Its a big week..

Hi y'all!
Yep, its a big week this week. Guess who's birthday it is tomorrow {questioning look}?..... Not to blow my own horn or anything, but.... MINE! And it's a big one. 3-0. OMG. Today is my last day in my 20's! {sobbing!} LOL! Nah, it'll be ok. Really, it will. It will, wont it?
Do you want a quick recap of some moments of my 20s?
Here goes!
I graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Science (Microbiology). And started work in Pathology where I met Willy.I went to Disneyland 3 times and Disneyworld once!I went on this ridiculous Rollercoaster at Knott's Berry Farm, 3 times. I LOVE adrenaline!
I went to NZ and did the Canyon Swing and Paragliding off the top of Bob's Peak in Queenstown. (yes, those pics are me!)
I went to Hawaii twice, once with just Willy and once with Mum, Dad, Alicia, Xander, my Godparents and Willy!I visited Japan (loved it!)
Will and I got engaged on the top of Mt Fuji in Japan!
Then we got married :)And honeymooned in America. We went to LA, Vegas (been there 3 times), NY (been twice), Washington DC, Grand Canyon (been twice) and Disneyland (of course!)
Then I fell pregnant. Look at that tummy (and fat face!) When we were married I was 28 and I never thought that I'd have a baby by 30!I gave birth to the gorgeous little man, Jaimeson! A very uncomplicated labour and birth, just gas, no epidural. Hooray!
Wow! I guess I did do a lot in my 20s! I am so grateful for a supportive, loving husband and gorgeous son, my fantastic loving and caring family and my humourous and fun friends! I am very blessed! I guess turning 30 wont be so bad after all, if it's even a part as much fun as my 20s were, then it will be alright!
:) C

Diggin' out some old pics...

I haven't printed pics for Scrappin in about 6 weeks, what the?!! How could this have happened? This means I'm working through the pile of pics I have stashed all around my scrap space. But actually this is a good thing as the pile of photo envelopes keeps sliding off my desk and all over the floor cos it's too high! I guess it's time to use some up then!
So rewind 18 months and I've done some pages of Japan (incidentally it was the first photo envelope I reached for and felt inspired- Hooray! Thanks Mr Mojo!) And it's also good cos I have some scrappin supplies that are particularly asian inspired and I was keeping them for pages of Japan, but hadn't gotten around to doing Japan pages for ages. So yay, they are out of my stash now! Do you like Will's outfit? He was trying on the Complementary Traditional Gown and slippers in our hotel in Tokyo.. though he didn't quite get the placement of the belt right! Hahahah, my own Ninja. Or Mr Miagi!
Then I dug out this old PP, which was helpfully located at the front of my paper keeper these days with all the other "I can't believe you still have that paper" papers and I had a pile of pics from the Ginkaku Pavilion (spelt it wrong on the LO- honestly I really think it should have 2 "L's") in Kyoto. Now this was a truly beautiful serene place, I loved the raked sand garden, the traditional ponds with little bridges and the amazing walk through the mini forest. There was no grass but an amazing moss lawn, we even saw an old man sweeping the leaves off the moss lawn so there was not one hanging around, out of place, on the ground. Amazing! Such a beautiful beautiful place. I'd love to go back to Japan! {sigh- day dreaming out the window}. I had fun going to town punching out all the butterflies from my Japanese book paper! Hehehe, fun!
Happy day-after-the-long-weekend! Another good reason to work nights- my working week still wont start til this arvo. Yay!
:) C

Remember we went to Japan?!

Boy does that seem like a long time ago now!!

