Laura visits Nippon 2K8

ロロ・日本

My sister came to Japan! I feel like it was the highlight of my entire time here so far. My sister and I as many of you know are very close... we may even be BFF. So, having her here made for an AWESOME two weeks and two days in Japan.

On Laura's first full day in Japan, she came to Ine Elementary School. She did a small self introduction at the beginning of the classes and answered some questions (they weren't very many). Other than that, she watched the kids play games indoors and out and we all had lunch together with the first and second graders! I think she had a good time -- and it was definitely more fun for me having another person in on the jokes I feel surround me 99% of the time.




We went around Ine and Honjo as per usual, hitting up the regular joints: Urashima Shrine and the udon restaurant, Ikari Farm, the Wind Turbines between Ine and Yasaka, and the boat houses. Naturally, I took Laura out to Amanohashidate as well so she could look through her legs and see something resembling an upside-down island. Or a dragon. You decide!









On our first weekend, we hung around the Tango Peninsula, which included getting lunch, playing video games, and sleeping in. However, on Sunday we braved a badly planned trek to Tottori. 10 hours of transit time, 35 minutes on the dunes. We are so HARD CORE EXTREEEEME. Here are proof pictures. That day finished off with a very late dinner at Tenten in Mineyama. Poor us. We also hit up Sora, an ice cream farm with baby cows and pretty flowers on the premises! Ice cream makes hard core treks more hard core, after all.

Laura -- after about 10 hours on trains and in the car -- ready for action!

I also took Laura to Tokyo! This was equally exciting for me because I'd never ventured out much when I first arrived in Japan last July... I was too jet lagged! So we stayed near Ueno Park and got to the zoo, the aquarium (near Disneyland -- Laura wouldn't let me go), and we hopped around to Harajuku for a bit of shopping. Tokyo is too big... and because of it I felt like there were too many places to go but not enough reasons to go to any of them! Still, the hotel was fun and we had some fast internet, which is always a vacation for me!

Rachel is a bear.

A seal at the Ueno Zoo!
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Laura finds someone to love.

Laura gearing up for Harajuku. And a boss good time.

We crashed at Megan's for the night after getting back from Tokyo. We also hit up Osaka for a few hours to grab some Okonomiyake!

Some Osaka for some Cabbage Pancakey goodness

I have the laziest ferret in the universe.

The next day we headed to Nara: home of the sacred deer and the BIG BUDDHA. Also, Laura informed me, the biggest wooden structure in the world. Take THAT, Trojan Horse! The deer were cute -- even though it was raining for most of the day. The Big Buddha was awesome and I picked up some chocolate mochi for my co-workers/self on the way back!

Laura and Big Buddha make friends

At last -- one with nature! Laura's lifetime goal of being Pocahontas is realised!

We came home to Honjo for only two days before heading off to Kyoto. The first day we sort of walked around aimlessly because most of the attractions/sight seeing areas were closed by the time we got done with Amanohashidate and drove into the city. We saw the pet store though, and hung out with Amy, Ian, Megan and Greg at some random izakaya near Nijo. Why did we do this? Because it was LAURA'S 20TH BIRTHDAY! WOAH! We had a good time.

Amanohashidate -- now the OTHER side!

Laura rings in her 20th year of life by drinking ALL the beer.

Birthday onigiri was in order!

The next day we went WEST to Hiroshima. Here we saw the very heavy yet educational museum of Hiroshima. The Peace Park was really beautiful and rather upbeat; the Children's Memorial definitely being my favourite. We also got HOUNDED by elementary schoolers. It seems like all of Honshu was on a field trip to Hiroshima because we got interviewed/acosted by about 7 different groups! We got asked our names and home countries and afterward we had to sign their school books and take pictures with them. Fantastic!!! It really lightened the mood of the day, which was nice because we were only there for a few hours and all of them were hot and humid.

We finished up the vacation by playing wii and watching cartoons in the hotel with Megan after a dinner of Indian food and parfait (too much parfait). We also did some pretty excellent purikura which I may or may not bother to put up in the future. Oh yeah, we also saw Ginkakuji (the silver pavillion), the Philosopher's Walk, Nijo Castle, the Imperial Gardens and all the cool spots in the city.

I like a parfait!

Man. Dropping Laura off this morning was really sad because I'll miss her, but ... we did a LOT. It's hard to feel bad about a vacation when it was productive and awesome simultaneously. Still, I feel rather lonely being back in the house by myself. What can ya do.