Kyoto

We've been in Kyoto for two days now, the first night was pretty much just sleeping and being slightly cold (forgot to turn the heater on). We are staying in a traditional Japanese house, so no shoes inside, and ladder like stairs ;-). It's actually very nice and located right in between two centers of town, I think we've only been to one so far, but lots of cool stuff around us. I think our first lunch was a at an all natural curry place, absolutely amazing food! I loved it, and the atmosphere was just fantastic. In fact we never would have gone to the place, except we stopped in a small organic food shop and Eli struck up a conversation with the shop owner. After about 20 minutes I think he told us his family owned most of that street and it was all natural food, that's when he showed us to his mother's restaurant.
After that we went shopping for food to cook at home. We got some eggs and toast for breakfast and spaghetti fixins for supper at the F mart next to the Family Mart, personally I think they both wanted the name Family Mart and one just compromised....
I ended up making supper which was really nice, kind of like returning home for a bit. Ooo and I made garlic bread with like no utensils, it was awesome!
The Kitchen.
Supper!
Conner cleaning up after supper, sooo helpful!

The next morning after eating toast, eggs and for me cheese and peperoni we went to Osaka to meet Eli's mother and walk around town for a while...
Eli spotted a tiny kitten, super cute!

A park on the way to the train station...

Tako Yaki (fried octopus dumplings)...In Osaka

Okay, I totally tried it and while I love octopus, surprisingly takoyaki did not sit well with me :-(

Strip mall in Osaka...

Tomomi and Yuni (Eli's little sister)

After being in Osaka for a bit and meeting part of Eli's family for a brief time, we went back to Kyoto on the bullet train which takes about 15 mins maybe less...We went to the most amazing Japanese restaurant, I can't remember what it's called, but you basically pick what ingredients you want and then it's made to a pancake right on the table in front of you. Very cool way to eat, I was unadventurous and got sobayaki which is fried noodles, I got mine with vegetables. It was fantastic I'm so glad I got it and lots of pictures :-)

For those who got the pancake, you mix up your own bowl of ingredients...

Then you pour all your pancake mix onto the table top stove in front of you...

Aren't they pretty?

My food being added...

The end product YUM!

Have I mentioned my favorite meal yet? ;-)

The end product...

Outside the best food ever...

Because the level of maturity on this trip fluctuates from philosophic debates to well this...

A steam run machine, making a cake type dessert filled with sweet bean paste...

Anyhow I practically skipped our first day in Kyoto, but I'm tired and really didn't want to upload everything. Don't worry I'm sure it'll make it into the scrapbook ;-).

Later,
Hannah.

It’s the 5th of November in Kyoto, Japan...We had another amazing breakfast at Japanese Denny’s I had french toast again with liquefied kiwi that was awesome! Okay it was weird, but it tasted just like kiwi without the mess of having to chew ;-)...We decided to go to electric town again to return Eli’s camera.
After going back to electric town (Akihbara) we went to Asakusa a bit of a tourist trap, but very beautiful. There were lots of shrines and artful buildings. We got off the train with some students in uniform and they all stopped at this small statue to drop money in and rub his head, we think it’s good luck for exams. Anyhow that’s why there are tons of pictures with us rubbing a very smooth head :-p.
There was also a water fountain that we performed sort of a ritual at. It’s a very large fountain with water shooting out of dragons mouths, along the sides are cups attached to long sticks, you take on of the sticks and fill the cup with water from the dragons mouth, then place a little water in one hand and then the other and another dollop in your right hand that you drink. I think it’s a suppose to be cleansing, but who knows...After that we took some very nice pictures at a shrine garden all the beautiful foliage mixed as always with a lot of technology, that you could see just over the tree tops. Also saw some very large coi fish (may not be spelled right, feel free to correct). We left there around 2:30 or so to grab our luggage from the hostel and catch our train to Kyoto...
We left Tokyo station at 4:15 on a two hour bullet train which I slept through so no pictures :-( sorry guys.
After finding two taxis to take all seven of us to our house in Kyoto, we found our drivers didn’t know where we were suppose to be. So fun adventure, learning experience, slightly annoying and not to bad if we just breath and let go :-). Here we are in our Japanese style guest finally got to take my shoes off lol and am walking around in my socks, we have slippers, but I don’t know, too much work I guess :-p. We’re all very tired here and my computer won’t get internet access, so I don’t think I’ll be able to update very much, at least not with pictures :-(...I miss you all so much, I think sleep sounds wonderful right now, but mostly I need some alone time. I’m starting to understand why the Japanese grab every moment of privacy on the buses, trains, going from point A. to point B.
Goodnight yall,
Hannah.