Well, I did this page only recently and had fun using up all the clothing stubs that have been sitting on my bedside table for months, begging to be used on a LO! I kept them cos they were so everyday and yet they looked awesome cos they are all in Japanese with the little Yen "Bunny!" I wanted to scrap something "different" yet "everyday" about Japan to use them on and so I chose what we enjoyed drinking in Japan. As I may have said before (a lot) Japan is FULL of vending machines and you could always vend something interesting! For me it is more of a challenge- finding Diet drinks to vend made me cheer {hooray!} especially when it was Diet Lemon Fanta! I was a little bummed they didn't make Diet Grape Fanta, but I had a little snifter of Will's and I think the sugar almost solidified on my nose! Will's fave drink ended up being "Afternoon Tea".. which to me just tasted like you'd left your cup of hot tea on the bench to cool down for a second then remembered it about 4hrs later. I chose Pepsi Nex Zero which was like Pepsi Max here. NOt like the Pepsi Max in Hawaii which had Guarana in it, which I only discovered after drinking it one night then trying to work out why I was so wide awake! My other fave drink was Van Houton Cocoa which is chocky Milk and man was it good. I have been dreaming about that Choc milk for months and then the other day when I was at Rhodes (co-incidently the same day I had my car accident) I found Van Houton Cocoa Powder to buy! Man Was I happy. So pretty much it had been the happiest day (finding VH Cocoa) and the unhappiest (having a car accident) in one! Sigh {shaking head}.

Well seeing as it is 2:35am (damn it, late night AGAIN!) I'd better get off to bed.

:) C

McJapan and other delicacies..

So, I have printed out some pics of Sienna to scrap, but I've been madly showing them around at work like the baby-struck crazed Auntie I am! But with such a cute Bubba to show off, why not! It does mean though, that I don't have them at home to scrap, so you'll have to make do with some Japan pages to tie you over :)

Do you always check out McDonald when you're overseas too? You know they have way different stuff to the Maccas here in Australia right? Not all Maccas are the same! Alicia told me they even have Milo served at Maccas in Malaysia (or was it Thailand? She gets around too much!) I remember when I was in Germany {11}!!! years ago they had a McRib, and I thought that was totally cool, and who can ever forget the McGriddle for breakfast in America (like a Bacon and Egg McMuffin served on 2 maple pancakes instead of English Muffins!). Well, we quickly made the trip past Maccas and ended up eating it on quite a few occasions, mainly when I was sick of Asian food (sad, but true. I'm not used to Asian for breakfast, lunch and dinner!!) To my surprise they had the McGriddle on the menu (ate one!), but we did also enjoy the Teri Yaki burger and the McJuicy chicken with Akatogarashi sauce. I dunno what that was but it was spicy! Oh yeah, they had a McPork too {chuckles}, no hiding what that was!

Then my most favourite-est food ever in Japan was Gyoza!! They are the most delicious pork and veg dumplings that are pinched into a shell shape and fried on one side. We had them whenever we saw them on the menu and I could have eaten them forever and still been happy! They were awesome!! You usually sauces to dip them in like vinegar, something like Hoi Sin or chilli and they were mighty fine! Probably the best ones were ones we had on the last night there, I don't think it was just cos we knew it was out last plate and we had to cherish them!! They were super home made, a little falling apart, char grilled and perfect. LOVE GYOZA!!

:) C

P.S. Just another sweet little pic for you too!!

xoxo

Some more Jap Scrap..

Happy Saturday!! Yeah, I made the most of it.. getting up early, 2 loads of washing then heading off to Golf Mart to get Dad a Father's Day pres. I walked into what, at first, seemed like a tiny shop but once inside I realised it stretched way out the back and there was a whole new world of man-ish toys I had never imagined! I must have had the same look on my face that Men always had when they walked into the Scrapbooking shop I worked at years ago, cos the worker came straight up to me, I had a quick description of what I wanted, he found it for me and I bought it, all in the matter of about 3 mins. Rather quick and painless!! Just how it should be :) It had taken me longer to drive along the previous block of Parramatta Road than it took me in Golf Mart!! I rewarded my good work with a Sticky Date Cupcake from Cupcakes on Pitt at Parra :) A new flavour for me, and I have to say it was delicious!

