Kyoto Day 1

Early the next day, we made our way over to the Toji Temple, which has a famous five tiered pagoda. I loved seeing all of the Japanese architecture that we don't really see a ton in Okinawa.

View from the road.

Inside the main gate.

This temple was full of golden Buddha's and other cool statues (no pictures allowed inside).

There were lots of cool shrines and temples all over the grounds- notice the "zen" raked rock garden in front of this one.

A monk going in to worship.

The pagoda was definitely the main attraction. At 187 feet, it's the tallest pagoda in Japan. It was originally built in the 826, then burned down four times after being struck by lightening. This one was built in 1644, and is now topped with a lightening rod.

I was expecting fall foliage to be in full force, but the leaves were just barely changing. Since Sydney, Lily, and Gunnar cared less about these buildings, they kept busy by collecting colored leaves that had fallen to the ground.

We couldn't go inside, but just looking at the architecture was incredible. I am always so fascinated to see incredibly old buildings that are just insanely beautiful. They make me wonder how on earth they pulled this off without modern machinery? (Aaron's answer to that question was time and slave labor.)

As we were snapping pictures, we saw a woman on the grounds in a traditional kimono. In true tourist fashion, we asked if it would be ok for the kids to get a picture with her.

Sydney and Lily, with the nice lady in a kimono.

If Shawn wasn't asleep or walking around, we wanted to be in his Daddy's arms.

Self portrait of our family- in a mirrored wall on our way back to the train station.

The crew: Gunnar, Kristen, Lily, Aaron, Me, Syd, & Shawn, waiting for our train.

Our next stop was the Gion District, famous for its geishas (which we didn't see). We walked down Shijo St. where we admired the little shops and stopped for lunch.

Shijo-dori was quite the hoppin' place.

At the end of the street was the Yasaka Shrine, a Shinto shrine with lots of other cool buildings around it.

Spencer & Sydney, inside the shrine gate.

Shawn & Me. I loved the cool lanterns decorating this stage.

Yasaka Shrine

Spencer & Syd, humoring me with a photo of the pretty grounds.

Just a bit more walking and we came to another ginormously impressive gate leading up to more shrines and temples.

Can you find Spencer?

Sydney was cracking me up crawling up the giant stairs.

See the giant gold Buddha inside? Would have gotten a closer shot, but there was a sign that said no pictures allowed.

The main attraction up here was actually under construction, so it was all covered up. After checking out a few more buildings, we made our way back down to see one more site before we ran out of daylight.

Pretty leaves, and a pretty view of the city.

One of the places I really wanted to go was Fushimi Inari, mainly because it was pretty high up on the rankings for Kyoto on tripadvisor.com. It's a series of Torii gates that go on, and on, and on. I read that it was built to honor Inari, the Shinto god of rice.

The kids and me in the main entrance to the torii gate tunnel.

These gates seriously went on forever. When we'd come out of one section, there would be another huge stretch of them in another direction. My legs were so tired from holding Shawn in the carrier! We walked for a good half hour and didn't even scratch the surface of how far these went on. We chose to cut it short and head back to the subway, and were pleasantly surprised with a beautiful sunset on our way downhill. It had been cloudy all day, so it was nice to see a colorful sky.

We took a quick pitstop at the bathrooms near the main entrance. They only had "Japanese style" toilets, and I was cracking up at the diagram of proper squatty potty technique.

Judge me all you want, but my goal when I use these things is to not get any pee on my feet. I mean, really, do they expect girls to be able to aim into these things? Especially when you're about to pee your pants? C'mon!

By the time we were ready to head to a Buddhist temple called Kiyomizu-dera, it was already dark. We thought it might look cool all lit up, so we started heading in that direction. The walk from the subway to the entrance of the site was pretty far, and a lot of it was uphill. By that point all kids were whining from tired legs, so Aaron put Gunnar on his shoulders and Lily on his back and carried them the whole way up. Spencer was pushing Shawn in the stroller, and I was carrying Syd, but I made him switch when we were about 3/4 of the way there because I thought my arms were going to fall off. The only reason I'm writing all of this is to help paint the picture of why we were so disappointed to find this:

Closed. Bam.

