Day 14 Pictures Are Up!

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Day 13 Pictures Are Up!

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Day 13 - Kyoto/Tokyo

Checked out of our hotel and headed North again to see the Kinkakuji (the golden temple) and the zen rock garden. It's out by the onsen we went to so we dropped our bags off in a locker at Kyoto station and headed out that way.

Both were pretty easy to find and we used the bus to help us get around. It was also an overcast day so it rained a bit but nothing more than what we get back home... drizzle.

The zen rock garden was our first stop and I joked that we were paying to stare at rocks... which we were but it was pretty nonetheless. Plus I believe John Mayer was here a few months back (I saw a picture on his website) so there was that. ;) We walked around the grounds snapping photos and finally discovered what that wonderful smell was, it is a flowering bush. Jeff snagged a few of the little flowers as he has been pressing leaves and stuff like that in his book. He seems to like doing that, who knew.

After the garden we hopped a bus and headed to the golden palace. It is beautiful and very gold! We took a ton of pictures which I hope to post soon (facebook has been pooping out on me). We had a little sit down for tea time and they gave us a sweet and green tea. It's so crazy that our trip is almost over!

Kyoto is now officially over so we headed back to the station to catch our 3:30 train to Tokyo - it's a 2 hour trip. We ate our lunch we bought at the kiosk and then I napped most of the ride.

Once in Tokyo we found ourselves following the same path we had at our very first days here. It's much easier now!! We checked into the Westin and then decided we wanted to eat Neapolitan pizza for dinner which we were both excited for! We headed to Partenope, the same place we had gone last time around. It was just that good!! For dinner we had their buffalo mozzarella pizza, a salad and tried a pasts this time as well. OMG it was soooo good!!! We even finished a bottle of prosecco as well. A few of the staff members remembered us from last time and chatted with as much as they could. Jeff took pictures and talked more with the people who work there. He even gave his San Marzano pin to the server we had from last time. I don't think I can even explain how much fun we had, just know it was memorable!

After dinner we walked out of the restaurant and saw a guy at another restaurant across the street just standing there. I waved to him and he waved back. We went over there for a drink - it was an Indian restaurant. We chatted with the guy who worked there, he was from Nepal and has been here 3 years. His English was great. Then after that we decided to go see if that tiny bar we went to last time was open... it was so we went in and sat down. They only have 8 seats and 4 were free. We ended up staying there till about 3am chatting and drinking with the patrons and the guy working the place. One woman there spoke English due to living in NY for a few years so she helped. We took a ton of pictures with them and they asked us to come back tomorrow at 7:30 for sushi as the older guy is a sushi chef. We are totally going!!! Amazing night!!!

Day 4 - Okayama

We started out the day at a cafe we found the other day and liked. Then we hit up the Tourist Info center to get info on Fukuoka as that was our destination plan. We reserved our seats on the train and then realized we wouldn't get in until 10pm... With not hotel we weren't sure about that. We grabbed some ramen at a little local place and wandered around a bit. We even saw an old guy with a grey ferrett wearing a pink hello kitty outfit, hat and all.

Had ramen at Ramen Santouka across from the Tokyo station. Jeff likes to find places down random alley ways and sofar our luck has been really good as the food was delicious!

We got on the train and headed South on the shinkensen. It was about 4.5 hours before we decided "let's get off at Okayama and find a room there", so we did. The train ride was nice and super fast. We took a ton of pictures of the little towns we saw.

Once in Okayama we went to a few places and finally by the 3rd one we found a place to stay, a Ryokan. The woman spoke no english but after a few minutes and help from my japanese language book we got a double room. The room wasn't bad at all, different from the Westin of course but nice. It actually had a toilet and bath along with shampoo, towels, razors, etc... We got situated and then went out to find some dinner.

As we walked around we noticed we were the only foreiners and there were alot of young folks hanging out in groups. Even a few street performers which we haven't seen yet... I don't mean homeless performers just kids tryiong to get their music heard is what it seemed.

