Abby's Visit!!

Abby just visited for a little over a week and a half- its been a bit busy. She visited school with me (junior high and elementary), we visited the Monkey Onsen (see above), Matsumoto Castle, the (human) onsen, and she tried skiing in the Japanese Alps (I've been informed it was fun), along with sampling all kinds of Japanese food.

Then we started the whirlwind tour: Kyoto, Osaka, and Himeji in 2 days (plus two driving days), and then another two days for Tokyo. Osaka was mind-boggling. We had such a hard time with the streets there- the subway system is a significant step up. Didn't spend a huge amount of time in town, as we were using it for a base to see the others.

Visited Himeji the first day there- it's considered the most beautiful castle in Japan, and I can understand why. It still towers over the buildings around it (which is pretty unusual), and it almost seems to glow. We spent most of the day exploring the grounds and climbing to the top of the castle itself (they make you take your shoes off when you go inside castles and temples, which I am still not a fan of), and trying out a delicious vegetarian restaurant.

Kyoto is surprising: we had this impression that it was a temple town, so it'd be a bit old-style. Couldn't be more wrong: it certainly has an abundance of temples (and a really cool castle), but it's also really modern. You get to this soaring, open skyscraper of a train station, and then find that you take buses around town, which tend to let you off just around the corner from the attraction. More than once I found myself wondering if we'd gotten off in the wrong spot. When you got to the temples they were worth the confusion: the Golden Pavilion, a castle with intentionally squeaking floorboards (so you can hear anyone who's coming to kill you), the largest wooden structure in the world... it was really cool.

Abby had already been to Tokyo, so we nixed the tourist spots (most of them, anyway) and just wandered around. Followed a friend's recommendation to Daikanyama (a slightly hippy-ish part of town), wandered in the Imperial Palace Park, explored skyscraping malls, had dinner with the Hamadas (Mom's friends).

Hopefully pictures will be up soon- Brian and Abby both have some (I'm lazy, so I don't).