pictures are finally up on facebook!

I'm back ( Read more... )

it's raining today so we can't go anywhere. it's supposed to stop around the evening but it will be too late to go out by then so...no tokugawa shrine for us. even though we've seen like 50 bajillion shrines i was actually kinda looking forward to this one because it's supposed to be so fancy. oh well. now i get to hang out at the hotel all day. ( Read more... )

yesterday we took the train to nikko, which is north of tokyo. traveling took pretty much all day so we just checked into the hote, ate dinner and went to bed. the hotel we're staying at is so cute. there are only 8 rooms and it's run by this monk who teaches yoga classes in the morning and cooks zen dinners at night ( Read more... )

this morning we took the train from kyoto to hiroshima. we went to the peace park and went through the museum and saw the different monuments and stuff. it was thoroughly depressing. but i got you guys presents at the tourist info. building! they're kinda small, but...they're cute and random, so...i hope you like them. i still need a fan for izzy ( Read more... )

yesterday we went to kinkakuji temple, ryoanji temple, nijo castle, and the kyoto handicrafts center. kinkakuji is called the gold temple, because the top two stories are covered in gold leaf. the first floor is dark brown wood with white screens like most temples. they had a statue of buddha behind a stone bowl and the ground around it was covered ( Read more... )

i got a little buddha for arden today...does anyone else want me to buy them anything?

friday we went to this park that's an old complex of a japanese family. then we drove by the polyplastics plant in fuji city where my dad worked. it's right next to the pacific ocean, so we saw that, too. it was just kinda...gray. then we went to the temple where the sawadas go. it's the year of the dog so they had a big dog mural on one of the ( Read more... )

yesterday we took the shinkansen train to fuji city. we went to the elementary school where charlie went when they lived here. all the kids were amazed by us and they stared at us as we walked past. it was so cute. they start learning english in 4th grade so some of the older kids spoke some english, like "hello my name is yota. nice to meet you." ( Read more... )

saturday morning we left gsp at 6 for atlanta, waited 3 and a half hours there, then flew 13 hours to tokyo. the flight wasnt as bad as i thought it was going to be...i just started to get restless by the last 2 hours...and i only had to use the tiny little airplane bathroom once. i watched casanova and memoirs of a geisha. we took a taxi to our ( Read more... )