We ended up picking a place that had skewers. The guy outside actually spoke english and so we decided to go in and give it a try. Noone else did though so he had to come up and take our order. We had to order off the pictures on the menu so I have a feeling they probably had alot more than what we saw... We ordered a chicken teriyaki skewer, a ham and asparagus skewer, salt and pepper beef on shoots and onions and then a ham and grated yam with cheese on top. i have to say it made me gag... the grated yam just is such a weird texture for me... Jeff had a whole bowl of it in Ginza but man, it makes me think of eating snot... I just can't handle it. He was thrilled there was something he liked and could eat that I couldn't.

After dinner we headed for this bar we had seen earlier that had a Seattle Rainier Beer sign. It was a tiny place with 2 workers and 4 customers. We sat down and ordered a beer. The 4 gys there asked us where we were from in broken english and once more Ichiro saved us. As soon as we say his name they all go "OHHHH the mighty Ichiro, Seatter Mariners". We ended up talking to them till closing time. They had limited english and I left my book in the room so we had a fun time figuring out what we were all saying. They thanked us profusely for talking with them and one guy kept saying "I want to know you" to us. He was a bit drunk but so friendly and smiley and seemed to love trying to speak english. This place doesn't seem to have alot of english speaking people come through as most folks didn't speak much at all. The owner of the place kept trying to get us to roder food and was so excited to have us try it. somehow we think we agreed to trying tofu with ginger... honestly I know we told him no we had just eaten but that got lost in translation... Jeff was so not hungry at all but i told him to eat it anyways, the guy was so thrilled and watched us eat. I said "Oishii" and they all squeeled with delight. They loved when we would say something in japanese, it would end in applause and loud laughter. It was by far one of my favorite moments as I have been hoping to meet some people and just sit and chat with them... or try to that is. :) We had a picture taken with them and then we exchaged info - I promised to send them the picture. It was awesome!!

At midnight we heaqded back to the ryokan to get our futons ready and relax. We fell asleep to japanese TV. It turned out to be a great side trip!

Check out the pictures!

Pictures - Day 1 (travel day)

I finally uploaded the pictures we took yesterday, not a ton but there will be more as the days progress! Stay tuned!

(the picture here is the view of the sun rising this morning from our hotel room).

We Made It!

Jeff and I got up and made it out the door by about 9am and were on the bus by about 9:15am, a bit later than we had originally planned. We got to the airport at about 10:30, mind you our flight left at 11:30am! We tried to get there with more time but I swear every single handicap person decided to get on the bus which made it take forever... Once we actually got there we were so stressed and did everything we could to try and get through the gates faster, no luck. The woman at the gate told us not to stress her out or start her day off wrong... We also got a lecture about arriving earlier - WE TRIED! After much stress and time, we made it through securirty, ran toi the tram, then bolted up 3 flights of stairs taking them 2 at a time (thank god for all that exercise) and then finally arriving at our gate!

The flight from Seattle to Vancouver was on a 50 person Dash 8 airplane... I had the joy of being assigned to sit next to "Larry Petersen", the space hog! Firs I am sure you are wondering why his name is in quotes. He was a persian man with a thick accent named "Larry Peterson"... right. Jeff and I decided he must he in witness protection. As for the space hog part, it's a small plane and he decided to take up 90% of the space under the seats for his bag so I had no room for mine, I even said something to him and he ignored me, full on ignored me. Thankfully the plane didn't fill up so I moved to another row, Jeff joined me.

Our flight left a few minutes late b/c "Larry" had some issues with his seat assignment, apparently he and some other guy were both assigned to that seat - which apparentloy isn't possible. He ended up getting the seat, the other guy had to ride in a different one, and we finally took off.

Once we got on our flight bound for Tokyo we were happy to find out we had an exit row with tons of leg room. There was a woman eyeing our extra middle seat for quite sometime. I told Jeff to cough and look sick so that she wouldn't come sit with us. Having that free seat is like gold so we were hoping to keep it all to ourselves. Bad I know but I think you would have done the same... It's a 9.5 hour flight, that extra seat was a bonus... It wasn't a full flight either, there were plenty of free seats all over. I did see the woman later ask a flight attendant about moving and the flight attendant told her she shouldn't b/c "they're together" YAY, thanks stewardess!!! That put an end to it and we didn't have to do a thing.