So I've done some more pages from Japan lately... the first is of the totally AMAZING shoes that were everywhere in Tokyo. We both got a new pair, Will out of necessity cos for some reason he had brought 2 pairs of uncomfy shoes with him, and me cos they were TOO COOL to pass up! YOu may have seen them in previous Japan LO's? Mine are awesome Pink and Yellow Nikes, my first ever pair of Nikes! Is it sad that I got to 27 before owning a pair? Uh... maybe!! But now I have them, I love them!! I had an aweful time trying to find a shoe big enough to fit my giant white-girl hoofer, at first I tried every Vans they had in the shop cos I love Vans, but none were big enough! Then when I spied the coolness that was the Nikes and they had them in my size I did a happy dance! The OLD on this page is the 3 BG papers (yonkers old!), the pink and green fozz felt flowers, the slide shape, date spot and the purple felt flowers. I love those 3 AC Thickers fonts together, they look so cool!!

Then on a totally different side of the (colour) coin I did this page about some cute food in Shibuya. Will and I had these weird Bean paste (or something like it) balls left over from one of our meals and Will drew a face on his, so I drew a face on mine, only it went a little wonky like a moustache. Then he put the Mushroom on the head and I found the Chilli and adorned his eye, then we put capsicum and some cabbage on the other one... and they turned into "The Lady and the Pirate". How cute are they?!!! Oh we were laughing and laughing so much {chuckling}. The OLD on this page is the Chatterbox daisy BG paper (forever old!), the tag, unique rub-on, stitching rub-on lace stickers, red swirl and letter rub ons. I love this page cos I laugh when I think about that pic!!

:) C

Jap Scrap!

Hurrah, I'm getting on with my Japanese Scrapping!!

I'm loving using bright colours to match with the brightness of my Tokyo pics (Kyoto pics are

much more historic and subdued!) Something Japan is full of (and you probably already have

worked this out!) is vending machines! They are on EVERY street, including in residential zones! It's like you never have to go to the shop, just step out your door and vend yourself a coke and go back in to watch TV. Amazing! On Mt Kachi Kachi there was even a hot food vending machine (I was perplexed as to whether the food sits inside cooking forever- hello Clostridium!- or if it's snap cooked when you vend?! We never found out cos I wasn't brave enough to try it!) The machines were so handy cos we walked so much and were always parched! The toy vending machines were fun too, they dispensed toys in big capsule balls or they even dispensed character stationary! The OLD on this page is the number lace cardstock, the orange lettering stickers, PP and the arrow rub on :)

Then I cracked out another Japanese Scrap page, woo hoo! Man I am killing that AC arrow paper, I've used it on at least 3 Japanese LO's now! This is one of Will's impromptu pics of me on the street in Akihabara. Last time I was in the US I spent all the time behind the camera and hardly got in any pics at all, there is only 1 or 2 of me in NY and they're not that scrapworthy! That's why this pic means so much to me, cos here I am, in front of those cool Jap signs, the only non-asian on the street, with a big bag of shopping and my vended coke zero, in the middle of Tokyo. I am really there!! Now, if only I can teach Will how to not cut my feet off in the pic too :) How do you like the new Kaisercraft Loire Valley range (the bird die cut circle at bottom left)? I think it suits Japanese pages quite well! The OLD on this page is the black textured paper, the rub ons and all those Alphabet rub ons! Yay to be using them up again!

:) C

Yay for Saturday!

Anyone want to go out for breakfast with me? I feel like pancakes, actually I always feel like pancakes, so any old excuse would do. Meet you at The Little Rock Cafe in 40 mins!! They serve breakfast til midday... gotta love that! I just tried to make a new recipe for pancakes that has oats, cinnamon and applesauce in it... lets just say I now have a soggy mess on my plate that I just can't eat. It didn't work out at all!! Hmm... not sure why I keep having cooking failures lately. I'll blame the stove. Stupid stove.

Ok, so here are some pages I've finished lately!

