Tokyo

We had a great trip to Tokyo!!!  It was so much fun.  We got to stay at The New Sanno (A military only resort type hotel) in a family room.  This is basically 2 hotel rooms connected together, so we had plenty of room.  We took the Bullet Train down there.  It's amazing how much more quickly you get there on this train. It cuts the time by more than half of what it would take to drive.  It took 3 hours and 36 minutes.  I've heard it takes 8 to drive. It took us about 11 hours to get back by bus from Yakota.

Here is Lincoln at the train station.  Our kids always get a lot of attention from the Japanese people.  Growing up in the states, with all of the diversity, it's nothing new to me.  Here we are kind of a novelty, since the majority of the population is Japanese.  

Here we are on the Bullet train.

Waiting for the train to come.

Bullet Train

                      This is in Harajuku.It is known for being the teeny bopper shopping area.

This guys was in this exact pose the entire time.  He's the door opener.  What a boring job. 

Trendy Japanese teens.

This picture doesn't do it justice, but it was very crowded down this entire street. 

After Harajuku, we took the metro to a walking tour in Kagurazaka.  The two atmosphere's were completely opposite.  Harajuku was crowded and bustling and energetic.  Kagurazaka was quiet and calm.  It had small winding cobblestone alleys and tiny restaurants that just fit a few people.  I was hoping to see some geisha here, but didn't.  It is a older, traditional Japanese area, rather than the modern trendy Japan that most of Tokyo is.

This is a cool playground that we found on the walk.

One of the Temples that was a highlight of the tour.

Cobblestone alley maze.

I had to take a picture of this little restaurant.  It was soooo old and quante and tiny.  It looks like everything in it has been the same for 100 years.  It had the handwritten chalk menu in the window. 

Another picture of the old restaurant I liked.

                       The LDS Temple, that was within walking distance of the Hotel that we stayed at.

Near the LDS Temple there is a garden with winding pathways and staircases and ponds and small water falls.  It was very zen.  We dropped off Christian at the Temple and the kids had fun exploring this place. It was very pretty. 

We couldn't decide if we wanted to go to Disneyland while we were there or not.  We are glad that we did, because it was the best day.  I thought our kids were too little, but they skipped naps and and kept wanting to stay, so we had a terrific day.  My main objective for this day was for Aisley to meet the princesses here, since she has been obsessed with them since a very young age.  I thought it would be fun for her to meet them in real life.  It turns out that all of the characters there were excited to see our kids, and spent an amazing amount of time and attention on them.  I realized this is because, even though they are swarmed by kids that are excited to see them, they can only talk to the ones that speak English.  Since they are all Americans, they seemed excited to see American kids.

Wendy and Peter Pan were the first ones we met.  We saw them right after our first ride "Peter Pan's Flight".  They looked at us with excited faces, like they recognized us.  

After Aisley held Cinderella's hand, they said that they had to go for Tea.  Aisley and I chased them down for a while before we could take a picture of them from the front.

The Swiss Family Robinson's Tree house.

The jungle Cruise was so cool.

This Japanese tour guide was cracking us up.  She was so animated.

This was called "Minnie, oh Minnie". The kids had fun watching this, while we gave our feet a rest.Whenever we brought up leaving, because the kids seemed tired, they said no and got a burst of energy.

I can't believe we made it all the way to the night parade.  Horray for us.  Aisley was yelling her head off at the character's from the floats, to get their attention.  It was hilarious, because their is no way they could hear us.  That didn't stop her from trying her hardest.

This is on our way to find the Government Building observatory.  I think we've seen these on U.S. stamps.

This is at the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office.  We opted to do this instead of the Tokyo Towers because it was free and read that it was just as good.  

         Most Japanese bathrooms only have 1 or 2 western style toilets, and the rest are squaty potties.

This Imperial Palace.  We just took pictures from the outside because we missed the memo that they are closed on Mondays.  I was a very dissapointed.

I was so dissapointed, that I made Christian give me a ride on the stroller for a while.  I love our sit and stand. It's a multipurpose wonder machine.

On our way to Odaiba, we crossed the Rainbow bridge.

We went up on the Giant Ferris Wheel.  It was very expensive, but fun for the kids.  I wish we would have saved the money for some of the other fun activities that they had at this huge multiplex.

Pink!!!!!!!!!!

After we did all of the stuff at the multi plex, we went in search of the small Statue of Liberty in Odaiba.  We didn't find it, but we found this fun beach area.  The kids loved playing in the sand. Lincoln is such a Ham.  He will say cheese and pose for any picture.

On our second day, Aden jumped into our hotel pool with his goggles not on quite right.  They ended up twisting and jamming into his eye, when he hit the water.  His eye was swollen shut for the next 2 days.  He was still a happy, smiling trooper.

On our first day there we went to Asakusa. It was a really cool area was a street with little souvnier shop vendors, and a Temple at the End.

They were waving this smoke into their faces.  I haven't seen this yet, so I'm not sure what the symbolism means. 

You see these at every Shinto Shrine.  The people tie their fortunes onto them. 

We were fortunate to be able to ride the bus that our ward rented for the youth that were in Tokyo for EFY, on the way home.  Free works for me.  Thanks for the lift!!  We took a shuttle from our Tokyo hotel to Yakota AB for the last night, so that we could ride on this bus.

Aomoria Nebuta Festival

This festival was a great display of the Japanese culture!  There were loud drums, human pulled floats, and music and dancing and chanting.  It was very high energy, and there were tons of people.  I couldn't believe how crowded it was, and how many people were in the parade, when they do the same parade every night for a week.  It was fun to see.