Salt Lake City-Duncan's Graduation

Graduation is a great excuse to see family, definitely better than a funeral that's for sure. Family came from Texas, Alabama, Georgia, and different areas of Utah. Because Duncan only had tickets for a few of us we had an after party. Duncan graduated from the University of Utah with a bachelor's in Medical Laboratory Science. His graduation ceremony was long and full of interesting speakers.

 Devan, Lon, Maddie, Jennifer, Uncle Paul and Grandma Bunny

 Nick, Lauren (Me), Aunt Anna, and Uncle Fred

After graduation finding your graduate is like finding a needle in a hay stack. Once we got our awesome and talented Duncan we took off to the reserved room for the after party. Devan, Duncan's wife, worked really hard to get everything ready for the party. She made these awesome degree themed cookies!

We ate pulled pork sliders and a bunch of other yummies.

We took a ton of family photo's because who knows when we will see each other next.

Mug shot!

Happy Dragon (China Trip Part 1)

Saturday, January 4th  
Our trip started with an unexpected twist. We got to the airport two hours early to find that our first flight had been delayed indefinitely.  They booked us on the next flight to Beijing (no stops) and we got there faster than the original flight plans. We made it to our Happy Dragon Hostel, met our roommates, explored a little and passed out.

 

Sunday, January 5th
We were woken up early on our first full day in China by our roommates getting ready for their Great Wall adventure. I decided to stay awake and check our agenda for the day and make sure everything was in order.

I booked tickets to see an acrobatic show, Our Trip to the Great Wall, and found out some great places to visit and eat!

I got Nick up (only by mentioning OJ) and we ate a terrific breakfast at the Dragon (what we call our hostel)


We met some really cool people a young couple from England, Nathan and India. They sold everything they had and saved money for a long time just to travel for 6 months. She is 19 and he is 23, WOW!! Nick and I were really shocked by their daringness to live life and to seek adventures. We met them during breakfast and friendship struck from there. You can read their travel blog here.

We got dressed in extra warm clothes and went exploring. We walked about two miles to reach our destination Tiananmen Square. I wasn't really sure what to expect and it wasn't until moments ago when I looked it up on Wiki, that I understood what the heck I had seen. We did not walk the square  much today because we went straight into the Forbidden City. It was a lot of walking, but it was beautiful.

Forbidden City was built in 1415 during the Ming Dynasty. It was the imperial palace the complex consists of 980 buildings and covers 7,800,000 sq ft. The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture, and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987, and is listed by UNESCO as the collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world. (Wiki)

We got off the beaten path, for some of the roads less traveled and glad we did or we would have never of found the costume booth. We paid almost nothing to dress up and take pictures. The Chinese people thought it was hilarious that foreigners would dress up. We had our picture taken many times.

When we finished exploring the Forbidden city we stopped at the museum shop. We found some items that we have been looking for and purchased them.


If you have ever been to China you know one thing.. The people there will pretty much do anything for you to look at them and buy their stuff. This was really hard for Nick because he just wanted to look, but looking came at a price here. They basically harassed you until you walked away, and even then sometimes they would walk after you. It really drove me crazy, if you even looked lost you would be attacked by taxi drivers, scooter people, street vendor and more. It didn't take long before Nick and I to started mapping out a dodging plan. If we noticed a ton of people ahead we talked about our plan to get around them and 9 times out of 10 we made it.


Right before we left the Forbidden City we were approached by a lady with who introduced herself, holding her badge, as an employee then asked us if we wanted to look at her art collection. AKA she saw that we had already purchased something and wanted us to buy her stuff. (LET me backtrack a few hours) Right after breakfast Nick and I had read a warning for foreigners about a scam that was being ran at the Square and Forbidden City. Someone would walk up to you and be friendly wanting to chat, then they invite you to tea. They would take you to a tea place in the palace area and then leave you to pay the crazy expensive bill. (Back to my story) When this lady approached my red flags went up but Nick said sure, so we followed her and they she unlocked a red door. Behind it was some people just sitting until we came in they all jumped to their feet. We went into a little room as she showed us some of her 'original' art (That looked exactly like the paintings we just bought from the museum shop) When she started talking prices Nick cut her off and said we were not interested and we walked back through the door we came in.