Check out Will contorting himself to sleep on the bus between Mt Fuji and Missima! Who knows how he could have slept like that?! I wanted the papers to be bright and neon-y against a black background, which reminds me so much of Tokyo at night!! The OLD on this page are the MM "Are we there yet?" rub-on, the felt flower and black dots and the purple PP. Not really a lot of old stuff, but the papers were already really busy so I didn't want to pack out the page. Can you see the 4 little Japanese character stamps down the left side of the pic on the blue spotty paper. How cute are they?!! I have to say, the signs paper is one of my faves too, you know I love graphic images. And the journal spot is by Yvette, of course!

And then here's Will and I enjoying a new Nick's Diner that just opened at Macquarie Centre, it was awesome! There aren't many restuarants at Mac Centre so it sucked if you wanted to eat and see a movie cos you'd end up eating Maccas! But Nick's makes awesome burgers and the restuarant has always been packed out when we pass it, and you can see why! Mine was a NY burger with bacon, cheese, herb aioli and a delicious juicy beef patty that tasted like real beef! Will had a double stack of 2 patties with bacon, cheese, herb aioli and can you believe it.... he couldn't finish it!! That is about the first meal I have ever seen Will not finish! Amazing! The OLD on this page are the Live it Up rub-on, fozz felt, disco ball lace paper, the white circle and flower at the top and the bracket which I pressed roughly into my SU Real Red stamping pad and it turned out great!

Happy Saturday!!

:) C

Where have I been?

"Where have You been?" I hear you ask... I've been right here... bashing away at the keyboard cos my internet connection is TOTAL CRAP!! Anytime a tiny little breeze (e.g. the flutter of a butterfly's wings) comes around, my wireless connection takes a holiday. And that's how it's been all week!! ARGH!! Yes, it has been massively annoying!!

So... quick to it:


Here's my Fiance (awesome pic.... not!!) taking a swig of a very interesting drink in Japan. This thirst quencher was called "Sweat". Yep, like the stuff that oozes out of every pore during the City to Surf (3 weeks to go and haven't trained for 2 weeks cos I've been sick... ouch!!) He said it was salty, like Powerade, but grosser! We had seen it in a few vending machines (on every street corner actually!) and curiosity finally won over Willy! I love the face he's pulling in this pic.. it's one of the many interesting faces of Willy :) See the Japanese book paper at the top? I bought the book in the Jimbocho district in Tokyo especially to pull apart and use on pages! It cost me Y100. hehehe, bargain. I love it! Now I've lost it. Damn! It's somewhere around my scrap stash.. hmmm... wish I could find it!

The OLD on this page is the red disco ball lace paper, the background PP (one of my first graphic papers ever bought! HOnestly, over 5years old!!)

AND THEN I HAD KEPT ON TYPING AND LOST IT ALL COS MY INTERNET IS A WANKER!!

.... I was saying- the journal spot and rub ons are also old, yay to me (said with less enthusiasm after having typed it all out before).
Hope you finally get to read this (and Unwired can buy me a pony.)
:)C

Pages from Ages... ago.

Ah.. the sweet smell of a Craisin/Coconut slice while I blog, there is nothing to warm the cockles of my heart more than that. Except if Will was snoozing on the lounge behind me too, I love to see him napping, his innocent sleeping face is so cute! Anywho...

Some more pages from my binge back in early June. I was so inspired after our trip to Japan, and very excited to scrap our Engagement! I just love the pic in this first one, it's so special to me! That is the exact spot where Will got down on one knee and asked me to Marry him {sigh at the beautiful memory}. I also love the Toilet People rub on on the right side. They are part of my love of Graphic Images. I thought the bright colours of the papers really complemented the brightness of our clothes. The OLD on this page is the pink heart lace cardstock bottom right and the red and pink stickers and circle die cut at top right. I'm zooming through some old stuff with this page! The NEW is the Scallop printed deco tape I got at Tokyu Hands in Japan {heart that store!}

And for the second page I pulled out the awesome Artisan shape from a die-cut sheet and then found a piece of fully patterned paper I thought wouldn't go with it, threw them together and stuck them down with the pic before I could change my mind. And I quite like it! I LOVE the hand pointing at my ring!! Hahaha, I jumped for joy when I found it among my collection! The OLD on this page is the journal spot and the True Love MM rub-on (old,old,old,old,old!) I love the simplicity of the page with the busy-ness of the paper! And those lettering stickers are so beautiful (although a bit hard to see here).

