Japan

So I recently just got back from a trip half way around the world and it was so much fun. If you know me then you know I love to travel which is love I have inherited from my parents. Thank you! This trip was 10 days long and spanned over 4 countries. It was last minute at least for a trip like this. My dad had told me one day he had to go to India for a business trip and I was like whattt! I'm coming! I mean how many times do hear someone saying they're going to India. Not very often! So I invited myself not usually my style but it's my dad. So then Joy and Chanel decided they wanted to go to. 

It's not an easy task though to have two little girls and ask your mil to watch them and then worry the whole time if they're doing okay. This will probably be my only trip without the girls and Aaron I ever do again. Thanks Marge for watching them and to all the woman in my ward who helped! You guys are awesome!

We got our Visa for India and we were ready to go! But wait I haven't told you about the other 3 countries we decided to stop at on our way over to India! JAPAN, HONG KONG, and THAILAND! I'm just going to post each country separately and we are going to start with our first stop Japan.

We were on way waiting for a our flight at LAX to depart and we sat... and waited and sat for a little over an hour on the runway due to mechanical problems until they decided to get us back off the plane and wait some more (5ish hours) and then they decided to cancel the flight. We weren't exactly starting out on a good foot. So instead of spending our first night in Tokyo we spent it in LA at In In Out and hot tub of the hotel. They rescheduled the flight for the next morning and we were off. But we hit more trouble when we landed in Tokyo. We found out when we landed that Tokyo had experienced a snow storm the day before that basically was a natural disaster. The city isn't equipped to handle mass amounts of snow because it doesn't usually stick. A 45 year record of snow fall was broken on the weekend we decided to fly in. EVERYTHING was shut down. Trains, freeways, airports, taxis. It was chaos. Mass amounts of people in the airport because people had to stay the night there. O and the line for taxi which coming maybe 1 taxi/hour was no joke probably a few days long. There were no taxis!!! I walked up to some people who were towards the middle to beginning of the line and asked how long they had been waiting in line for a taxi... 7 HOURS and it was 3:30PM! Can you imagine waiting outside for a taxi that long. I kick myself for not taking picture of the chaos. So my dad and I walked around trying to figure out another mode of transportation. Finally, I just went up to a guy who was picking up two other friends from the airport and had a bigger car (because everyone has tiny cars there) and asked him if he could give us a ride to Tokyo which was 35 miles from the airport. At first he was like no and then he said I can 2 of you and then he was like actually I can take all 4 of you! It was amazing and we were on our way again. SIX hours later... we are still in the car driving... to go 35 miles... The guy driving us didn't know the freeways had been closed... After a billion back roads and driving back and forth over the freeway hoping to be opened we made it to our hotel. This guy was nice and patient and did I say nice! Can you imagine that! Driving someone thinking it's only 35-40min of your day and then it's 6 hours! And he couldn't exactly drop us somewhere because there was nowhere to be dropped off! We felt pretty lucky that we had run into a nice guy willing to help us out and not getting irritated with the situation. 

Anyway, after that we walked down the street to Shibuya a huge downtown area similar to New York's Time Square. We ate dinner and walked around it was freezing cold. But it was fun to explore. 

The next day(Monday) we woke up early to take the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto. Thankfully they were opening the trains back up on Monday! This train is awesome and if you are worried about the language barrier when trying to travel around, there were enough people who spoke english that helped us out. Most of the people who worked at the station spoke english and we were able to make it through. We rode in the green car which is sorta like first class for a train. We wanted reserved seats and to have some room since we really wanted to see Mt. Fuji from the train on the way to Kyoto. When buying your ticket ask the ticket guy to reserve seats on the mountain side/volcano. 

Once we got to Kyoto we had arranged for a driver to pick us up and drive us around who also doubled as a tour guide!!! This was probably the best arrangement of the whole trip! It was SO nice to get off the train and have some waiting to take us instead of trying to figure what train or bus we had to take next. His name Takakazu and his information can be found HERE along with a link to his website. He was nice, professional  and filled with all the information you could want for a tour guide. It's hard to find someone who speaks english and shows you the cool things about each place and how to do them. 

