Wednesday, August 6, 13:00
Published on August 5, 2008 by: callie
i am starting to love wordpress. in other news today is the anniversary of the hiroshima bombing. i have never been to hiroshima, and i don’t know if i’m going to go. perhaps unsurprisingly i was invited to many more anniversary events that are taking place in the USA than in japan. i might go a drumming peace circle tonight at one of my favorite restaurants in shibuya (yes, it’s a hippie thing). but i might not have any genkiness left in me by that time. this city life is tiring, especially when i’m on summer vacation. 
speaking of vacation let me fill you in on when josh’s sister danielle came to visit. we took her to some places in the tokyo area and also went down to kyoto with her, where we met up with one of her friends from seattle, robert, who was just delightful.
here is danielle at meiji shrine in harajuku, tokyo. it is one of my favorite little havens in the middle of the craziness that is harajuku.
we also took her to see the imperial palace in maranouchi. i loved all the tulips planted near the station; it reminded me of bellingham!
and i finally got a good photo of the palace! (probably because josh took it)
kyoto was really cool. josh and i stayed in a hostel in the gion area, and danielle and robert stayed across town in this cute place in a traditional shopping district. figuring out the bus transportation system (and getting stranded in the center of town twice after getting on the wrong “last bus of the night,” which, interestingly enough, had the same name as the right bus) proved to be our biggest source of frustration. however, by the end of the trip, we were almost confident in our bus riding skills and even started to dream of future routes we would take if josh and i ever had the opportunity to return. you just can’t see all of kyoto in three days. no way. anyway, the trip mostly consisted of temple sightseeing, consuming large quantities of beer, and gorging ourselves on pastries. it was wonderful. we were there just before hanami (cherry blossom time), unfortunately, but we did spot some blooms and also some beautiful flowering plum trees. some of the highlights of the trip for me were the random walks that josh and i would take while waiting to meet the other members of our party or waiting for the bus or whatever else you are forced to wait for when traveling. anyway, we found the coolest shrines and temples, the cutest parks, and the stores with the friendliest shopkeeprs during these random wanderings. we also found vending machines with some of the biggest cans of beer we had ever seen, which were sort of worth the entire trip themselves.
here is me with one of the said cans:
don’t worry, we found large beers in glasses too.
of course we also loved the planned outings to the beautiful temples and shrines.
this is inari shrine, one of my favorites:
we got lucky enough to see this beautiful lady at another shrine:
after we got back from kyoto, we took danielle on a day trip to kamakura (one of our favorite places) for hanami. we did the hike up enoshima again, which looked totally different than in january because of all the beautiful spring blooms.
we also spent some time picnicking under the cherry trees at the main temple.
anyway, i loved the opportunity to be a tourist here; it was so fun to travel with other people with whom we could put our heads together to figure out what the hell was going on when linguistic and/or cultural differences got in the way. what a lovely introduction to our first spring in japan!