A U.S. naval counterintelligence officer working to safeguard Pearl Harbor; a Japanese spy ordered to Hawaii to gather information on the American fleet. On December 7, 1941, their hidden stories are exposed by a morning of bloodshed that would change the world forever.
I've been surrounded by people of #Japanese and Asian heritage since my 20s in #Hawaii, so it's an odd feeling to see mostly foreign tourists in #Kyoto on a weekday. They seem to be fanning out to places I go for walks but are less spectacular than the famous temples you pay to enter. In the future I think much of #Japan could be like Hawaii, with tourism and immigrants like myself attracted to the relatively well-preserved culture and nature.
On a typical spur-of-the-moment walk, I spent no money except on a short train ride and walked through the tourist street past Gion, through Yasaka Shrine and Maruyama Park to the temple Chion-In. It's a headquarters of a major Pure Land sect with numerous parishioners, some tending to their ancestors, unlike either the open air museum type of temples or Zen centers.
I slipped into Kyōto and back home just before an explosive thunderstorm. Limited to four photos and captions, here is a bit of the flavor of Chion-In.
Hawaiian History: A Captivating Guide to the History of the Big Island, Starting From Ancient Hawaii to the Present
Just how did the ancient Hawaiians sail thousands of miles of open ocean without modern methods, without getting lost, and somehow finding new islands? How did such a rich culture even come to exist on perhaps the most isolated archipelago in the world?