French toast! at Japanese Denny's

KIWI! That you drink...
Money, Yen, whatever is pays for food (and other things I'm told)

Leaving the Sakura Hotel

Yoshinoya Japanese fast food

Electric town (Akihabara)

Sarah rubbing the statue for good luck

Eli doing the same

There is a picture of me doing this, but as it is my blog I have the right not to post terrible pictures of myself :-p

Asakusa
Giant shoe on building and Rachel the photographer

Really cool!


Fountain cleansing ritual (we think)

Me doing said ritual (hopefully the correct way)

Me in front of Buddha
The gardens, a major reason I went on this trip

Coy pond

And then my Camera died :-( I'll upload more pictures later of Kyoto! :-)

The 4th Tues

Here is a picture of the side menu, now who can figure out which ones are the dumplings? ;-)
Obviously very good, couldn't even take the time to take a picture :-( It was soo good! Dumplings with soy sauce and pork AMAZING!
Hey mom can we fix the red eye? oh yeah and the creepy sleep deprived face?
They all though they heard an icecream truck and were deciding whether they should jump out the window and chose 'em down :-)
Connor giving me double barrel, it's tradition he says :-P we're all watching a movie here...
Our hotel!

Alright so this was the least picture taking day for me, I had to charge...
I woke up at 5AM per usual, showered (in the super cool shower) and played on my laptop for a while. Ms. Becki (misspelled her name the first time :-() came down around 6 or 7 which was nice, a little company while the others slept (even Eli), after a time of playing on the laptop we decided to take a quick walk down the the 7/11 and get some breakfast...You saw the green doughnuts ;-) plus orange juice lovin' the orange juice!
We all just kind of hung out today, relaxed, though we did get our most expensive lunch so far 1000 yen each which is like $11 so really not bad...And get this it was Chinese food, our most expensive meal in Japan was Chinese food :-p...So afterwards we played with the idea of going back to electric to return Eli's camera, but decided to go back to the Sakura hotel where we've been staying (sorry didn't post a picture sooner x-)
Eli decided to we should watch a movie, okay it was really just seven very short films in Japanese (subtitled we're not that good). We watched them on Eli's computer in the guys room, turned out all the lights, because that was more hardcore? anyhow my lack of sleep caught up with me because I remember a fox wedding and then I was being woken up on the top bunk in the boys room, and everyone was not only no longer watching movies but they had gone on to other places lol...

So while I could have continued sleeping and at the time would have liked too, that empty plate of food at the top of the page was totally worth the cold wind, the grogginess and the slight vertigo :-)

I think everyone had a good relaxing time, the 4th was about lazing around, the 5th we go to Kyoto!

Later,
Hannah.

more pictures

Becky :-)
GREEN DOUGHNUTS! and orange juice, this was Becky and my breakfast :-)

The view from a very large, at the top of a government building...
Udon noodles, basically I had ramen for supper it was good :-)

This is a good dude ;-) (insert inside joke here) he protects against bad luck...
Those are elevators with a view to the outside, very cool...
First group shot in electric town in Tokyo!
We were going to go to the imperial palace, but they were closed, we got a good pic of the outside though :-)
Japan guide books from the hostel...
Japanese denny's I ate french toast which I never do, but it was actually very good :-)

Here I am on the second day, I'm blurring but hey can't focus 'em all...Also really early in the morning lol



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