Next we were bombarded by a ton of men and women trying to sell everything and anything to us. We looked down, pretended we did NOT speak English and kept walking.

What an experience.


On the walk back to the Dragon we stopped at a little mom and pop noodle restaurant and just randomly pointed at food, and we weren't disappointed.

 I (Lauren) Had big fat noodles ( I swear it was just one extremely long noodle) Mine tasted the best!!

Nick's choice had more of a vinegar taste to it, still it wasn't bad,  and he ate it tofu and all.

We got to the Dragon and passed out for a couple of hours. 

When we woke up we quickly got ready for our acrobatic show. Sorry we don't have picture for this, but it was really good and hilarious. 

After it was over we took the subway to Wangfujing (night shopping street) and explored it a little before it closed (15 minutes later) We had heard all kinds of things about this crazy street and it lived up to the craziness. They had scorpions, lizards, snakes, cocoons, centipedes, seahorses, starfish, and more on sticks ready to be consumed by someone daring enough to do so. I passed on these.

We walked the long mile back to our place stopping by a Mcdonalds because we were both starving.
We had such a busy first full day in Beijing, China but we were so ready for the adventures upcoming!
Next update The Great Wall!!

Japan Part 4 (Tokyo)

Wow, We have been home less than 24 hours and it seems like we were just here. We really miss Japan, but we were ready to come back to our home in Korea.

Tokyo is HUGE and I'm sure there was a lot of things to do, but we just hung out around our awesome hostel, Khaosan Tokyo Samurai, even the name is awesome. Our room had two sets of bunk beds and a communal shower and bathroom with others also staying there. Our location was great because it was a popular area in Tokyo. We were close to the oldest temple, a bunch of Onsens, and some AMAZING FOOD! 

This is a part of the oldest temple in Japan. When we saw it we looked at each other and thought..... Wow this places doesn't look old (LOL) Oh well it was beautiful. 

Now moving on to the food!!! We had some amazing food. My goal was to eat some traditional Japanese food and we did. Nick even tried some with me (he actually liked it and had his share of it).

 

 











Please don't ask me what my favorite food was.. Because I will tell you the truth, I liked all of it. Just to name some of the picture above. We had sea urchin, caviar/crab salad, lobster, Kobe Steak, Sushi, potato pizza, and mexican food. One of my favorites that I forgot to take a picture of was okonomiyaki. If you are an adventurous eater you would have been in love. There was so many things to try.. I was in love!

While walking around Tokyo we saw some cool things. These two pictures are of Shibuya, a huge shopping area in Tokyo. The crosswalk is famous, all the traffic stops for the people to cross the road in every direction. It was cool to watch and be apart of!

Korea is even popular in Japan!

 We found this Tesla while walking home from church on Sunday. It was a beautiful car!

These were everywhere, Nick really wants one.. Maybe I'll give in one day. (don't hold your breath sweetie)

We visited the Toyota factory and that was really cool. It isn't in Tokyo though, we had to travel by train for a few hours just to get there, but it was worth it. We got to watch the final assembly line. My Brothers would have loved it! We were allowed to take pictures in the Museum area but not the factory.

The Robot played "Over the Rainbow"   It actually played the trumpet, not just a recording.  I could hardly believe my ears!

After our awesome week we took the train all the way back to Fukuoka on Thursday and stayed at the Japanese Ryokan Kashima Honkan. Then Early Friday morning we took the ferry back to Busan, ate some food, caught a bus then taxi back home to CEV! We unpacked and put away everything right when we got home. Nick went out to get groceries and I washed clothes and cleaned the apartments.

Our whole trip was super fantastic. We want to go back and spend more time in Kyoto and some other places. We are grateful that we got home safely and that we have a couple days rest before work on Monday. We are also grateful for those of you who read our blog and hope we can entertain you with more of our adventures in the future.

Japan Part 2 (Awa Odri Tokushima, Himeji, and Osaka)

Oh my gosh, the last three days have been so amazing! I'm so glad that we have splurged a little here and there and I am really grateful for the research that has made this vacation EPIC! Our trip has really just started and I can't believe how fast time is flying.

