Sorry we have been away for so long. Between moving, trips and of course the Hurricane, certain things got set back and it's finally great to get back up to speed.
So... JAPAN!
I was eagerly looking forward to this trip. David and I met there 8 years ago on a student exchange sponsored by the Rotary club, so winning this trip in a raffle months before our wedding was something that I felt was "meant to be". <3 I mean, what are the odds right?
Unfortunately due to certain things we did not foresee, our trip wasn't as great as we hoped. Firstly I had caught an Internal Infection topped with having Hyponatremia, also known as water intoxication, which I wasn't treated for until after I returned to the States. (I didn't that was what was going on with my body, I thought perhaps it had something to do with the weather or food.) So it's safe to say that I wasn't feeling too well. Haha.Even with my fatigued condition I was still determined to make it a great trip. (I mean when was the next time I'll return to Nippon?) However we had outside forces that kept influencing our time and taking us away from what we wanted to do. We tried our hardest to be friendly and appease them, but in the end we didn't wind up having any fun. Much to be learned in being assertive. It's nice to consider others, but if you are sick, have a limited time span and it happens to be your HONEYMOON just go and do what you like because instead of having the time of your lives trying new foods and seeing cool sites you are going to remember taking multiple (and expensive!!) trains, buses and subways in order to sit around as they try to show you Yankee game re-runs and talk about Jazz (because that is totally what I came to Japan to see.)
Well that is enough of my rant. We did get to see a few fun things. Most of whatever time we spent in Tokyo was wasted. (Which originally was my main highlight of the trip, as we completely by-passed Tokyo in our last time around. It's like going to the East Coast America and never seeing NYC, haha.) I got an awesome impression of it though. I love how neat and orderly the Japanese are. Anything that we consider "Western" in the US, the Japanese have already taken it and made it 10x better. One cute thing that we got to do was visit a "Cat Cafe". Maybe as you could tell from my earlier blogs I adore cats. :3 So this was fun for me. Basically it's a place that people who can't have pets (namely cats) can go and hang out with a whole assortment of breeds. They can play with them, feed them, read books and sip a cup of coffee in the company of cats. I didn't want to leave, haha. (They had a MUNCHKIN there... and an AMERICAN CURL.. ffffffffff...) Unfortunately I had to say goodbye to the kitties eventually. I'll always remember you POKO!! You didn't love me only for my food. T^T
Later we spent a few days in Kyoto which was the old capitol. I think it was here where we enjoyed the trip the most. Unlike the previous nights in Tokyo, here we stayed at a traditional Ryokan. It was small but quaint. It felt very nostalgic to my first trip were we stayed in a Japanese style room. I think that it was much more comfortable than the Western styled rooms of Tokyo, I guess there really is something to sleeping on the floor. Haha!!
<--- Enjoying our Bento on the Shinkansen ride!
In Kyoto we went to the Toei Studio park. We had a blast there!! They had all sorts of Ninja related things, such as a house that was like a maze you had to get out of. They also had a haunted house which was fun! :) While we visited Kyoto we also went to see Nara and the little deer that inhabit the area. During the fall they cut their antlers off (So it's not sharp to visitors) really different from the summer where their horns are fuzzy. It's interesting to see just how "trained" they are to the sound of crumpling bags. I got bombarded by elementary school children as we went to see the shrine. They would have class projects where they had to talk to tourists in English and of course David doesn't look American at all. Haha. One of the questions they asked me was "what is your favorite Japanese word?" I said "Shika" (the word for deer. I felt it was appropriate in Nara. They all laughed and got a kick out of it.) As one of our souveniers we also got a lovely pair of engraved chopsticks with our names in a mix of Katakana and Kanji (yes, having a last name in Chinese Characters makes it that much cooler.)
Overall it was a fun trip. I got to practice my Japanese there. By the last day I started feeling more confident and "in my element" of course that is when you have to leave right? I really hope to return some day and that time be more free and hopefully explore some more. :)<--- Breakfast in Japan, dosen't that look delicious?
