July 10th and 11th

Last post for this trip! :0

July 10^th was a very, very long day. We started off cleaning up the apartment, and left to go to Ueno to find souvenirs. After that we went back to the apartment packed up all our stuff and left. We hopped from different train lines until we were running down the platform to find a non-reserved car on the Narita Airport Express. Yes, the airport train. We were finally taking the long flight back. At 6:45pm JST (Japan Standard Time) we took off. Despite trying to sleep on the plane, the day was not over. We woke up and landed in Dallas, Texas at 4:10pm CT (Central Time), seeming like we had time traveled. With a good chunk left in the day we set out to a little town for dinner, and came along really cool, giant wind chimes. 

*Ben in the left picture is around 5ft, to get the idea of the size of the chimes.

July 11^th, we woke up early, at 4:30am in order to get ourselves, prepared, fed, and to the airport on time to catch the flight back to New Jersey. The flight back here wasn’t bad, it was 3.5 hours, and we landed in NJ around 11. We were able to make our way back home, get lunch, and restock up with groceries, all before 2:00.

And thus my blog updates for this summer concludes. Bye!  

July 9

Today we took another train; actually we took many trains to get from Kyoto back to Tokyo. It was raining the entire time, but we decided to walk around in the rain anyways and do some last minute souvenir shopping, and grocery shopping. Also, we decided to play around on trains again. Trying to figure out stations, only to get off and go back the way we came, as well as getting stuck in a station and the only way to leave was to lie to the guy we got on the wrong train. Oh well. Tomorrow we board a plane to Dallas, for a stop over and start our journey home. Anyways, I didn’t really take any pictures, so no video, but I did take this cool one of my father’s umbrella, and edited a bit, so enjoy this random umbrella picture. 

July 8

Wow, so a lot happened today. My video does not include all of it, one reason of trying to keep them short (not like the two-parter from earlier), another because we weren’t allowed to take pictures in some places. We went to a temple with 3 parts, and then we climbed up a mountain. Today’s video includes, water, rocks, attempts of butterflies, temple pagodas, cats, mushrooms, and lots and lots of reddish orange shrine gates. 

July 7

Beach, fish, jellyfish, turtles, starfish, rocks, and more beach. Cool. Oh yeah, and rain, lots of rain. Please enjoy today’s video of the beach that has a very long name, Japan! J

July 6

 Temples, Trains, and Totally cool dancers. Please enjoy today's video of the many museums that we went to. However, the temple disallowed us to take pictures inside, so there is only views from the outside.

July 5

Brought to you today:

Track 0: going nowhere and going there fast.

An obsession of taking pictures of railroads and cats.

What bamboo…? Oh, that bamboo.  

 Please don’t get your pet snake stuck in the doors of the train, Thank you.  

and MONKEYS!! 

July 4th

Today we went to find my camera…Hooray! So now enjoy a video that includes a very interesting building we explored today.

(Lukas got the new camera)

July 3rd

Although I usually combine travel days with next day, today we walked around Kyoto after we arrived and I was able to take pictures. 

July 1st and 2nd

July 1^st, happy Canada day! We spent the entire day jumping from train to train getting from Hakone to Hiroshima. 

July 2^nd, we walked around Hiroshima today, the place where the first Atomic bomb was dropped in human history. It is surprising to know that within the span of 70 years, the city has been rebuilt, and only the peace memorial and museum allude to the city that was once there. 

June 29 and 30

On June 29^th we took a train to our new destination the entire day, and I didn't get any interesting pictures. We met our cousins at a hotel and went bowling. I got two strikes and got the most points out of the 5 of us bowling.

On June 30^th, we got done with sight seeing as history was made. “Mount Hakone in Japan's Kanagawa prefecture erupted…Mount Hakone last erupted 2,900 years ago.” (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/Mount-Hakone-erupts-in-Japan/articleshow/47875261.cms)

June 27 and 28

I accidentally forgot to replace my camera battery from the charger back into my camera, so on the 27^th, my camera was dead all day, and I was left with my phone’s poor quality camera to take pictures. So we went to Harajuku, and saw the Meiji Jingu shrine, and my cousin and I got lost in a Forever XXI.

Today, June 28^th I remembered my battery, and got lots of pictures of Kamakura.

Also...HOCKEY PLAYERS!

June 26

Today we decided to explore museums. What we were told was actually a pretty small museum about Tokyo’s history turned out to be way larger than we thought. Also, we continued to occupy ourselves for a while at the craft museum, (there are not a lot of pictures from here because we weren’t allowed to take pictures).  So today’s video is of our walk, and the Edo-Tokyo museum, Enjoy!

 

June 24 and 25

                Due to the entirety of June 24 being spent at DisneySea with my cousins, I did not have  a chance to take many photos. DisneySea was fun, my favorite was the Tower of Terror, it was different from the one in California. Also, the Indiana Jones ride was based off of The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the fourth movie, instead of The Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first movie, which the ride at DinseyLand California is based off of. Other cool rides that I went on that weren’t in California were: Journey to the Center of The Earth, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, Raging Spirits, Sindbad’s Storybook Voyage and StormRider. However, some of them were hard to understand what was going on because they were all in Japanese, and I kept having to have my cousin translate for me.

                And now for the video slideshow of the pictures of DisneySea, as well as, The Imperial Palace, Shibuya, Japan, and Shinjuku, Japan, including pictures of an incorrect grammar of a bathroom sign, and giant Forever XXI’s!  

June 23

Today we just walked around the city, looked at shops, went along the boardwalk, and rediscovered old friends: Orangina and Tamagotchis! I compiled a video of all the pictures I took throughout the day, like I said I would, so I hope you enjoy a recapture of our day! 

June 21-22

                On these combined two days, smushed together by the International Date Line, for 14 hours I was stuck on a plane. It wasn’t too bad; we got the bulkhead seats, with extra leg room, pull out TV’s, cheesecake, brownies, and kiwi juice! However, we were chasing the sun, and it was hard to get a decent sleep in upright, tiny chair and I was left exhausted. And I still am. 

Also, for the majority of the trip I will be posting video slideshows of the pictures I take with my camera throughout the day, so you viewers can experience my day almost like a first hand account.