There was a lot of turbulance at the beginning of the flight so the beverage and food service was delayed. After quite sometime they decided to just feed us anyway b/c people were pretty hungry. We had the chicken, my favorite was the dessert - chocolate mousse. Jeff started off with a bloody marry and I had some white wine. Drinks were free!! We had a few more throughtout the flight and they served us dinner too, beef and rice.

One thing that is so cute is that most of the Japanese people on the flight have slippers they are wearing around. The kick off their shoes and then slip into their airplane slippers and scout around in them. The bathroom door also seems to be a source of confusment for them as pretty much every person goes and fumbles with it before finally figuring it out or gives up until they see someone come out.

We landed around 3:40pm, breezed through immigration and customs, then had to figure out where terinal 2 was so we could pick up our rail passes. I did have to ask but the guy was supoer nice and helpful.

We found terminal 2 and the pass place. I showed the lady my google map to get to our hotel and she laughed, apparently google maps did not give me the quickest route. She did though.The train was pretty easy to figure out once she told us which direction to go, everything is labeled in english which is beyond helpful!! Our train ride from Narita to Shibuya was abot 1.5 hours and we rode backwards (oh and I think it smelled port o potty like)... I wasn't feeling so hot at the end, can't say I liked that. Once at Shibuya we transfered trains and that wasn't to bad. We arrived at Ebisu and that is where the confusion kicked in. It was rush hour so there were alot of people... We still aren't sure how to get out of the station, we just kind of followed other people out yet they were scanning something to exit... not sure what though. Then we got all directionally challenged and I kept reminding Jeff of my compass and he kind of poo pooped it at first buit then after a brief stressful stint got it worked out. I kepot saying I hoped we'd see the Westin sign in the sky but was skeptical since the buildings were pretty tall... But then off in the distance when I was about to silentloy freak out I saw the beautiful Westin sign and we both sighed a breathe of relief. We relaxed a bit and took our time walking there.

The hotel is beautiful and by far will be the nicest place we stay... I think. Now it is time to shower and clean up a bit then head out for "dinner" - we re trying to get on the schedule here so it won't screw us up on time... Ok, that's it for now. Time to get clean up and then explore. More later!!!

Sayonara!

Yesterday the dogs "officially" started their vacation at their Uncle Matt and Aunt Kelly's house (thanks again for that guys!). Reagan (pictured here) and Scooby are obviously not having a great time from the picture Kelly sent... (Could you sense the sarcasm there?) I don't know the last time I've seen her so relaxed. (See Mike, she doesn't look so viscous now, does she!?)

Today has been a busy day of packing (for Jeff) and running errands/getting the house ready (for me). The house has been cleaned, the fridge has been emptied, packs have been packed... Now we are just waiting to leave. I think you could even call us bored. We went out to dinner to try and fill the time... Now that we're back though we just don't know what to do with ourselves... Guess I'll go watch some TV and try to get tired. BUT WE'RE SO EXCITED, WHO COULD SLEEP!!!

So the adventure officially starts TOMORROW and we are hoping to be able to blog pretty often - will all depend on the wireless connections we can find. I'm thinking that should be pretty easy though.

Oh, I gave Skype it's first run through tonight and talked with my Dad and Linda. That was fun to actually do a live video chat. It's really easy to use so let us know if you have it.

Ok, nighty night for now... Love you all! Sayonara!!

Our Tokyo Weather Forecast

The weather isn't looking bad, except it should be raining when we arrive... Here's to hoping it will have cleared up by the time we get there!

Wed 16th
83° F/ 68° F
28° C/ 20° C
Mostly Sunny

Thurs 17th
77° F/ 70° F
25° C/ 21° C
Partly Cloudy

Fri 18th
78° F/ 70° F
25° C/ 21° C
Mostly Sunny

Sat 19th
78° F/ 70° F
25° C/ 21° C
Mostly Sunny

Japan in a few weeks...

Jeff and I will be headed to Japan in a few short weeks! We've been talking about going for quite sometime and I can't believe it is almost here. We'll be posting pictures and writing about our mini adventure for our friends and family to check out.

As of right now our itinerary is:
Tokyo
Hiroshima
Fukuoka
Beppu
Kyoto
Tokyo

However, it's pretty flexible... Stay tuned!