japan day 1.

our first stop in japan was finding a church to go to.  a few subways, a taxi, and a walk with all our luggage finally got us there.  the church building was basically connected to the tokyo temple.  pretty neat.  luckily, it was all in english.  church was amazing. the gospel blesses people all over the world.

we went get some food afterwards.  we couldn't figure out what anything was and I giggled the entire time.  i attempted the eel and octopus, but that doesn't mean i like it.

it was finally time to try to find our hotel.  after walking around like crazy people and attempting to ask in japanese where to go, a young team of baseball players and their coach decided to help us out.  they helped us out so much, that their coach actually walked us to where we needed to go.  nicest people ever.  oh, and there are drink vending machines on literally every corner.

we stayed at an old man named tahaki-san's place.  when we got there we laughed so so hard.  like hysterical.  it was probably one of the sketchiest places we've ever stayed.  the best comment was addison when he said, "there were pictures online and we still chose this place?!?"  we decided to pretend like we were camping.

after finding pizza for dinner we went back to explore the city. our first stop was at the meiji temple.  it was this fancy old shrine and buddhist temple.  lots of people still get married here.  it was beautiful.  and pretty cold.

next we were told that shinjuku was a must see.  it is quite the place. so so many people and things and just craziness.  at the subway station it has probably one of the world's biggest markets.  they sell everything!  this is typical tokyo - bright lights, people, and colorful.  it also has the biggest crosswalk i've ever seen.

today i learned: japanese people are probably some of the kindest in the world.  being walked all the way to our hotel.  helpful people, even through our communication fails.  and being bowed to everywhere we go.  i'm loving japan already.