Sept. 22nd

Wow. Is it really the 22nd already? I've been back in America for almost a month now? Weird. The last few weeks have been pretty crazy. Braden and I have been living out of our suitcases for about a month as we've traveled around Japan visiting friends and then traveled around Washington and Idaho visiting family, and now we're finally back in Ellensburg. I finished unpacking the suitcases yesterday (Its so nice to have a closet and a dresser again), but we still have a lot of things still packed up in boxes and tubs (Mostly decor at this point. All the useful stuff is unpacked now). Seeing our families again was great. I got to see my grandparents, some aunts, uncles, and cousins I haven't seen for a long time, and I got to see all my wonderful siblings, my awesome parents and in-laws, and the adorable dogs and cats back home :). Unfortunately I caught a bad cold as soon as we got to Idaho, and Braden suffered from some severe jaw pain (he needs a root canal soon 0_o), but I enjoyed being around my family and miss them again already. I miss my friends back in Japan too. We had lots of fun and lots of great experiences, and I'm sure that someday we'll go back :). The trip home went pretty well. There was a big selection of movies to watch on the plane, so the ten hour trip went by pretty quickly. We arrived in LA and had to go through some very long lines and then hurry to catch our next flight to Seattle. I lost some luggage at the LA airport (the second time I've lost luggage in that airport...) but it was delivered to Braden's parents' house the next day. We arrived in Seattle and Braden's parents were there to meet us and help us with our luggage (well, except for the suitcase that was missing). Boy was I glad to put those suitcases in the car. The worst part about our travels was dragging those heavy suitcases around, especially getting them on and off the trains in Japan. But now they are unpacked and I don't have to worry about them anymore for a while. Well, now I guess I'll write about a few of my first impressions about being back. As soon as we got to Seattle I had to unpack my sweaters because I was suddenly cold! (It was still very warm in Japan when we left.) Soon after getting back to Idaho I had to start putting lotion on my hands every day because they were getting so cracked and dry. My hands were really pampered in the humid air of Japan. The first day back I kept bowing and saying "gomen" (Japanese for sorry) when I bumped into people at the airport. The food in the stores all looks so big (I can buy gallons of milk instead of just liters again, yay!), but I miss being able to buy cheap natto for Braden and flavor packets for Hayashi Rice. I guess that means we need to take a trip to the asian market Uwajimaya in Seattle soon. Now we're back in Ellensburg getting back into the swing of things. I guess since this blog is supposed to be about our adventures in Japan, there's not much left for me to write about here. I want to print it all in a book and keep it as a scrapbook of sorts of all our time in Japan. Thank you all who've been reading, I hope you enjoyed it. And now I have a diary of our life in Japan to look back on.

I love Japan :).

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!