Kyoto (WARNING: long post!)

So, my bestie in the whole wide world, Raquel/Harreh (you can call me Loueeh if you want. I don't mind that. Neither does Justin, for that matter), thought I was dead. I'm serious. I checked my iPod yesterday and I had like a thousand messages, snapchats, missed FaceTime calls, and other notifications from her saying "Are you grounded?" "Are you okay?" "Where are you? Why won't you answer your FaceTime? I'm seriously getting worried!" 

sorry, Raquel. I thought I told you. I was in Kyoto! right before we left, there was supposed to be a typhoon/hurricane/horrible storm of some sort. It even hit Tokyo! On Tuesday, before we left, Justin needed some new church pants, so we went down to Harajuku, the teeny-bopper (I don't get where my parents come up with these terms) shopping district. I spent some time in H&M and Forever 21, which I've missed. Tokyo may be Fashion Capitol of the World, but it is also Extremely Expensive, Fashionable, Some Bizarre Styles That No One Can Even Dream of Affording. and I only started earning yen by doing chores, so I made 2 purchases: 1 shirt from each place. but I only brought like 7 shirts here, so that was nice. but after the shopping was done, we were supposed to go to Yoyogi Park. As soon as I got dragged out of F21 (yes, I was kicking and screaming), thunder boomed, and rain just started pouring down. we had no idea how we would be able to make it to Kyoto. but as you can see, we found a way.

back view of my F21 shirt. I love the sleeves!

 love my flying earrings

day 1 was sweltering. it was very cloudy, but extremely humid. hot, sweaty weather + walking all day = DEAD. I don't even really remember exactly what we did, except for the walking. we went to a bamboo forest, some gardens and temples, and torii gates, those big orange gates. they are actually pretty cool, and there's so many of them, it's like they go on forever in an endless maze of them, complete with stairs of death. As soon as we got to the hotel, I pretty much crashed. but we did have 2 different rooms, and I counted as an "Adult" (ages 14+), so it was my parents in one room, and me and the boys in the other. they were not very pleased with me being in charge (Why do you sleep so late? Why do you make us go in the other hotel room until you wake up? Why won't you share your secret stash of Hershey's Kisses with you?) They are more of the "early to bed, extremely early to rise because it makes us healthy and wealthy and wise to wake up with the sun which rises at 4 am." me, just let me sleep and you're fine. I actually slapped Wesley for threatening to wake me up at 6 (and then he got me grounded. I'm a very responsible adult here). but we had a lot more room than having the 5 of us crammed in one teeny room!

day 2, I woke up to Justin in my face telling me that we were eating in like 15 minutes, and because I take so long to do my hair and stuff, I need to get the freak out of bed! (He gets his good vocabulary from me.) But at least he was nice to me and let me sleep. Dad was in charge of the breakfast place (he decided that he is in charge of all the restaurants, which means either convenience store on-the-go food, "traditional" Japanese with the raw fish, or a curry place), so I wasn't very excited. Until I saw that it was called Vie d'France. i know, French bakeries in Japan may sound a little weird, but it was just heaven. We went there on Saturday too, so I got to try 2 different quiches, many pastries, and croissants. so yeah. good food. good weather was also expected....

Not. Fun. At. All. Especially when I'm wearing TOMS, shorts, and no rain jacket. Not to mention we would be walking around in the rain all freaking day, my feet blister easily, my toes are starting to curl again (and I only got surgery 1 year ago), and my feet are just soaked. 

we first went to Nijo Castle, between 300-400 years old, and it's made mostly out of rice paper. we only got pictures from the outside. next, we went to Kinkakuji, or the Golden Pavilion. It is one of the most famous temples in Kyoto, and everyone needs a picture by it. The rain kind of got in the way of that. Same thing happened at Ginkakuji, the Silver Pavilion which never actually got coated in silver. they were both very beautiful, and they could've been identical twins! Wesley liked the history of them and the shogun, so he asked Dad to make up a shogun story about each of us. Wesley was the lazy shogun that didn't tell anyone what to do, so he got overthrown easily, but he lived peacefully in his platinum pavilion. Justin was the shogun that built his pavilion in the hot springs, and he was called the raisin shogun because he spent all day yelling at people from inside his hot springs, so he looked like a raisin. I was the shogun who actually coated my pavilion in silver, built it in Ginza (the fancy, pricy shopping district in Tokyo), but ran out of money so I decided to quit and start my own kimono business, got rich again, and I don't remember the rest.

oh, and there were rock gardens, trying to meditate and find inner peace, bloody blistered toes, crowded buses, Justin rain dancing and running into geisha, missing the kimono fashion show (that we went to on Saturday), and long bus rides. 

day 3, the weather man said it would rain even worse. well, he is full of crap. it was even hotter than day 1! and we weren't even in Kyoto. Dad had a conference in Nagoya, so we rode the Shinkansen from Kyoto so we could do a little exploring. Nagoya isn't as much as a tourist attraction as Kyoto is (I swear, our hotel had only Americans!), so we're the dorky American family dragging these umbrellas around while sweating our butts off, that everyone is laughing at. oh well, at least no one knew us! while Dad was at his conference, the other 4 Castles went to the Museum of Dishes (seriously, Mom?!), the Toyota Museum, a real pizza place that served corn on top of the pizzas, and.......................
CASTLES. (The Castles looked at castles. haha. yeah, I get this a lot. Oh, Miriam, do you live in a real castle? You think you're such a princess because you live in a castle. You look like a princess. I'm getting married as soon as possible and changing my last name.)

 La Fontaine outside of the dish museum. this fountain was a lot more exciting and beautiful than any of the dishes!

The Two Famous Asians Whom Ladies Swoon Over But I Look Pretty Chill With and me. I've always wanted to run into famous people whom I don't even know and get a picture. when we got off our bus to get to the castle, Wesley ran off, Mom had to chase him down, and Justin and I had to pee, so I actually used my very limited Japanese (with confidence, I might add) and asked where the bathroom was. He replied in English, "Oh, the restroom? Right over there." classic Mimi moment.
(Not to change the subject, but to all of you people who still call me Mimi, I just barely found out that it's not only an affectionate French nickname, it is also Japanese for ear. I think I lost my affectionate French nickname. Please, don't call me that, okay? I don't even like my ears.)

we reunited with Dad and ate "traditional Japanese food" again. not only was the fish raw, but some still had the skin on! all I ate was calamari (which was delicious), chicken, noodles, and tofu. There was actually some really gross rubbery stuff inside of a seashell. even Wesley, the pickiest eater who likes the strangest things, thought it was gross. and of course, he'd wear his rain jacket when it's like 100 degrees. classic Utahn. (and I might add that he stole Justin's jacket.) when we arrived back at the hotel, my toes were all swollen and bloody and I didn't even notice for the whole day. my big toe is still in a lot of pain.

day 4: this is the last day so I'll just hurry and get this massive post done. more French food. Wesley sat in birdpoop. drank from the Holy Spring at Kiyomizudera (pure water temple). went to another temple with 1,001 statues of Buddhist gods. cut my big toe on something. took only a few pictures, but none of them are good. went to the Kimono fashion show, which was just stunning. my mom was in there on accident when she went to Kyoto 2 years ago. she modeled kimonos and had her hair and makeup done like a geisha, and everyone thought she was really a Japanese model (I guess the wig helped) and took a ton of pictures. this time, there were no Americans that were just dressed up! then we left, stubbed my toe on the train, stubbed it again on someone's luggage, and I'm never walking anywhere again.

to put it simply, it was a great vacation. I learned a lot culturally, and saw amazing things. my toes will be stronger, and we won't trust the weatherman again.