Last Day in Japan :( Sayonara

it was our last day in Japan. booo :( i shall miss the strange fashion, cute pastries and fancy toilets and jet dryers and pro skills of japanese women to stay polished all day in humid heat while riding a bike with 5 inch stilettos and holding a parasol at the same time lol

the last day of the tour was spent in Nara and Kobe.

in the morning we left for Nara park and Todaiji Temple, the largest wooden building in the world and what i think is the biggest Buddha statue i've ever seen :P it's absolutely amazing to see these giant and ancient structures and the pictures don't do them any justice. i really can't fathom the amount of time and skill that was put into the temple's construction before modern machinery was invented lol

i digress lol anyways, we strolled around the temple while Maiko-san explained the four classes of Buddha and how the giant Buddha was created.  Definitely think the most memorable moment was when christine and i crawled through buddha's nostril :P see see?

Hm, we kind of look like the Grudge lady crawling out... 

lol apparently if you can crawl through the hole, it grants you very good luck.  We'll be lucky for the rest of our lives, yay~ i loved how our tour group knew we were going to try to do it anyways (which we were) lol and then we spent the next 10 minutes or so in line worrying about how embarrassing it would be if we got stuck :P which, according to maiko-san, happened to a korean tourist earlier in the year and they had to call an ambulance eeps

explored the temple grounds and nara park afterwards.  did i mention that there are deer? lots and lots of deer. deer that know when you are going to buy styrofoam peanut-like deer crackers and chase you around and deer that apparently nip people in the butt lol once i'm back in the states i'll upload the video of christine getting chased by deer XD

lunch was conjure eel. yummy stuff :D

traveled to the nada sake brewery after and was briefed by the cute old master brewer on how to make sake. and how he drinks a small bottle of it everyday :D what a baller lol

we had a sake tasting after that lol ahem so if you know christine and i---we don't drink alcohol. well, christine doesn't really drink it and i'm just a pansy -_- i'd rather not have the tour group see that lol

so when everyone was have a shot glass worth's of different sake, christine and i shared about 2 sips worth of each one lol there was the gold medal award winning one, which was just...vaporizing.  a couple of lemony citrusy ones which weren't terrible. a plum liquor with black syrup that tasted like alcoholic soy sauce. and an unfermented one which was pure alcohol. that one was really really really really potent. bleh. this is for you catherine.  we took advantage of the free alcohol both on our flight and in our tour :P christine bought a bottle too hahahahahahha

lol before all of that, the master brewer poured sweet non-alcoholic sake for the underage people in our group....which was just me and christine apparently :( lol even melissa, who is the only underage person, was not offered the non-alcoholic drink. sigh.

visited the Kobe earthquake memorial at the Kobe port before more shopping at the Motomachi arcade.  lol i am so shopped out...and poor.  what are we going to do with our free time in china christine?! and yeah we bought more stuff....AGAIN.gaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh 

dinner in Kobe was...what else? Kobe beef habachi style. goodness :D michelle you'd really like it lol if we can ever manage to afford ourselves some kobe beef

kobe beef with bean sprouts, garlic chips and veggies

also gave maiko-san her panda thank you card :) i think she liked it. christine and i managed to get everyone on the tour to sign it.  We didn't get a picture of the actual card before we gave it to her (with all the signatures), but here's the card itself:

We couldn't read the front, but the inside says "Arigatou gozaimasu" (Thank you).  And the pandas bow :3

last stop of the night was Mosaic Harborland--a mall along the Kobe Port and a definite couples spot complete with the ferris wheel lol  we watched the sunset while eating calpis, passionfruit and strawberry shortcake gelato and resisted any more attempts to go shopping.

going to really miss japan.  i can't believe that we've been here for two weeks but it hasn't felt that we've really been here. a little bit surreal, but i think that's just because we learned to accept all the strangeness and live life as the japanese do. visited the sites, experimented with the food, got lost on the subways, took crazy photobooth pictures, made some new friends....i can't think of a better way to say goodbye :]

china better not disappoint :P

well dunno when the next time we'll be able to write, but until next time :) ja mata! we wish our new friends a safe trip home or wherever they are headed to next! here we come china!

 oh yeah. boy count = 0. lol