Answers to questions from my class.

I love what you said. -Mia

Thank you Mia.

I really miss you in Japan. -Alexa

I miss you too.

Did you do any more fun things? -Chloe

Yes, I will be writing about them soon.

You had a lot of details to your blog. -Liam

Thanks for reading it Liam.

Did you write that all by yourself? -Ameli

Yes, but my daddy typed.

Do you have friends in Japan? - Cosimo

We have made some grown-up friends.

I hope you have a good flight back home. -Danielle

Thanks Danielle, for wishing us a nice flight home.

I want to know more about your trip. I might go there too to see what it is like. -Ava

I will write some more soon.

I like what you said and I like your pictures. -Kiara

Thanks for saying that.

I like the pictures and I want you to add more. -Sawyer

I have more to come Sawyer.

How long are you going to stay there? -Summer

We are flying back on Friday.

Kyoto

In Kyoto, we hiked through streets full of shops. Some of the shops gave away sweets. We saw fan shops, pottery shops, and chop stick shops. We stopped and ate Udon, which is a kind of noodle in soup.

We finally got up to the top of the hill and saw some amazing shrines. The temples and shrines we saw are like churches for one of Japan's major religions, Buddism. We saw people praying at several of these places. One interesting thing was they took off their shoes before going in and put on thongs.

At the shrines, many people would dress in traditional Japanese clothes, like Kimonos. I asked some of the girls if I could take a picture of them. They were very beautiful and nice.

Visitors to the temples collect water from the fountains in metal cups and drink it for health, and long life.

Kyoto is a very beautiful city.

Bullet Train

It took two hours on the bullet train, Shinkansen, to get to Kyoto. That's the same distance as to San Francisco. The train runs every 10 minutes and goes 180 miles per hour. It is super smooth.

I read, watched movies and looked at the scenery. First we passed Mt. Fuji, which is a volcano. Then we saw lots of small towns covered with snow. The whole thing was very cool.

Park and Bike

We went to Yoyogi park near a part of Tokyo called Shibuya. The park is the largest in Tokyo. We saw many people playing games and practicing dance moves!

One game that was very unique was one where a group of people in a circle would pass a small ball around by using a triangular front vest or bib to fling the ball around.

We rented a two seater bike and road around the park. It was so much fun, but I think my dad froze his hands.

It was fun to see that people in Japan were just like us, having fun on Saturday in the park.

Imperial Palace

After a breakfast of eel and french toast, we went to the Imperial Palace. It is like a big park. The Emperor lives there even though he does not have as much power as he used to. I hopped on big rocks that are separate from each other; it was fun. I then said "donne arigato gozaimasu" to a woman who gave me an origami spinner. She was very happy. I was too.

Subway

We go everywhere in Tokyo on the subway or on trains. The subway trains come very quickly and make it easy to get to where we are going. All the subway signs are in Japanese and English. It is a lot easier to get around if you can read the signs!

Tokyo Fish Market

We got up very early to go see the fish market. There were lots of people riding bicycles carrying fish. There was every kind of fish you could ever imagine. All the restaurants and shops in Tokyo buy their fish here. I had some Anago, Salt Water eel on a skewer for breakfast.

Hotel and Sleep

When I arrived in Japan, I noticed a lot of people speaking japanese and most signs were written in Japanese. We took a bus to the hotel, it took a long time, but we saw Tokyo tower which was lit up.

The hotel we are staying in is in the tallest building in Tokyo. We also get to use a lounge that has tasty food that we can eat.

We got cleaned up and tried to fall asleep. It was 9pm in Tokyo. It was hard to get to sleep because we were all excited and it was almost morning in the USA!

Flying to Japan

On thursday my family and I went to the airport. Wewent through the security line and got on board a Delta 747 airplane. It was very large, it even had 2 levels, and the pilot sat on the second level. The second level was very small. We were on the first level. We flew 12 hours.

On the airplane I slept for the last 2 hours. My Dad also fell asleep. My mom stayed up because she had work. Besides sleeping I watched movies on my ipod and ipad.