Japan: How a Country Stole My Heart

Now, to be fair, I've wanted to go to Japan for over twelve years now, since I was eight and  first learned how to make a paper crane. As glorious as Japan was in my head, however, the real thing definitely exceeded my expectations!

I spent the weekend in the Kansai region of Japan, which at this time of year is delightfully saturated with blooming cherry blossoms. It was an excursion with my CIEE program, so there were about 25 of us traipsing through the area, along with many, many other tour groups. Here starts my wondrous tale of my weekend in Japan <3
(you'll notice I'm holding a little flat doll looking thing. That is Flat Billy. He is a friend of Flat Stanley. Elementary schools often send Flats to friends and family members so the students can learn more about different places. I was asked to show Flat Billy around Korea by a young boy I babysit, and since I had him around as I was going to Japan, I took him there as well)

Even the clouds over Japan seemed extra special
   because they were Japanese clouds. Look at them!
Don't they just look special?!

Bright and early Friday morning we boarded the bus for the airport. It was still completely dark out as the bus pulled out of the parking lot before 6am. That is not an hour anyone really ever needs to be awake, unless they are heading for a foreign country. I must say, as displeased as most of the group was, I was excited that we would be able to spend pretty much the entire day in Japan since our flight was to land at 10 am. After a little mix up at the airport and killing some time before passing through customs, we (or at very least I) eagerly boarded the plane for a rather quick flight. Time in the air was maybe an hour and a half, and while I had hardly slept the night before, I did not even attempt to sleep on the plane. I was far to excited.

So I was finally in Japan. I made sure the first thing I did was hit up four square. Major points for checking into Japan! We boarded the bus as a group and were introduced to our tour guide for the weekend as we ate our bento box lunches (natrually, what else would you have as your first meal in Japan?). I tried really hard to stay awake while the bus drove off to Kyoto, but alas, my lack of sleep finally caught up with me. But not before I managed to get a few pictures of beautiful Japan!

Our first stop in Kyoto was the Golden Pavilion. It is part of a Buddhist Zen temple, and the site has been in use for hundreds of years. As proof of this, there is a 600 year old tree! We wandered around here for a little while, among the other tourists and Japanese people. I loved seeing the couples dressed in Kimonos! It hinted at raining while we were there, hence the gray skies in my pictures,  but it was still beautiful (have I mentioned I love Japan?). We also got to try some Japanese snacks...including green tea ice cream, yummm!!!

Next we were off to Nijo Castle. While today it is not completely original because of a few incidents with fire, as will happen to fully wooden structures, it is still mostly original. Even the floor still maintains its original defense system. See, back when the castle was built there were no electronic home defense systems. But the Shogun and other occupants still needed a way to be alerted if an assassin were to try to sneak into the castle. There were two forms of defense set up. First, the floors are what is called a nightingale floor. When you walk on them it sounds like chirping nightingales. It's actually a rather pretty sound, though I suppose it could get rather annoying living with it. The second form of defense were hidden chambers for the Shogun's bodyguards. No pictures were allowed inside the castle, but I did manage to get some of the garden (I even got my roommate, Crystal, to get in a picture!)

It was then time to head to the hotel. On the way my new friend Parth (you'll hear more about him later) delighted me with fantastic (albeit not so believable) stories of his friends back home. True or not, he had quite the stories to tell. But anyways, when we got to the hotel we pretty much had time to set our things down and then head to dinner. We had a traditional Japanese style dinner. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures as my camera/iPod was completely dead at this point (I had spent all day taking pictures/listening to music, afterall. It had been a long day; I started in Seoul, and was ending it in Kyoto). I can tell you it was delicious!! We had sashimi, miso soup, other soup, sushi, tempura, and much much more. The food just kept coming out in waves of wonderfulness :)

After dinner a group of us went out with our program director and assistant director (Boram, the AD, is pictured with the flag above). We were in search of sake and Geishas. Instead of finding either we ended up at a swanky little bar over looking the river. It was a nice chill way to end the evening. My roommate for the evening (Britney) and I headed back early, even though she is the one from the group who speaks the most fluent Japanese (lesson learned: my Japanese is semi-functional, but at this point I was thinking it was quite pitiful, more on that later though), although Boram can apparently speak Japanese pretty well too (she claims that what she used there was ALL she knows, which means she can speak enough to order at a bar? Oh Boram...) So I have just a couple of pictures from that evening:

So here's the teaser: the story only gets better, but I'm not going to tell any more right now. Which means you'll just have to check back in soon to hear the rest!!

#WithLoveFromJapan