Sorry!!!

Shoot, why do I always do this!!! I get really busy with school and life that I don't have time to update my blog! Aw well, it's kind of late but, HAPPY NEW YEARS!!! We were in Tokyo (if you want it in Japanese it's: 東京) with our friends, the Becks, for Christmas Break. We have taken so many pictures that I'm going to have to make another post with just pictures on it. While we were in Tokyo we got to see so many cool things. Like we got to see the Emperor of Japan! He only comes out twice a year, on his birthday and on Jan. 2, and we were there. It was our first day in Tokyo, and we had just checked into our hotel and had taken a train downtown. When we got out of the station, we followed this huge crowd of Japanese people, and as we walked towards the castle we were handed a Japanese flag. When we finally got to the courtyard of the castle there were a couple hundred people, but by the time it got full there were thousands of people. When the Emperor came out with the rest of the royal family, the Japanese people and we (is that what you would write? The Japanese people and us or the Japanese people and we?) anyway,we all waved our flags and the Emperor spoke to the people (in Japanese of course) then we left and took another train to Askusa.

Asakusa is an area of Tokyo that has a bunch of shops. The street we went on had some really cool and cheap shops. While we were there I got two keychains, a ninja star and a dragon. Together they cost about about 800円. While we were on that street, we saw one of the weirdest things ever. It was like a human intersection. Two police officers would pull yellow tape across and one side would move and then after a while they would switch and the other side would move. We had just barely gotten across and they closed the tape so that the other side could go through. The next day we went and saw even more of Tokyo.

First off, we took a train and went to Shinjuku. The only thing we went to at Shinjuku was "Tokyo Hands." It's this huge 13 story department store that sells everything! If there's anything that you want you could go to Tokyo Hands. In fact, thats were my parents got a lot of our Christmas presents. While we were walking to the Tokyo Hands building we saw an hour long wait at a Krispy Kream Doughnuts! I know, it crazy! After Shinjuku we took a train to Harujuku.

Harujuku is kind of like Asakusa except that it is more narrow and it has trendy shops. While we were walking down the street the girls got excited because they found a Claires shop. When we got to the end of the street we took a turn and found this really good Turkish stand that sold doner kabobs. The were so good! At the end of that block we saw our first big American brand name store, GAP. The girls got extremely excited, but they couldn't buy anything because all the clothes were really expensive. For example, one GAP hooded sweatshirt cost about $128 and a winter coat cost about $300!! After Harujuku, we took one more train to Shibuya.

Shibuya is the worlds busiest intersection. In the middle of the day about 2,000 people cross at a time. All the lights turn red and then everybody walks across and then all the lights turn green and the cars drive through. Right across the street from Shibuya is the worlds busiest Starbucks. If you go up to the second floor you can get a seat and see all the people cross. It's really cool to watch. After that we came back and life went on and then just about two weeks ago we went to Okuma.

On our way there we made some detours. The first place we went was mikan picking. Mikans are pretty much Japanese oranges. They taste really sweet, but when you pick them they look kind of dirty. After that we went to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Nago. We took some really neat pictures of the cherry blossoms. After the cherry blossoms we went straight to Okuma which is a militray resort on the northern part of the island. It was ok. It was really cloudy, but I have heard that when it is sunny it's better. While we were there, Tanner got stung by a dead jellyfish and I smashed my toe when I tried to kick one of those floats that had washed up on the beach. We also took some pictures while we were there. On our way back we went to the pineapple park. The pineapple is a park dedicated to pineapples. You can take a tour of the park on a pineapple car and when you get off you enter and exhibit that has really awesome shells. As you continue walking you get to other parts of the pineapple park. Like the brewery where they brew pineapple wine. The last place you go to is just a bunch of samples. They have pickled pineapples, pineapple juice, pineapple cookies, pineapple gelatin, pineapple cake, pineapple candy, pineapple cheese, regular and dried pineapple chunks, Jessica also accidentally ate a piece of pineapple wine cake, but spat it out (don't talk to her about it though, she's a little sore about it), and other assorted fruit products. When we got back life has been the same until now. I will try to update the blog as best as I can.