Japan

I made it back from Japan safe and sound and with lots of pictures. Not as many as I might've had, though.... Remember the nightmare about not having batteries for my camera? Well, I bought extra batteries just in case, and then left them here. Even worse, though- halfway through our trip I dropped my camera on the cement and now the lens won't open!! Arrgh! That was worse than my nightmare!! Thankfully, Tracy still had her camera, so our experiences didn't go unphotographed. I'm not going to go into a huge detailed account of our trip, but here are the highlights. We spent 2 days in Kyoto, 1 day in Himeji, and 1 day in Nara. It was immediately interesting to notice the differences and similarities between Japan and Korea. At first we were really excited to see how clean things are there and how much greenery they have. Later we got really tired of how expensive things are and how bland the food is. The Japanese also seem much more reserved than Koreans, and thus less fun. Of course, Ben will probably disagree with my take on Japan... ;) Both Tracy and I agreed that we would have enjoyed our trip much more if we hadn't already spent a year in Korea- there's so much that wasn't new to us anymore. Still it was a good trip- I'm glad we went. Here's a list of some of the "bests" from Japan... - Best Souvenir: Yukata (summer Kimono) - Best Restaurant Experience: Conveyor belt sushi -Best Tour: Himeji Castle with the coolest tour guide ever - Best Transportation: Bicycle (it was great through the pretty back streets of Kyoto) And again, be sure to check out my other pictures- there are many more details there. I've also updated the "May" folder with pictures from the end of last month.