Japan

As you know, we were in Japan for the past 2 weeks. I don't even know where to begin. I want to share so many impressions and stories from Tokyo to Fuji to Kyoto and especially Hiroshima, I took so much away from this trip. It was anything but relaxing but I would consider it a perfect vacation (even though we never made it to the beach). There was meeting of new old friends, engulfing in a completely foreign culture and still some of familiar things from the US made unexpected appearances, it is a baseball country after all. I ate less sushi than expected and enjoyed more naan bread than anticipated. The days were hotter an wetter than I believed possible and Fuji was colder than I would have liked. Tokyo was not as crowed as I had imagined but much larger then I knew. Hiroshima was filled with history and hope but lacked beaches, Miojima made u for the coast but the jungle was off limits. Patrick fell in love with Kyoto but quickly came to the realization that we would never see all of its historic sights (with 1 World Heritage sites along, i never imagined we would gt close). We bought yukatas (think summer kimono) and Japanese tea cups. We frequented 7-11 for the ATM and Vitamin Water and we walked a lot. The weather prevented us from summiting Mt. Fuji but it was for the best, we had a good climb and now understand the Japanese saying which implies you are a fool to climb twice. I have literally thousands of photos on 3 SD cards and a couple of videos which I have just begun uploading. I want to share so many but it will take me some time to get over this jet lag and sort through them. I can imagine I will get about one Japan story in blog form per week. Here are a few teasers: