We're just having a picture fest on this blog. Here's my Japan trip in pictures and captions.
So I talked to Yogin all the way to the airport. Heheh. Hated the 12 hour plane flight. Landed at Narita Airport and ate sushi and sashimi on a conveyor belt. That was fun. I don't really remember that much about that night because I was so tired. The Ogawas (Mrs. Matoba's cousins) were really really nice, even though I didn't understand half a word they said. Their dog, a tiny French bulldog HATED my guts. I swear. I think I smelled Chinese or something and that dog recalled the Sino-Japanese tension or something. It hated me.
So the next morning we took a walk with the dog near their house, along one of the three rivers of Tokyo. It was so pretty.
We were walking here


Along this path:




It reminded me so much of Anne of Green Gables. It was so pretty.



That's a park in Japan. Not even a nice park. Just a neighborhood park, and not even a really nice neighborhood. I wish our parks looked like that.

And they are obsessed with sakura, or cherry blossoms.


Then they took me shopping. It's like a hundred stores lined up on this one street before you reach this temple. Here's the entrance:


Yes this is a shopping place:


While we were there, they had this performance. It was something like The Dance of the Cranes. It was pretty interesting. They had guys with metal rods smashing the ground, like the hot Durmstrang guy in HP4. Then they had all these little kids in traditional dress, a whole thing of guys making music, and then they had these girls, who were supposedly the cranes:


This is cool:


Then we went to the Imperial Palace, which was my favorite place, because it was so beautiful.
I was really really proud of myself for taking this picture:




Nijubashi Bridge, which is apparently really famous:


Yes the emperor lives there, still. Emperor Akihito or whatever his name is:


Pretty sakura:


This and the lake one are probably my favorite pictures:


We stopped by Tokyo Tower:


We had a traditional Japanese dinner that night. This meant I had to eat kneeling for about 3 hours. That was interesting. O yes I hated the food, no offense to any Japanese person who sees this. The fish and the beef were good though.




Dinner was fun though, mostly due to this guy. Mr. Ogawa, who was a bit drunk and spent the night making fun of me.


I wonder if this is strong alcohol:


Everything is about presentation in Japan, so I took pictures with all the floral arrangements in the room.




O yeah, this is Hiroyuki, the Ogawa's 22 year old son:


That was everybody I ate with:


The next morning we went to Kyoto, where they sat me down and dressed me up into a geisha. I think I look scary. Hopefully the professional pictures are better when they come in May.


They wouldn't let me smile with my mouth open, and I was having serious difficulties with that, so I think I end up looking constipated half the time.


It took me like half an hour to get all that stuff off. Then we went to these temples in Kyoto. It was raining heavily and by the time we were done, my jeans were soaked.




I wanted Andy there so we could say we were dancing in the rain in Japan.



Dancing in the rain in Japan under the cherry blossoms. Now that is romantic, wouldn't you say Andy?


this was a pretty little garden:


We went to Sendai that night, where Rika met us. She's so awesome. I was so relieved that someone could understand me that I didn't stop talking for about an hour.
Kathleen requested these absolutely stupid pictures of her house, because she wants to "FEEL LIKE I'M INSIDE A CUBICLE!"
This is where I slept:



Happy Kathleen?

The next day Rika took me to the school where she teaches English. That was really funny because the kids were SO SHY! Yes I managed to humiliate a boy. It was so fun. So they wouldn't talk to me, and some of them were even covering up their faces when they walked by. But this one class of 9th graders were pretty outgoing, but the one boy was the only one who kept talking. So after like 30 minutes in there, when I left the room, there was like laughter erupting. Rika's like, "Go back in there and say bye Tsubesu." (I really don't know how to spell his name sorry) So I slid open the door a little bit and waved, "Bye Tsubesu!" Apparently they won't stop making fun of him now.
OMG YOU HAVE TO TAKE YOUR SHOES OFF EVERYWHERE! I had to take my shoes off at school! The kids have indoor shoes, outdoor shoes, and out of school shoes. And every day after lunch, they CLEAN for an hour. They have no janitors. Every kid has like a corner and they all clean! In their pretty little uniforms. I think we'd have a mass rebellion if the school tried to make us do that.


O yeah and I met Yoko, the girl I've been writing to. She's really nice, though a bit nervous when she met me.


The next day Rika took me shopping. I bought loads of stuff, including two shirts I am so wearing to school. Let's just say they have a lot of British stuff. I bought Elsa mountains of stuff.

We went to Mrs. Matoba's best friend's house in Sendai afterwards and we stayed there for the night. Their daughter, who's like in her early twenties is getting married in Hawaii in the summer. She's marrying a Japanese guy who has a house in Westwood in LA. So she's coming to America. We used her electronic dictionary to communicate. It was really funny.
Here's Rika making fun of my chopsticks holding method:


The next day we went back to Tokyo and I got on the plane home!
It was fun and really pretty, despite the fact that I was usually surrounded by like old people who I couldn't understand.