japan day 4.

sleeping the futons last night was great.  excellent futons.  and the bathing experience, superb.  for breakfast derek and i biked to the closest mcdonalds.  [everywhere else was fish for breakfast.]  it was super fun to ride the bikes, felt like everyone else riding to work.

our first stope for the day was the keiyomizu temple.  kyoto is known for it's "crafts" so we walked up the hill with the street lined with vendors.  beautiful fabric and fans and pottery.   they also sold specially crepes, octopus on a stick and normal ice cream cones.  i got one of those...  derek's new favorite love is pear fanta.  [why must all good drinks only be sold in japan?!?]

so at this shrine they have this thing called the "love stone."  basically you have to walk from one rock to the other with your eyes closed (about 50 meters away) for true love to find you quickly.  otherwise, you are pretty much out of luck.  we made addison do it, even though there were a million tourists in the way.  i think everyone was laughing at us [him], but he was successful.  come on, true love.

for lunch we headed to the train station.  yakisoba was our goal.  we found it, and it was delicious.  also, this was the funniest.  the boys were mocking me for wanting to look at this gift shop.  i got done quickly and was outside waiting.  i turned around and all three of them were giggling and trying on glasses...

we then headed over to the "philosopher's path."  let me tell you, we sure felt philosophical as derek told us all he's learned in philosophy this semester.... mostly, we just admired the beautiful path.  and we found one deserted temple.  maybe, it wasn't, but there was no one there and we felt like we were creepy in someone's backyard.  the sunset over kyoto was b.e.a.utiful.  

we hopped on a bus back home and stopped at the local circle k shop for dinner.  okay, it was really like ice cream bars, chocolate, and pringles for dinner.  oh, and they sell peanut butter sandwiches.  yes, with only peanut butter.  another round of bones, and mom finally got on the board.  whew.

today i learned: what is our culture? i just pondered that all day.  i felt like it was so obviously was japanese culture was.  what do people think when they come to america?  i hope we represent our culture well.

overalls are still cool.  [i think i'll say that anytime i see someone else wearing them.]

asians want pics with the blonde girl - i got my picture taken twice.  they also made me do double peace signs each time too.