Seriously, it closed at 6pm! What major tourist attraction is closed at dinnertime? Lame. We were about forty minutes late, and all the security guards in the nearby booth were staring at us while we rested on the steps and still attempted to take pictures.

Shawn was completely engrossed in this treat we'd gotten en route to the temple. It was this squeezable thing filled with grape flavored gelatinous stuff. He was sucking it down like it was the best thing he'd ever tasted.

In fact, when Sydney was done with hers, he was happy to polish off the rest of it. We were cracking up at him sucking in his cheeks, making sure he got every last drop.

Don't worry, we brushed his teeth really well that night.

Getting There

We recently got back from a trip to mainland Japan. We went with the Smith family from our ward, canvassing Kyoto and Tokyo over an 8 day "vacation." The first day pretty much ended up being 100% travel. We flew from Naha to Tokyo in the morning, and we almost missed our flight. Traffic to the airport was TERRIBLE, and even with several long spans of illegal driving in the bus lane, we were seriously so late. We were checking bags at 9:04am and our flight left at 9:35am. To make matters worse, on our way to the terminal we discovered Shawn had a stinky diaper, so after a speedy bum change we were running to the gate! I was so relieved to be on the plane.

After a quick layover in Tokyo, we hopped back on a plane and flew to Osaka. Then we took a bullet train from Osaka to Kyoto, still about an hour and a half ride. 

Although not excited for a picture, Syd was actually a champ during all of the traveling.

Shawn, however, wanted to walk! He kept us busy the whole way there.

Because of passport issues (i.e. Spencer didn't have one) we couldn't get the same train tickets as the Smith's. We were trailing them by about a half hour, but I was severely underprepared to navigate from the airport to our hotel in Kyoto. Thank goodness for cell phones and a friend who was much more prepared. It was not fun carrying our gigantic suitcases, Pack 'n Play, umbrella stroller, and baby up and down stairs in the subway stations. Lessons learned: pack lighter and do more research on train/subway travel before the trip. We were grateful to finally arrive at our hotel, even if we had to walk a bit in the rain to get there. 

Look Who's Walking

The Squish took his first steps on October 9. That happened to be a day that Spencer was home (because of the 96 for Columbus day), so he got to see them too!

Go, go, go!

By the end of the day, he was taking about 8 steps walking back and forth between Spencer and me. He still prefers the reassurance of holding on to at least one of our fingers, but before we know it he'll be walking all over this house!

Finishing Touches

Sometimes when I go shopping and buy home decor that's kind of funky, I think to myself, "I'm pretty sure Spencer's gonna hate this." I'd been looking for a sunburst mirror for quite a while, so I was super excited when I got this huge white one in the Marine Gift Shop before someone else snatched it up. And I was right, Spencer thought it was weird. But he's a good sport and pretty much lets me do whatever I want when it comes to decorating.

Doesn't it look fun? 

 I still need to adjust the pictures on either side of it so they aren't overlapping, but seeing it on my wall makes be happy.

The other thing I'd been eyeing for a while was a rug for under our dining table. I got this cute indoor/outdoor striped rug- although it's really too small for the space. But if you know me well, you know I love love love stripes. And how could I resist a rug that's that cute and easy to clean? And someday when we update our dining set, we can use it somewhere else, like outside on our future deck.

We're in full force holiday decor around here, as you can see. I stole a cute Halloween silhouettes idea from Pinterest, and used a free stencil online to paint a witch and broom on burlap. I think they turned out really cute! I love free home decor :)

This clock is also a newer (like 4 months ago) addition to our room. The picture online made it look grey and white, but when it arrived it was really brown. I was bummed but couldn't return it since the shipping was pretty much the same price as the actual clock. Oh well, we still like it and it does the job.

While I was snapping pics, the kids were keeping themselves busy too:

This scene stealer thought I needed to take pictures of her playing beautiful tunes on the harmonica.

My Squish uses everything at his level that slides as a walker. My antique Chinese water bucket is one of his favorite things to push around the house. No me gusta.

Fukushuen Garden

I can't believe we've already lived in Okinawa for almost a year and a half. We are going to be leaving here before we know it, and I feel like we've barely scratched the surface of fun things to do. Spencer got a day off for Columbus Day (have I mentioned how much I love government holidays?), and I'd heard from neighbors about a cool Japanese garden down in Naha. I wanted to check it off our list of cool Oki place to visit, so off we went.

