Tokyo Temple!! :)

We were so so lucky to go to the temple with our little branch here. We took the trains there and back and really we had no clue where to go just followed our dear friends basically blindly, the trains are super confusing especially in Tokyo because there are so many. It took us about an hour and a half. We went to an English session, but for baptisms there were 5 people from our branch and then the rest were Japanese, only one of the workers spoke english and so it was very confusing to find everything. There really was such a strong spirit there and it amazes me all the time that the gospel is here too, just in a different language. ha ha
The temple was built in 1980 the same year as the seattle temple so the fixtures and overall architexture reminded us of the Seattle Temple. There was no space around the temple at all. It was the side walk and street right next to the gate walk 5 steps and you hit the temple doors. haha

Ramen Noodle

We asked around the ward and heard that this Ramen Restraunt was going to be the most authentic without being too discusting like sushi. Plus is was called Ramen and we absolutely could live off of these heaven sent noodles. The Japanese have good taste.

Our waiter spoke very good english too so it wasn't too confusing, although all we could do was point to the picture that we wanted and she tried to explain what was in it but we couldn't understand. In all the restraunts here they have pictures of everything and thats how you choose and hopefully its not tofu when you think its something else.

It looks so good, mmm I can't wait to go back to that fine establishment.

Bring on the Spicy!! mmm

Roller Slides Park! Oh Joy..

So by far one of our favorite parts of Japan has been the pictures they put on signs, This was a sign just inside the park.

Okay the park we went to we called it the Roller Slide Park Because it had a couple slides that were made of these rolling stick like things, yeah I'm not so good at describing it but it rolls and you just slide right over it, hopefully the pictures will help you understand better. The first part of the park has this really awesome play ground for kids it is like a big obstacle course. When we went on it all I could think of was how much much nieces and nephews would absolutely Loove this park.

No obstacle course is complete without a zip line thingy.

There were these little Japanese Boys all by themselves going on it behind us, so of course we took a picture.

Is this not the coolest bridge you have ever seen?? haha Thats what I thought. Let me just cross the rainbow bridge to get to the bouncy clouds of marshmallow!! It really just made us want some skittles. umm.
A mossy wall on our hike up to the slide.

Finally the Roller Slide!! It was raining earlier in the day so it was kinda wet, they had mats to sit on, and at the bottom there was a giant puddle.

Well we were so lucky on our way up we ran into a group of Japanesee people who were doing a service project for the park by planting Cherry Blossom trees. We got there after they planted them but when they were having a BBQ type thing and not I this did not include Hot Dogs and Hamburgers, oh I wish it did though. They were so kind and friendly to invite us to eat. One of the guys knew English really well and the others only knew phrases. They gave us soup, real Japanese soup, it had lots of squid and mushrooms and onions and seaweed and tofu and lots of goodies. Then they gave us the stuff from the grill which was Squid, Onions, Egg plant, Green Peppers and Sausage. Then they just watched us eat and they were all just staring at us. haha

This guy is the one that knew the english and he kept asking is it Delicious?? the guys behind him in the Blue and Red hat was a HOOT!! He came kinda close to Chelsea and mine's face and asked us "What are you called??" and he went up to chelsea and was like "You Beautiful." The Japanese men just would ask us "DO you Like??" Then all look at each other and laugh really loud. It was really a good experience. One of the guys was trying to explain that it was for service and he would take his shovel and pretend to shovel the cement while saying..." FOR FREE!" Then look at his friends and they would laugh. So now Old Japanese men are pretty much my favorite. I really thought that all of them were really grumpy because they usually look mad, but after today, I have defianlty changed my mind.

SUSHI....(vomit!)

So we decided a couple weeks ago to venture out and try some sushi. We went to the grocery store just down the street, picked it out and we were so so excited, we even video taped ourselves eating our first sushi. As you can see by the pictures we weren't trying to go to exotic, looked like cucumber, tofu, squid and some other stuff. Dad ate it in one bite, Mom couldn't finish it, Chelsea gagged the entire time but eventually got it down and Alisa ate it slowly one little bite at a time.



















Lets just say that we weren't too fond of our first experience and it might be a while till we try it again. We are going to stick to Japanese food that has been cooked all the way and is not wrapped in Seaweed. Like we discovered that Ramen Noodles are Japanese. We were oh so excited to hear that one of our favorite and fastest meals ever (TopRamen) was a Japanese Favorite!! We did find this super cute restraunt that is called Ramen here! But we were glad to know when we got here that the Japanese eat things other then sushi. :)

Shopping Town..Kamakura

We were able to experience some real Japanese shopping it wasn't a mall it was called Shopping Town they had alot of little stores as you walked down the road. I'm trying something new a video I think this is the lazy way to do this. There are pictures of the train ride, the train is not usually that empty.

In Japan if you are sick you wear these hospital mask things (I don't know what they are called) even out in public and nobody thinks anything of it, we sometimes think that it is more of a fashion statement because so many people wear them so we found some and decided to try it out. haha It ends up making your face really sweaty, but it makes taking pictures easy you don't have to worry about what your face really looks like.

One of the shops we went into was all these Japanese Characters including Totoro, Ponyo, umm and Kiki's Delivery Service it was pretty cool to recognize some of their characters.

Big Buddha....Big Buddha, Ohh Yeah

So on Friday we took a train to the City of Kamakura to see the great Big Buddha! It was really fascinating, It is the second largest Buddha statue in Japan and dates back all the way to 1252. It was hollow and we were able to go inside for 20 yen. The grounds were very peaceful and reverent. You could watch people go up to the Buddha and put a coin in the offering and then say a little prayer.

The locals all love to get their picture taken, they are so flattered when you ask them to take a picture with you and I love how no matter what they always do the peace sign. When I first was asking them to take a picture they thought I wanted them to move so I could take one but then they got really excited and did the peace sign thing and then got out their cameras to take a picture with me. Another thing I love is that we are all the same height even though I'm pretty sure I'm at least 5 years older then them. haha

They had a couple places where you could buy and then place and burn incense. I believe they use it to purify the grounds, and the smoke is said to have healing powers so if you have an injury you are supposed to fan the smoke towards your injury.

This is a purification fountain.

This is right before we went into the big buddha. The stairs were extremely narrow and steep.

Buddha's Slippers. haha