the united airlines "red carpet club" lounge.
ready for takeoff!
thanks to jennell's mom, we had economy plus seating. i can't imagine what normal economy must be like because there isn't much space even with economy plus, haha.
our hotel room at the ana crowne plaza hotel, narita.
our dinner the first night.
nom nom nom.
the mall had a mister donut! ALAS, it was sold out of pon de rings :(
charles eagerly purchases an ebi burger at mcdonalds.
the verdict: delicioso.
june buys a mister donut keychain at a toy vending machine. those things are super awesome.
first takoyaki of the trip!
mmm, red bean taiyaki.
charles washes his hands before going into the temple. yes, that water's very cold.
i think these are all wishes or something. or bills. i didn't really catch the drift.
the temple.
this tree is either a hundred or a thousand years old, i completely forget. either way, it old.
us in front of the temple.
i dunno, he wanted a picture.
fatty pigeon.
woot!
a kind passerby snapped a photo for us. we're still at that temple.
merry christmas eve! one of the few festive spots we came across in japan.
our lunch! i chose udon and don (rice bowl) with little tiny sardine fish on it. it was delicious. much better than dinner the night before.
some guy is pounding out mochi.
make my mochi, man!
old school looking mini.
yes, that's me eating mochi ice cream even though it's freezing outside.
bigggg buddha.
bigger picture of bigggg buddha.
our bus.
it was too cold.
yo, there be monkeys in that cage!
or are they babboons? he's a babboon.
cool sundial. it's all bent.
some castle i forget the name of. we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, they turned it into a museum.
let me in!
they requested us to wear these "bath robes" to dinner in the hot springs hotel.
charles pretends to be proper in our tatami room.
here's a couple of japanese people.
our dinner at the hot springs hotel was pretty cool. all tiny little portions, but very.. interesting.
full.
yeah, there was karaoke. yeah, there's a backstreet boys song on. yeah, that's charles.
i'm still amazed that charles didn't give in and buy anything from this 24 hours hot menu casual fried foods vending machine.
we went pirate sailing on a lake to see mount fuji.
it was very, very cold on the boat.
arrgh, matey!
did i mention how cold it was?
but as soon as i got inside a building, i ate some "soft-a cream-u."
our ropeway cart arrives!
i'm afraid of heights. yeah.
this was our stop!
told you we rode the ropeway.
so these eggs that are cooked in the hot springs are supposed to add 7 years to your life. they're all black on the outside from the iron and sulfur in the water. yeah, i'm totally gonna live longer now.
they were $100 yen each. sold in packets of 5. we split.
us with another couple from our tour (mary & jerry from texas, isn't that cute?).
that's 2 years added on to his life in that one bite right there.
mmmmm. yeah, they taste just like regular eggs.
battling the wind that's trying to steal my beanie.
can't.. move.. forward..
mount fuji is actually in the background, but it looks all washed out in this picture. the wind was so fierce it was hard to keep our eyes open.
you can see mr. fuji better in this picture.
cute black egg products.
not one to miss out, hello kitty gets in on the action.
I FINALLY TRACK DOWN A MISTER DONUT THAT HAS PON DE RINGS! and charles wanted to try a regular chocolate frosted donut, the idiot. pon de rings are where it's at, yo!
he actually was amazed with how they taste. there are simply no words to describe the goodness that is pon de ring. however, charles liked using "whaaatttt??" *take another bite* "wow, whhhaaatttt?" as descriptors.
last bit of donut for me!
another shrine of some sort or other.
i dunno, i just really like my expression in this picture.
okay, at this point, i have no idea what these things are. but this one was in asakusa.
eating some good rice in asakusa.
streets of asakusa.
red bean soft serve in my right hand, green tea soft serve in my left hand!
charles ate some weird looking fried thing because there were people lining up for it which he later declared was delicious.
all you can eat shabu shabu. true story: after dinner, we got back on the bus and asked the family in front of us (5 people) how much they ate. they were like.. oh yeah, we eat a lot. we had 5 plates! charles and i looked at each other and we were like.. um.. the two of us alone had 7 plates. we're fatties.
meat dumplings you cook yourself in the shabu pot.
this car has seats that turn outwards.. i don't know when i'd ever use a feature like that.
first subway station of the trip! we had to get back to the hotel (in shinjuku) ourselves from.. i forget where, but it starts with an o.
ramen museum!
the carpet at the ramen museum looked like fish cakes. haha.
the inside looked more like an old school amusement park than anything else. it was slightly eerie.
charles is ready for his bath.
i'm pretending to cook ramen. mmm.
a cup noodle water kettle!
charles was excited to find the base station store in harajuku. it's like.. a more-expensive-for-no-reason american apparel.
we were even more excited, however, to finally find the ever-elusive bape store! we actually stumbled upon a 50-70% off sale (and they never have sales) so we had to wait for an hour in the cold to shop for 20 minutes.
charles thinks it was worth it. someone tell him he looks ridiculous, please.
eating some handmade udon noodles. they were so yummy!
proudly showing off his new bape sweatshirt at the fish market.
that's a big fish head. it attracted us and many other diners.
charles gets hungry looking at the display.
preparing to eat some goooood sushi.
we only ordered 6 pieces of sushi because all we did that day was eat.. lol.
look! they have ketchup in a dipping container all ready to go in japan! i wish they had that here. i hate squeezing ketchup out of those little packets.
drinking some cream soda at the airport. bye bye japan!
