I have finally conquered jet lag! Those first four days were a lot tougher than I expected them to be, but I am sleeping through the night now and feeling much more rested when I wake up. For a few days, I was exhausted all the time and even shaky sometimes from needing good sleep. It's done for now and in a week and a half we will do it all over again when we return to the U.S.
We have been packing a lot in each day from helping with mom and dad's work at camp to visiting Tokyo and biking around Moroyama.
This is the town of Moroyama where my in-laws live. It's not a small town by any means, but everyone is packed in so tightly, you could see the whole place on top of the bridge going across the train tracks. Mom and Dad's house is about a 10 minute walk from the train tracks, a 2 minute walk from the nearest grocery store, and 15ish minutes from their church.
For some reason, I still don't have a picture of their house, but this one is a lot like it. See the road there? There are NO side walks. Pedestrians walk right on the line most of the time or slightly off to the side in the little area there. It's amazing more people aren't hit, but drivers tend to be very careful and are usually not in a rush. Still, when we biked, I was super nervous the whole time. Cars were passing us just a foot or two away!
This is the school where Daniel attended when he was in highschool. It was originally founded for missionary kids, but they have expanded a lot and it's more of an international school now. There are even English speaking Japanese kids who go here.
This is a Shinto shrine that we biked up to one afternoon. There was a rose garden next to it, but the roses weren't in bloom sadly. The shrine was interesting, but sobering as well. Shinto religion is very strong in Moroyama and even teens who say they are atheist often still come here to pray "just in case".
The Ueno Zoo in Tokyo was a lot of fun! It was only 600 yen a person to get in (about $6 each) and they had every animal I could think of. The pandas were an especially bit hit because the mama had just given birth to a cub.
This is the train station at Tokyo. It was huge inside and out. Most of the big stations have shops inside and this one had a 13 story mall that we explored a bit. Like I said, they can cram a lot into a small space!
The Imperial Palace! Okay, the outside of it anyway. We couldn't see the actual palace, but the older buildings in this picture were part of the original palace grounds and are still looking pretty good for being so old. The lake area is part of the moat that once surrounded the palace.
Our view of Tokyo from the Tokyo Metropolitan Building. It was free to go up for this pretty view. NYC may be big with tall buildings, but Tokyo goes on forever! And this was only the view from the north tower.
We stopped for supper in this little Ramen shop. It was a little more fishy tasting than I would have preferred, but it wasn't bad. I'm getting pretty good at using chopsticks now.
This is sort of the Times Square of Tokyo. The crosswalks are huge! And there's a Mickey D's . . .yum!
Getting ready to board the train for home. The whole system is so big and confusing that I always felt slightly lost, but they are adding a lot of English to their city in order to get ready for the 2020 Olympics. It would take me a while, but I could probably navigate the trains with my very limited Japanese and a lot of help from the English speaking people there.
We have been packing a lot in each day from helping with mom and dad's work at camp to visiting Tokyo and biking around Moroyama.
This is the town of Moroyama where my in-laws live. It's not a small town by any means, but everyone is packed in so tightly, you could see the whole place on top of the bridge going across the train tracks. Mom and Dad's house is about a 10 minute walk from the train tracks, a 2 minute walk from the nearest grocery store, and 15ish minutes from their church.
For some reason, I still don't have a picture of their house, but this one is a lot like it. See the road there? There are NO side walks. Pedestrians walk right on the line most of the time or slightly off to the side in the little area there. It's amazing more people aren't hit, but drivers tend to be very careful and are usually not in a rush. Still, when we biked, I was super nervous the whole time. Cars were passing us just a foot or two away!
This is a Shinto shrine that we biked up to one afternoon. There was a rose garden next to it, but the roses weren't in bloom sadly. The shrine was interesting, but sobering as well. Shinto religion is very strong in Moroyama and even teens who say they are atheist often still come here to pray "just in case".
The Ueno Zoo in Tokyo was a lot of fun! It was only 600 yen a person to get in (about $6 each) and they had every animal I could think of. The pandas were an especially bit hit because the mama had just given birth to a cub.
We took the train for a little over an hour into Tokyo. We had to switch trains a few times, and it all felt more like a subway system than a train system to me.
This is the train station at Tokyo. It was huge inside and out. Most of the big stations have shops inside and this one had a 13 story mall that we explored a bit. Like I said, they can cram a lot into a small space!
The Imperial Palace! Okay, the outside of it anyway. We couldn't see the actual palace, but the older buildings in this picture were part of the original palace grounds and are still looking pretty good for being so old. The lake area is part of the moat that once surrounded the palace.
Our view of Tokyo from the Tokyo Metropolitan Building. It was free to go up for this pretty view. NYC may be big with tall buildings, but Tokyo goes on forever! And this was only the view from the north tower.
We stopped for supper in this little Ramen shop. It was a little more fishy tasting than I would have preferred, but it wasn't bad. I'm getting pretty good at using chopsticks now.
This is sort of the Times Square of Tokyo. The crosswalks are huge! And there's a Mickey D's . . .yum!
Getting ready to board the train for home. The whole system is so big and confusing that I always felt slightly lost, but they are adding a lot of English to their city in order to get ready for the 2020 Olympics. It would take me a while, but I could probably navigate the trains with my very limited Japanese and a lot of help from the English speaking people there.
This coming Friday we are going up to a Bible Camp to spend the night and relax a bit. They have a Japanese onsen (hot springs) that is pretty popular and the whole place is run by a friend of the family. It will definitely be a new experience!
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