I met with Cathy Crawley tonight, who is our prospective Wedding Photographer. Wow, she is such a lovely lady and her albums are so beautiful! I would love her to photograph our wedding :) She is at the top of our Photography budget, but after seeing her work, and knowing it will be the part of our Wedding that will be enjoyed for years to come, I know it's worth it. Better go email her now to book the date for us. I wanted to confirm with Will it was ok, and of course he just said "Yeah, if you like it, do it! You want money?!" Lol. How much you got? {wink}

:) C

Japan re-cap day 8

Day 8

This morning we set out to explore as many temples and traditional buildings as we could fit into one day in Kyoto!!

We started out the day at Nijo Castle, which was home to the Shogun in Kyoto. I especially wanted to go here cos the inner Castle has something intruiging called "Nightingale Floors". What on earth could this be?! Well, the enclosed verandah around the "Castle" (a one-storey wooden building with sliding paper screens and handpainted murals from over 400 years ago!) has really wide floorboards that are purposefully made to squeek when they are trodden on to alert the guards that there is an intruder. Apparently the Squeek is supposed to sound like Nightingales singing!! How cool is that! We found out Will made them Squeek more like Crows than Nightingale's and that I totally could have been a Ninja cos for some reason I could not get those floors to sing!! All the way around the Castle I was bumping up and down and putting pressure on the slats, but no singing. See Mum, thats what all your years of training me to walk lightly past the China Cabinet have done!! Only once, right at the end, I found a floorboard that would sing for me!! There... if I ever need to change careers, I should be a Ninja {giggles}.

We took the train from Nijo Station to Kyoto Station and walked 15mins to the local markets at Toji Temple. Did you know markets pretty much look the same, all over the world? A little bit ratty with stalls squeezed into really odd places where you can easily get lost and can never find a loo or the way out. It's really only the stuff on the tables that looks different. These markets had dried seeds/berries/fruits by the kg, vintage Kimono pieces, dried flowers, pottery, Japanese slippers, real live Koi, dried fish, Octopus balls, Red Bean Fish Shaped Pastries etc. I only bought stuff at one stall and it was a lady who had Kawaii fabric covered buttons and the cutest tiny little Handmade bears- these little babies are only about 3cm! How do they make them so small?! It's those tiny Asian hands of theirs. I also got 2 cute little homemade drawstring bags made from Babushka fabric {heart}.

Next it was onto bus #100 from Kyoto station to Ginkakuji Temple.. this temple was so idylic and beautiful, serene and peaceful and set amongst some small but lovely gardens with a sweet little walk into the hill behind it. The Temple itself is really small and was undergoing renovation (the whole bottom floor is gone!) but in the typical Japanese way they are so apologetic about it, and even the lady at the info desk back at Kyoto Station said "It is undergoing repair, that ok with you?" like there was some chance we would say.. "Actually no, I'd like you to put it back in one piece by the time we get there!" Love those curtious Japanese!! Ginkakuji Temple was the only place we saw a "raked garden" that the Japanese are famous for, and it totally did not disappoint! It was so beautiful. Just out of shot is a big sand mound that represents Mt Fuji (our engagement mountain!) pretty cool! We took the walk up into the hill behind and were amazed at how neat and clean the garden was. In fact they didn't even have grass, the whole garden was growing from a bed of moss! And then we worked out how come there aren't even any stray leaves hanging around on the Moss, even though there are plenty of big trees around. Yep, they have men who hang around and sweep the moss of all the loose leaves. I KID YOU NOT!! He is really sweeping the leaves. They must have pretty low unemployment in Japan!

