Sept. 1st

Sorry for the delay in writing everyone. The last few weeks have been very busy with packing, moving, sightseeing, visiting friends, traveling, etc. I have lots of new pictures that I want to post on here and on facebook, and maybe I`ll put a few on here today, but the rest will have to wait until we get home and I have time to get files off the computer. For now, I`ll write a little bit about what we`ve been up to the last couple of weeks. During out last couple of weeks in Matsue we went on a few hikes in the area and visited some famous places. I visited a pretty shrine on a mountain overlooking Matsue with my Japanese teachers, then with Braden and Ed and our Japanese teachers we went on a hike in Oku Izumo and visited some tatara (Japanese iron forge) and katana making museums. The next day we met up with some friends and hiked up to a cool Buddhist temple called Nageiredo, built into the side of a cliff on a mountain. The hike was extremely steep and we spent most of the time climbing up rocks and tree roots, and near the top we got to ring a big temple bell. We moved out of our apartment on the 19th and stayed with our friend Ed in Izumo for the weekend. We visited Izumo Taisha Grand Shrine one last time, and we got the once in a life time opportunity to go inside the gate of the main temple and see the new roof. Every sixty years the bark roof has to be replaced with new bark, and during that time the inner temple area is open to tours to the public (Normally only the Shinto Priests are allowed inside the inner gate). On Monday we went back to Matsue to pick up our luggage (which we left with some friends) and then we went to the station to catch our bus. Some of the ward members and our friend Chieko came to bid us farewell. We were sad to leave our friends, but we were looking forward to visiting our friends in Kyoto and Tokyo. While in Kyoto we stayed at our friend Hiroko`s house. We visited two famous temples in Kyoto, Kiyomizudera and Kinkakuji. Braden finished his summer vacation homework (Yes, they have that in Japan :P), we hiked up to a pretty waterfall with Hiroko and her daughter Anju, and then we did Karaoke with Hiroko and her daughters on Saturday. We sang lots of Ghibli songs, it was awesome :D. On Sunday night we took a night bus to Tokyo. The ride was long and the seats weren`t that comfy, but we got to Tokyo in one piece. I was really worried that the trains would be super crowded since it was a Monday morning, but luckily for us, all the salary men were taking trains towards the center of Tokyo, and we took a train going out of Tokyo, so it wasn`t crowded at all. All that worry for nothing, haha :P. So we took a train to Chiba Ken and arrived at the house of Braden`s former missionary companion, Brother Watanabe, and his wife and two little daughters. On Tuesday Braden and I spent the day in Akihabara Electric Town (As the signs call it). It was really interesting, and there were computer stores, hobby shops, and arcades everywhere. We bought a few souvenirs (and I had to do some clever packing to get everything to fit in our already full suitcases 0_o), and then in the evening we met up with our friend Taisuke, who had done stayed with Braden`s family while going to college while Braden was in high school. He treated us to a great dinner of shabu shabu and then dessert at Denny`s (Japanese Denny`s is really different from the American version. It was all Japanese food. But they did have yummy cheesecake!). It was great to spend some time with Taisuke, he was super nice. The next day Braden and I went to the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka. It`s in a park surrounded by trees full of cicadas and the museum itself is in a big old fashioned style house with lots of rooms full of drawings, storyboards, demos about animation, a theater for watching short animated films, and lots of just interesting, random things to look at. After seeing all of the museum we took the train home. My feet were so sore from walking around and standing on trains for the last few days, I was so relieved to finally get back to Chiba Ken. That night we went with the Watanabes to the church English conversation class taught by the local missionaries. Their church building is the biggest LDS church I have ever seen! It was five stories tall (the first floor was a parking area). And the fifth floor apparently has a large gym in it. It was way bigger than our church in Matsue, which was two stories tall, but still fairly small. This morning was spent with last minute packing, trying to keep everything under 23 kilos, which was no easy task, but I think I got it ;). Well sorry this post has been so long. I`ll try to get some more pics up soon. Its hard to believe we`ll be back in the US tomorrow (But we`ll be crossing the international dateline, so even though we`re leaving on the 1st at 7pm, we`ll be arriving in Seattle on the 1st at 6:30pm. So we`re going to travel back in time XD. See you all soon!