Japan!

Hi all!

So I'm really sorry about not being on the ball with my blogging. I was planning on switching over to a video blog via youtube buuut I tried that and I think I like writing better. I am going to continue to upload videos of my adventures to my youtube channel. I have one from Tokyo square (well that's what I'm going to call it; its not its real name) and I have a couple from Disney. I think you guys will like it J I'll put the links at the bottom of the blog so you can watch them if you want.

So lets start at the beginning. We got of the flight and walked into the airport following color coded signs through customs and such. Everything went incredibly smoothly and we met up with Shoji just fine. The first thing I noticed in the airport was the abundance of vending machines. They are a little different looking than ours, but basically the same idea. On top of selling drinks they also have machines that sell cigarettes and supposedly even vending machines for underwear? I didn't see any of those though. One cool thing about the vending machines is that they have both hot and cold drinks; if it is a hot drink the whole bottle is heated. The first purchase I made was a drink that tasted like cherries. It was pretty delicious J Not long after we got there, Shoji told us " Welcome to Japan, everything is smaller here" Lol! It's true though! Most drinks are 8 oz or less, and the clothing and shoes are actually in my size! Sometimes I'm even a medium!

It was probably a 1.5 hour trip from the airport to our hostel if walking time and train time are included. By the time we go there we were completely exhausted. There was talk of going out on the town for the night, but thankfully the majority decision was to rest up. We also learned that if you go out for the night you are out for the WHOLE night. The trains shut down after 10pm so everyone has to stay out till 5:00am. We didn't end up going out which I was actually glad about. The clubs had really high cover charges and we were always really wiped out after a day of adventuring.

The first day Shoji wanted to show us some tourist attractions so we went and saw Tokyo tower. The view from the top was intense. It made us realize just how incredibly massive the city was. After that we headed to downtown Tokyo which I REALLY enjoyed. There were giant screens everywhere with advertisements flashing and it was really fun to just people watch. I've talked to some of you about this already but oh my gosh I LOVE the style in Japan. I'm definitely not a fashionista or anything but the girls outfits were so cute! The most common look was shorts or a skirt with tights/leggings/knee socks and boots. Totally outfits I would like to wear, and even though there was a common thing, everyone also had a really unique look. Even the guys were fashionable; there was a lot of 3 piece suits, Italian shoes, and fancy haircuts.

The second day we went to Disney Sea at Tokyo Disney. It was awesome! I haven't been to Disneyland since I was really young so I could appreciate the architecture and amount of details in each attraction a lot more. Arial's house was incredibly beautiful, and there was a really, really cool "inside the earth" attracting that had a very realistic looking volcano that actually erupted.

I also want to talk about the food for a minute. I LOVE trying new foods and I really, really liked Japanese food. I didn't get to try all that much, but I liked all of it. The first night we had teriyaki chicken, which sounds lame, but was exquisite. It is definitely not the same as teriyaki chicken in the U.S. The second meal I tried was curry-noodle soup. I think this was my favorite. It was packed with flavor. Shoji was shocked that all of us girls finished our meals, there was A LOT of soup consumed. In the evening we went to a Japanese place Shoji picked and he ordered for us. We tried a kind of salad, dumpings, potstickers, a seafood medley, calamari, and marinated chicken kabob-like things.

Over all it was a good trip. I am really glad I went on the Japan leg not only because it was an awesome place to visit, but also because I got to know the other people in my group a lot better. Oh yeah, and also because I got to sleep in a cupboard bed and pretend like I was harry potter J I will post pictures of this later so you understand what I'm talking about…….but yeah, the beds in our room at the hostel were literally cupboards. It was pretty legit.

Okay! Well I'll try to write more often now that I've established a blogging game plan. I have to figure out a way to get it to work though because sometimes its blocked in china. There are ways around the firewall though so hopefully it won't take me long to figure one of those out. So my friends, until next time!

quote of the day: Take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you’ve never been hurt, because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you’ll never get back.

Here's my video :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-2Lt2FnZ2U