Sessha Ha Samurai Degozaru!

So, an island off the coast of Shimonoseki, Ganryuu, is famous for a certain battle between
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyamoto_Musashi
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasaki_Kojir%C5%8D
which apparently has a movie made about it: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049710/

To get there, you have to take a ferry. On our way to the port, I got my picture taken with some people that just so happened to be posing as those samurai.

So we got some tickets and ferried over. Took only a minute or so. The island itself is pretty small. We didn't get very far before some man offered to tell us the story of the island for only 100 yen and also give us some kind of taffy-like candy. We took him up on his offer and he proceeded to try to grab anyone walking past by telling them he had a guest that had come all the way from Chicago and somehow that should influence their decision to join.

We wandered about the island a bit more, saw the statue, and headed back.

Then we went back (not on that yellow boat though)

We drove over to Chofu to see the temples or something where my friend had been able to wear samurai gear and have his photo taken. Unfortunately, it seems this is not an every day thing, and I didn't get a chance to do the same.

There were a lot of artists there drawing whatever. And one dude with a shirt with German on it. I called out to him to tell him to let me read all of it, much to his surprise. Naturally, he didn't know what it said, and I doubt he even knew it was German. Never-the-less, it said "Können diese Augen bügeln", which of course makes no sense. "Could these eyes iron?" Apparently, it is some kind of joke on "lügen", to lie. Still, he had no clue and hadn't even bothered to check before buying it. Why do people do these things?

On the way back, I noticed the giant whale statue I see from time-to-time when I am driven along the shore. I talked the driver into taking us there. Apparently you used to be able to go inside, but when we climbed up to it, we realized it was closed off now. Strangely you can see under the statue some kind of part of a spine. I took some pictures, we went down, and everyone got dropped off.

They probably had to close off the whale to prevent people from eating it here.