After a relaxing stroll through the temple grounds we began our 3.5km walk along the Philosopher's Path toward Kyoto CBD (a walk that would eventually end with me begging to catch the bus and having the monster of all monster blisters on the top of my foot (*the top?!, yes, from the fold of my Joggers when you take a step!*) and Will forcably making me walk the whole way. 3.5km doesn't sound like much but I was hungry and we had already walked about 3km already that day! The path is covered in Cherry Blossoms during March and April, so we had only just missed them, and one lonesome one couldn't even hold onto just a couple of blossoms for me to take a pic with! Argh! {frustration}! I think Will really loved the path walk cos of the GIANT Koi that were in the creek! See the massive orange one in the bottom right corner of the pic!! They had to be about 60cm or longer! He was like "I wish I had my fishing rod!"... although it wouldn't have been that much of a challenge seeing as they were swimming in about 30cm of water! We wandered past beautiful buildings, past shrines and temples and ended up at Nanzenji Temple which was a slightly smaller temple than the massive one we saw on our first day in Kyoto (remember- "It is closed in the visit time?!") but equally as impressive! The sheer scale of these temples is amazing!

Back on the bus (hurrah!!) and off to Kiyomizu Temple which is in the neighbourhood near where we were staying. Kiyomizu is one of the most famous Temples in Kyoto and it commands an awesome view across a valled to Kyoto Station. There is a collection of buildings that make up the Temple grounds and the giant red Pagoda is an impressive entranceway to the Temple! I really loved the Kiyomizu Temple, with it's famous wooden scaffolding and the luscious greenery that grows around it, no sign of drought in Kyoto! I love being able to get a pic that is exactly the same as what is in travel mags and the pic of Kiyomizu with Will and I is just that! Oh so pretty! I could just imagine what it must have been like to live in this place hundreds of years ago when it was built, and how beautiful it would have been to look across Kyoto on a clear sunny day!

Oh, I have so many more pics I could show you, there are just too many and you'd spend hours reading it all! See, I know you've got places to go too, don't just sit here reading, get out and enjoy yourself!!

:)C

Japan Re-cap day 7

Awe... I'm blogging and watching Bambi II on TV! Could there be any more relaxing way to spend Saturday morning? I love Woodland animals (have you noticed my Owl fascination?) so you know i will be loving all the beautiful creatures in Bambi!! So cute!

Day 7

Today we followed our tradition of visiting WWII historical landmarks while on holidays (e.g. Pearl Harbour in Hawaii) by taking the Bullet Train from Kyoto to Hiroshima for the day! In exactly 2 hours, we travelled 381km with 6 stops... now that's one fast train! The Hikari Rail Star we took on our return journey was even faster... I wish we had those trains here! I'm sure more people would leave their cars at home for the holidays if we had these super trains instead of the pathetic XPT! We had one of our only mis-haps with Japanese Public Transport on this morning. We left our hostel early to get to Kyoto for this train, we got on a local connection, only to see our station whizz past cos we had accidently gotten on an express! NOOOOO!!! We quickly got off at the next station it stopped at (6 stations past ours!!) and changed back to the other direction and crossed all fingers and toes that we could make it to our connecting local train and then to the Bullet Train platform within 25mins! Could you imagine getting on at Thornleigh, seeing Epping Whizz past and changing at Strathfield to go back to Epping to change to a train to Macquarie Park, hoping to get there all within 25 mins? That was us!! It would never work on CityRail... but we made it on Japan Rail!! Champions! We ran from the train, asked the guard for the Shinkansen platform and ran there with 4 minutes to spare. I could not believe we had made it!! If we didn't make it, there was only all-stops trains after ours which would have taken forever!

Will and I had a little fun showing just how fast those trains do travel {wink}!! We were in such a funny mood this morning! It must have been engagement euphoria! They don't have any G-force at all, even though they speed up to top speed in a short time, much to Will's disappointment! I think he actually did want to get thrown back in his seat!!