The garden wasn't huge, but we meandered through it for over an hour. And apparently we were a little snap happy because we managed to take over a hundred pictures. I have no idea if this place is of any historical significance (we didn't see any signs in English), or if it's just a nice respite from the hustle and bustle of the city. Here's my attempt to not include every single thing we saw, but that's tough when it's pictures of my cute kids and handsome husband amid cool Japanese-y stuff.

We bought some fish food and got right up to the edge of the koi pond. Why is it so entertaining to watch fish fight over food? There were lots of turtles in there as well. We got splashed several times, which was kind of gross, especially since I was bending down far enough that some of it got on the corner of my mouth. Sick. After trying to eat a few pellets, Shawn quickly learned to follow the rest of us and drop them in the water instead.

We thought it was cool that you could walk behind the waterfall.

Don't be fooled by Shawn's sweet face. He was NOT happy that I wouldn't let him crawl around everywhere.  

He's always happier when he's in his Daddy's arms.

Spencer & Shawn, checking out the cave under the main pagoda.

Sydney was in stair climbing heaven.

We had a great time! It was definitely beautiful, free entertainment.

Beach Day

A few weeks ago we went to clean the church, which is right across the street from one of the back gates of Futenma (a Marine base). When we were leaving, there were tons of Japanese police outside the gate. I'm assuming it was because of protests that had been going on regarding the new Osprey airplanes. They had to lock down the base for a few days prior because protesters were getting out of hand. Glad we don't live there!

That afternoon we met up with some friends at Torii Beach, which is super close but somehow we've only managed to go there one other time since we've lived here. It was a gorgeous day, and we were in good company. What more could you ask for?

I've become slightly addicted to finding sea glass on the beach, and Torii had a ton! After I found a bunch, Sydney and Jack started looking for it too. It kept them busy for quite a while, and it was so cute to see how excited they got every time they found a new piece.

Sea glass hunters.

A few days later (after soaking the glass in bleach water), Sydney and I separated our loot by color. She took this job very seriously.

While I was snapping pictures, she started making crazy faces. The one below is my favorite.

No, I didn't just catch her at the wrong time- she was intentionally making that face. Ha ha! 

We more than doubled my sea glass collection. We will certainly be going to Torii more often!

Typhoon Traditions

This typhoon season has been a doozy. We've already had four storms, and there are almost two full months before the season is over! What the heck? To make it all even more lame, every single one of them has landed on a weekend. Don't get me wrong, it's kind of fun to get a day off of church every now and again, but Typhoon Sanba took away one of the two practice days for our Primary program. Then there was Jelawat, which threatened the actual day of the program. It was supposedly going to be a low-key category 2 storm, but it ended up doing more damage than any of the others we've seen so far.

As usual, our kids slept like champions during the crazy wind. We were actually a little nervous with how well Shawn slept- I think he was out until like 9:30am! When the eye of the storm passed over us in the afternoon, Spencer went outside and surveyed the damage in our yard. Our front bushes were laid out once again, and one of the palm trees by our building had fallen down.

I thought Spencer looked pretty cute wearing my rain boots :)

Apparently he needs a pair of his own!

With all of these storms, our family has implemented some little typhoon traditions. Typhoon days are pretty lazy, so I tend to not want to cook. We've started doing popcorn on the stovetop and fruits and veggies for dinner. It's a hit with the kids.

The other tradition is doing "One for the Money" before bedtime. We get out our heavy duty BYU blanket, and the kids take turn laying down in it while we swing them. They could do it all. night. long, so we typically don't initiate this activity until about 15 minutes before we start the bedtime routine so we don't have to do it forever.

Thankfully our branch still met for sacrament meeting on Sunday, which saved us from rescheduling the program. (Sydney did awesome, by the way. Her part was, "I choose the right when I am baptized." She memorized it and said it in the microphone all by herself!) We were shocked on our drive to and from church- there were trees down everywhere. Tons of trees that were cemented into plots in the sidewalk were on their sides, the whole plot of dirt and roots pulled right up with it.