both sides.

I thought this was funny a treen growing in a tree stump

This is in Kyoto and it was the emperial palace when Kyoto was the capital. It is interesting that they just do a lot of ornate furniture at all. It is very minimaist.

This is a shrine that the outside of the building is coverd in gold. It was really neat to see.

Doug really wanted me to take a picture of our tour guide this day because he thought she looked like an ewok (like from stars wars)

This was inside the emperial place the paintings on the screens.

Another garden

This is another Shinto Shrine

At every Shinto shrine they have this water area. Where people tak a scope and get some water and wash their right hand then the left and then rinse out their mouth.

This is apart of that shrine

This is a bunch of little papers tied to a tree. Every Shinto Shrine has a spot like this. People buy a fortune. If it is a bad one they tie it to the tree in hopes that it will not come true. If it is a good one they take it with them. One guide told us about 70 percent of them are bad.

Another garden

These trees were interesting becuase the trunk is one side an then they grow it over a tressel and it grows like 20 feet.

This is a Shinto Shrine. It was really neat because it was on a hill side with forest all around.

This is a fountian at the shinto shrine. People stand in like to get a drink of the water. One is for wisdom, one is for money, and I think the other is for love (not for sure on the 3rd).

A pagoda

This is the city of Kyoto

This is a trip we went on to the more mountian area. We are at a shinto shrine. This was one of the maple trees where the leaves were all red. It was so pretty.

This is a 5 level pagoda.

All of the shrines had little huts with these flowers in them. People grow them all year and they bloom in the fall. The goal is to get 3 flower that are uniform. They were very pretty.

Some more flowers

This is at another shrine. the wood is carved with monkeys in each panel.

This panel is for the phrase hear no evil, speak no evil and see no evil.

At this shrine there are tones of wood carvings. These were really neat to see.

This is a close up of a wood carving you can see how 3D they are.

This is a picture of that shrine with the carvings

On this day we went on a short walk in the forest in the mountains. It was so pretty.

At the end of the walk was a waterfall

Just a picture of some trees I thought were really pretty.

This is at one the shrines

At this shrine there was a cave you could go into. An in there were carvings in the stone.

This is Doug in one of the cave passage ways.

In the cave poeple by these little statues and then leave them there for a wish or blessing. There were so many of them there.

This is one of the larges wood Budda's

This day we went by the sea and so this is overlooking the ocean.

Another shrine

At this shrine there were all of these statues. People buy these statues.

This is another large Budda make of bronze. I think it is just a little smaller than the other one.

At all of the shrines people would bring there kids of the ages of 3, 5, & 7 to be blessed. When they do this the kids and sometimes parents dress in traditonal dress.