 Our first stop: Fushimi Inari Shrine (Shintoism Shrine) this shrine is famous for it's bright orange torii gates. Yep, I saw pictures of these on Pinterest and have always wanted to go here! They have tons of torii gates and several trails to hike up the mountain side which is about 2 hours round trip. If you have time and the weather is good I would do this! Our guide showed us the proper way to pray at this shrine and if you want to participate in a few of them I would have some spare change on hand. This place runs purely on donations and every time you pray you throw some money in the bucket. I would be a millionaire if I got paid for every time I prayed!!!!!

Our second stop: Kiyomizudera Temple (Buddhist Temple) is one of Japan's most celebrated temples. It was and is currently under reconstruction though. It started snowing while we were here and it was magical! :) Our guide took us over to one of the buildings where you pay 100 yen to walk under the temple in complete darkness while holding onto a railing. It was so cool! You start by walking down the stairs into darkness and you walk for a mine and then you see this little light shining onto a small revolving rock at waist level and you can only see a little portion of it. You're supposed to make a wish and then touch the rock. You have to keep holding onto the rod ;) and keep walking until finally you see daylight again. I can't even tell you how many similarities there are between what I believe as a mormon and the Buddhism and Shintoism. Our guide explained to us that Buddhism and Shintoism are different but work together each covering different life events. They go to the temple and pray for a wish or enlightenment,  we go to our temple and pray for blessings or revelation. The words are different but mean the same thing. It was a neat experience and if it weren't for our guide we would have just walked around and not done/learned all these interesting things. At the entrance of this temple is a ton of shopping! Good shopping too. I would plan extra time here or at least go back to shop. Most temples/shrines close down between 5-6pm.

Last Stop with out guide: Kenninji Temple (Zen, sect of buddhism). This is not one of the main zen temples in the area but we were running out of time and I had read the reviews that this temple was surprisingly great. And it was. It was beautiful. The grounds were pretty and they have a painting of dragons on the ceiling it's crazy! I really enjoyed this zen temple.

Our last activity for the day was to go play dress up like a GEISHA!! If you are in Kyoto you HAVE to do this! It was so much fun for us! It is located on the shopping streets of the Kiyomizudera Temple. My dad walked around while we got all dolled up.

The place is called Maiko Henshin Studio SHIKI. Information found HERE. A few things about this place. 1. I highly recommend this place. It is clean and in a nice area. The women are so sweet except the lady that came out to tell us our time was up hah. How it works. You make your reservation online, pick which package you want and they will send you an e-mail confirmation back (check your spam bc mine kept going to spam). We wanted the whole entire dress-up but we wanted to take our own pictures. With this plan you get 10minutes outside behind the shop which is decent. We had my dad taking pictures and I wish I would have had some accessories like a fan or umbrella which I could have easily gotten at one of stores near by. I think if you do the studio shots or outdoor photographer that is included. You HAVE to buy toe socks (390yen) and optional is a full wig or half wig(more money). The full wig sounded more ideal to me at the time but you have this funky line on your forehead (see below) If you do the half wig you don't have that funky line and they incorporate your real hair into the wig and it looks natural. They also have an option for eyelashes if you have tiny lashes like me! As you can see they paint you, do your make-up and hair and they have a nice variety of dresses to choose from and nice ones to boot! After your time is done you head up to the wash room which they have everything you need to wash your face and neck off. They have blow dryers. Don't forget your make-up for after! The whole process from walking in the door to out is about 2 hours. It takes about 45ish minutes for them to prep you depending on how busy they are. They were also very flexible with us because we were running late for our appointment and we called to inform them and they were accommodating. 

So this place was really great. You can't go to Japan and not have this experience especially if your with other girls!

Japan (Kyoto) was my favorite place of our whole trip and I will definitely be going back there with Aaron because we did not have enough time. Plus I heard Hiroshima is beautiful and I would love to go there too. The Japanese people are probably the nicest group of people I have encountered while traveling. I can't wait to go back! Next post Hong Kong!