When we arrived at Hiroshima Station we changed to the street car and headed off to the A-Bomb Dome and Memorial Park. Seeing as we had a nail-biting run to the train we hadn't had breakfast so got a selection of sandwiches from 7/11 and ate them sitting with a serene view of the park and the A-Bomb Dome. This building was a Government building that just happened to be located right next to the Bridge that was the target of the Atomic Bomb. When the bomb was dropped the building was right at the Hypercentre which meant the blast came straight down and left the walls standing! The inside was completely incinerated instantly by the blast but this is exactly how the walls were left over 60yrs ago. An amazing and sobering site. We wandered past the Children's Memorial where there was a group of School Children singing to the Memorial!, through the Memorial Park and the monument and then had a look through the Memorial Museum. It was a fabulous Museum and only cost 50Y to get in (see, cheap! I love the Japanese!), they had heaps of really interesting artifacts that were retrieved from the bomb site, like melted bottles and needle books and tea sets, clothes and even a section of building where you could see where the Atomic "Flash" had blasted a reverse-shadow into the stone of the building. Amazing. It's hard to think that this whole city was completely gone 60years ago. And that they still talk to Americans! Now that's forgiveness. (I bet that just lost me any American readers! Hey- the Japs bombed Darwin too you know, we didn't get over there with any obliterating substances!) The Japanese are very passionate about the world-wide destruction of Nuclear weapons, and I commend them! It would be so easy for them to build up a massive arsonal and think "well, they did it to us, so we'll do it to them" but instead they just want everyone to get rid of them. And who better to say that than a country that experienced it first hand {getting self down off soap box.}

fter the memorials we walked across town to Hiroshima Castle. It is a MASSIVE traditional castle, wooden and about 6 stories, it has beautiful outbuildings too. It looks authentic, but of course the original was blown to smitherines in the Bomb, so the replica was built in 1956. I read that there was some discussion about whether they should bother to re-build it, but I'm glad they did cos it is beautiful. The main castle building is just so massive when you stand in front of it- look how little I am in the pic!! We didn't go in cos we didn't really have time (and it wasn't authentically old anyway) so we just had an icecream at the kiosk and took some pics in front of it :)

Back on the Bullet Train to Kyoto in the early afternoon and we decided to go to the Inari Shrine which you may have heard about or seen in pics, they're pretty famous. It is the hill where there are thousands of bright orange Inari gates that snake their way up the hills to the east of Kyoto station. We took the train to Inari and then wondered how we were going to find the gates, but as soon as you get out of the station there is a big Orange gate, so you know you're heading in the right direction!! Just follow the trail of gates and you'll reach the main shrine where the real trails begin. The gates vary in size between the sections, from massively tall and spaced apart to only about 6 1/2 feet tall but so close together that you couldn't squeeze between them! They are engraved with Japanese Characters and cos they are based on Chinese we searched around until we found the characters that make up Will's name! I was pretty proud of myself cos I found the Lam one before Will did! We only got through about 1/2 the gates- we were looking at the map when an Irish couple said to us "just when you think you've reached the end, there's even more up the hill!" well, that decided it for us. I was a bit bored of big orange gates by then too {shameful!} They are beautiful, but honestly, there's only so many of the same gate that you can see before you get bored!! Don't blame me!! Lol, Will looks so funny with his Swine Flu mask on! I love that you can still see his eyes smiling behind that mask!

We found a great restaurant area at the top of the Hankyu Department store so went back there for dinner. Happy me, they had Gyoza!! It's cheap too, a bowl of pork noodle soup and gyoza for about $10AUD. :) Whoever said food is expensive in Japan obviously hasn't eaten in Sydney!! Ooohh... I want some Gyoza now! Luckily there is 2 Japanese takeaways at Macquarie Centre and I planned on going there today! I wonder if I could rustle some up {licking lips}!!

:) C

Japan re-cap day 6

My first day as the future Mrs Lam!! Heheheheh.....

