|| JAPAN || Kyoto. Tokyo. ||

WARNING. This post is LONG and may be boring to everyone except me, BUT we had the time of our lives and I just had to share these pictures! Although I didn't take as many pictures as I thought I would, I clearly still have a lot. I think as a photographer I wanted to get a lot of pictures of the people because that is ALWAYS the best part about traveling...but I found that candid pictures are REALLY hard when its not a "photo shoot"! I either felt like the biggest creep taking pictures of people I didn't know let alone couldn't understand OR I was so caught up in just watching the people that by the time I got my camera out the moment passed.

Let me begin by explaining this trip....My cute Grandpa Anderson spent many years working for Delta and every year he gets a handful of standby passes that can be used to go ANYWHERE. So when I heard that we might be able to use some to go somewhere I immediately think Spain or Paris or Mexico...Japan was definitely not on my top list. I mean I wanted to go sometime in my life but there were other places I would rather go first. Just being real. But my dad, my husband, and my brothers all really wanted to go. My husband lived there for two years and could speak the language to help us get around,...which we would absolutely need because nobody else knew more than two words in Japanese. 

So I got a call from my dad one day and he thought the best time to go would be end of august (which was a week and a half away). Yes it was a last minute trip. Thankfully our bosses gave us the green light and we were able to actually make it happen. Things were getting real.

So Jordo and I got to Oregon early Friday morning and I wake up to my dad saying the standby flight looked really good for the 1PM flight but it would just be Jord, Clarke, Al, and I that could get on and my mom and dad would come the next day. The joys of standby :) So we got ready and headed over to the airport. Standby is either the worst thing in the world or your favorite thing you've ever experienced. Apparently it was our lucky day because the only seats they had left were business class. Ya I suddenly got really excited for this trip.  And our adventure begins...

We got to Tokyo around 5PM and since its 15 hours ahead we skipped an entire day. An ENTIRE day! Gone. We left on a Friday afternoon and got there on a Saturday night. This jet lag was a whole new experience. But once we got our train passes we were ready to hit the town. And all I can say is WOW. Japan is a world words can't ever explain. It is a totally different place than anything I have ever experienced or even imagined. Everything is clean, and perfect...the people, the trains, the food, the sidewalks! The flavors alone are enough to change your life. The fruit flavored water, melon soda, apple flavored water, Calpis...unreal. And the bread. AMAZING. And they have little jingles for EVERYTHING...the train stations, the garbage trucks, the postman, the machines that cook your food. You just hear little songs everywhere! Imagine a ringtone for everything and thats Japan. And its weirdly not annoying at all. You actually love it.

And the CLOTHES!!! I don't even know where to begin. I. Was. in. Heaven. It literally blew me away just how amazing their fashion is there. I wish I had an entire week just to go shopping alone. It was incredible. The style in Japan is like this magical look I have always wanted in clothes. I just can't even explain how amazing it is, you just have to experience. Basically my family really liked me whenever I went into a store :)

But the BEST part was going to church in Omiya. A little town north of Tokyo. It was one of the areas Jordy lived on his mission to Japan. The church building wasn't built until after Jordy left, but it was so amazing to see the growth and the faith of these amazing people. Some had to travel SO FAR just to get to go to church every week. And oh my goodness the children. I wanted to be that weirdo lady and follow them around all day and hear their cute little voices and look at their cute, perfect little outfits and cute little hairdos. I was dying. They were the cutest.

I loved seeing how happy Jordy was to be back with these people...speaking the language and just talking to them about life. It was so cool to listen to and see just how much he LOVED being back. It made me fall in love with Japan that much more seeing how much he loved it there. He was like a little kid on Christmas morning...he couldn't hold still and wanted to show us EVERYTHING he loved immediately :) The food, the trains, the drinks, the bread, the vending machines...I just loved it so much.

 

And here is where the adventure begins....the parents got into town the next day and we then left for Kyoto. And yes we were those crazy people dragging our stuff around the city. We spent half the week in Kyoto in the most amazing Japanese house we rented and were able to visit a lot of the traditional shrines and temples. It was unbelievably beautiful. Then we spent the last half of the week in Tokyo, in more of the city life. We seriously had the best time. I feel so incredibly blessed to have been able to go visit this amazing place. I loved it so much more than I ever thought I would and especially loved meeting all the amazing people. 

I wish I could speak their language and know them a little more but I still developed a love for these people so easily and so fast. They are hard not to love. Their traditions, their respect they have for one another and everything in general, their loyalty, their pride in doing things the best they can, their friendliness, their culture, their uniforms they wear for everything, their food (their MELON PAN BREAD ESPECIALLY!! Pretty sure I gained a melon pan baby from eating it every day!), their fashion...I just loved them so much! So here are the majority of our pictures from our trip....I know its a lot but it would be longer if I tried to explain every picture. So hopefully they explain themselves. Basically everyone needs to go. It is so under appreciated of how amazing it is. Japan, I will definitely be back soon! <3