On Monday we slept in, then made our way to Tokushima, where a famous dance festival is held. We met a lot of people. Some who planned the trip a year in advance just to get a hotel room. When we originally started our planning we wanted to stay near the festival because our JR-Rail passes took us the long way around, and we didn't want to leave the night life at 7 or 8 just to get back. The hotels were filled up so we decided to figure it out when we got here... Well we tried and everything was full. There ferry couldn't take us nor could any of the buses. We were stuck with the train. We decided to stay as long as we wanted and take the last train back. Well..... haha little did we know that it was just the last time for that train not the other two we needed to transfer to. We had to run and catch a train at the second station and when we got to the third, our last transfer, we found this.

(If you can't tell, that is a very blank train Departures/Arrivals board)

The trains stopped running! Lucky we kinda knew something was going to happen and decided not to care. We had to look for a place to stay the night; and after some deliberations we decided we would spring for a full up hotel.  The next morning we decided to make the best of our predicament and visit Himeji Castle on our way back to Osaka.

Now about the dance festival Awa Odori, I would recommend planning a trip during the time it is going because it is amazing. We bought tickets for reserved bleacher seats and watched people dressed in costume come through parade style doing the same dance for two hours. It was repetitive, monotonous, beautiful, busy, entrancing, and enchanting; We LOVED it and could have watched them dance all night!  As they danced, they would also sing words which translate loosely into, The dancers are fools, the watchers are fools, since we all are fools we might as well dance. You can watch a really cool video about it here.  By the time we had to leave if we were to catch a train out of the town, we were both trying to do the dance moves ourselves.

Here are some of our pictures from the festival:

Before the dances began

During the Dances... Nick called her the match maker! (she looks like the match maker from Mulan)

Nick had to have an outfit!

I wish I got a close up of their shoes!

After we spent the night in Okayama (our stranded stay) we decided to make our way to Himeji Castle. It was a quick, awesome, visit. It started by picking up free bikes. I guess many people didn't know about this or there wouldn't have been bikes left for us. I have to give Brian and Stephanie credit here because they found out about the bike thing. We rode them to the castle and then walked around for a bit before we ate lunch at a small cafe.  The castle is undergoing some major renovations (which are slated to last till 2015) which have encased the main keep in a huge shroud as they replaster walls and retile the roof but it was still worth the visit.  

Bikes

(part of) The Castle

Nick surfing up the bike escalator

When we got back to Osaka we went back to our hotel, took showers, and rested before we went out on the town. When we did go out we knew right where we wanted to go.

Sorry the picture is blurry (Nick sucks at taking photo's) Anyways it is a really cool building that is intended to be a modern rehash of the Arc de Triomphe (in building form) kinda weird but Japan isn't what you would call the most normal place. Underneath it is an Edo-era marketplace recreation and at the top a beautiful wide open view of the city.
  

We got hungry so we also ate dinner at the top! Good, fancy food!

When we got home we walked to a nearby grocery store and picked up some things we have never eaten before. ALL OF THEM WERE FANTASTIC!

Left to right in the picture above we have Schweppes Blood Orange Soda,  The Japanese Marble sealed soda (no idea what the name is), Pino chocolate covered ice cream bites, Lady Borden's Chocolate Ice Cream, Vanilla Ice Cream Wafer Sandwich, Some other Ice cream sandwich thing, Spiral Grape soda (it says it's new here), Milk, and Mochi encased chocolate bites.

The next day (Wednesday) We slept in and then went to find the Pokemon store and on our way we discovered this awesome shrine.

 It is a giant Japanese lion's head whose mouth is a stage.  We aren't sure what the stage is used for but it looks cool nonetheless.

The Pokemon Store
(fellow video game nerds, I have been to the promised land and it is good!)

 Also while walking around Osaka we found this can. A postcard will be sent to the person who can correctly guess what is in this can.

Today ended with this, a huge Kirby, given to my by this boy (the one that is not Nick). We were all in line to spin this free wheel after enjoying one of Japan's many massive arcades, and if a pink ball came out you would win a giant Kirby! Well the boy in front of me got that pink ball. When he did, he grabbed Kirby, spun around, and gave it to me while saying "present!" I was so excited! I'm glad I got a picture with him. If you are wondering how we are going to get it home, well he is actually a beach ball covered with Kirby skin; you just unzip him, deflate the ball, and he is easy packing!

Well that is it until part three comes along!