We woke up to another beautiful clear day at Mt Fuji, we must be super-blessed to see it clear on 2 straight days! We had entered the region from the north west and today we left via the south east heading to Mishima and could see Fuji for hours and hours!! I kept saying to Will "...ah... I think it's following us" cos we took the bus for 2 hours and it never got out of view! We must have totally circumnavigated it!

At Mishima we took our first Bullet Train bound for Kyoto, man those things FLY!! And it totally doesn't feel like you are going fast at all. There is no jerking or shunting, its so smooth and easy, I love Japan!

We dumped our stuff at the Kyoto Bakpak hostel in Gion where we were staying and set out on foot to explore the neighbourhood. We found the awesome Yasaka Shrine at the end of a nearby street, we could see it from way far away cos of the bright Vermillion paint shining in the afternoon sun!! It was so bright it was burning my retinas! It was pretty much our first experience of a large Japanese Shrine (there aren't too many large ones in Tokyo, or at least we hadn't found them yet!) with a whole collection of buildings- the gatehouse, temple, shrine, and numerous smaller buildings and pagodas all around the gardens. The shrine had these beautiful white lanterns on all sides, so amazingly beautiful! There were prayers tied on the fences around the Temple too, and there were even ladies in Kimonos walking around, it could have totally been a movie set! We just meandered through the grounds, past all the Shrine buildings, some beautiful gardens with traditional stone bridges and weeping willows, pagodas and turtles and koi in the ponds! It really is like in all the pics! We followed this path through the garden and could see the roof of another beautiful building next door, and when we got to the front we were confronted with this sign:

"It was finished in visit time. Entrance prohibition." ...uh... I think you mean you're shut! Lol. I loved it! A perfect example of Jap-lish, which was hard to find in such a detailed country like Japan! So cute!

Well, the temple it was attached to.. it was simply breathtakingly GINORMOUS!! Check it out: Massive temple, Tiny Will. He is standing about 20m in front of the gatehouse so the perspective is a little out, but the gatehouse it at least 5 stories high! And there was no-one around. Weird! Well, it had finished in the visit time, after all. We never did get back to this temple when it was opened, but we found one exactly as big a bit further up the street on another day. Thats the thing about Kyoto, it is CHOCK full of traditional, historical buildings like this one. So many, in fact, that most of them aren't even on the maps. Everywhere you go you are surrounded by shrines, temples and historic buildings. It was so different to the ultra-modern Tokyo, but both were special in their own ways. Kyoto we found to be a lot dirtier than Tokyo (surprisingly) and there were heaps more tourists in Kyoto. Yep, not Tokyo, but Kyoto! There were so many more whities there, that I actually blended in! But the shops people and locals didn't seem as friendly in Kyoto as in Tokyo, see what us westerners have done! Gion is a beautiful area, known to be the home of the Geisha's, but they are very hard to catch! We saw one dive out of a taxi and into a restaurant where they act as hostesses, there were heaps of people waiting outside to catch them going in also! But we did see a few older Geisha's shopping in Gion during the day :) so special! In Gion I tried a Green Tea ice cream cos one of the girls at work told me I had to have one, cos they were so good. Well.... it was GROSS!! It tasted like bitter black tea, and I did not like it at all! The wafer on the side was nice, but I made Will eat the ice cream. He kept saying "ew, this is really gross", but in his typical way he ate it all. You can't waste food!

Talking about food, day 6 in Japan we ate at a Hong Kong style buffet and Will brought to the table the dumpling that wins my award for "The Cutest Food Ever In The Whole Wide Universe". Yes this is an Echidna Dumpling, how awesome is that!! It has black sesame seeds for eyes and was hand pinched to make the spikes!! Will didn't want to bite into it and destroy it but I said "you can't bring it to the table and never know what was inside!" Will bit into him and he had black sesame paste inside! It wasn't too bad but we left his head and half his body, cos he was too cute to totally destroy! Oh, my heart melted at the sight of him!

That was day 6, a very cultural day!

:) C