All I Can Do Is Smile c: : Our 7 Day Trip: Days 3, 4, and 5

After our adventures in Hiroshima... We made our way to the Wada's house. The Wadas lived down the street from my family in Fishers, IN when I was younger. I loved going over to their house and playing with their daughter, Jumi, and her Japanese toys. I have always loved Japanese culture so it was so fun having them close when I was a kid.

The Wadas took us to a traditional Japanese Onsen (or bath house). It was so fun to sit in the hot pools of mineral water and relax. I definitely fell in love with onsen, similar to how AJ loves sauna because of his time in Finland.

On Wednesday we woke up and decided to go to Kyoto. My dad served part of his mission in Kyoto and so I was really excited to see what he saw and enjoy the city. When we got there we decided to walk because the tour guides told us it is a "walking city." Boy did they lie! The map didn't have a distance gauge and so we were guessing based on blocks. Unfortunately we didn't know that the blocks in Kyoto are unnaturally large due to the number of old shrines and temples. It took us 1 hour to walk somewhere we thought was 20 minutes away! Dehydrated and exhausted we finally made it to the 1,000 Year Old Temple.

AJ and I took a picture with the Japanese god of good couples... Perfect fit!

This temple was beautiful and very large. It was really busy with tons of people touring and worshipping. It made me a little sad that the people trying to worship were consistently interrupted by groups of teenagers shouting what must have been the English equivalent of, "dude check this out!" It made me so grateful for how sacred LDS temples are and how reverently we worship there.

Here are some pics of other cool things we saw::

Traditional Geisha!

Take a look in the upper right corner... My face isn't funny without reason c:

I just love this man!

Pagodas are so beautiful.

When we were done walking around the temple grounds, we decided to head home. It was incredibly hot in Kyoto and we figured we would come back the next day and tour some more popular places. We stopped for food (I got the nastiest curry I had ever tasted) and started on our way home.

When we made it to the Osaka station (30 minutes away from the Wada's house) I started to feel really sick. I tried to drink water and relax but it didn't help. I got sooooo sick. Once I felt a little better we decided to try to tough out the train ride. Ps, nausea and trains do not mix well. We had to stop every station so I could throw up. Gross! Finally, on our last stretch of train ride, I threw up in the bag AJ had given me. Some people on the train moved away as quickly as possible, but one grandma came over to me and patted my back to help me feel better. She was such a nice lady and she made me feel like everything would be alright. Even though I was in another country, sick and exhausted... Everything would be fine. I love her for that.

Once a grandma, always a grandma!

Thursday and Friday consisted of me laying in my temporary bedroom at the Wada's house and only coming out once for dinner. Otherwise AJ catered to me... Water, brothy soup, and Aquarius (the equivalent to Gatorade). Finally I started to feel better!