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After we said goodbye to our cousins, we went to our new house in Kyoto where we were going to be for the next two weeks.  We got to our new house and were so happy. We had two Japanese toilets that had heated seats and a lot of fun features.  There was also a tatami room. A tatami room had mats on the floor called tatami mats. They are made of rush straw grown in a certain part of Japan.  A tatami room is peaceful and quiet and is used for calm activities like tea ceremony or relaxing, sleeping, or meditating. You sleep on a futon mattress on top of the tatami floor.  It is very simple with hardly any objects or furniture. The windows are made out of shoji. They are wooden sliding windows with paper covering the wood. It was really nice. I slept in that room for two weeks and loved it.

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Today we got to Japan.  We flew from Taiwan to Osaka. Japan is made out of 3,000 islands in the shape of a seahorse.  Osaka is kind of in the middle. We took a train from the airport to our neighborhood near Tsuruhashi station.  We walked to our house and ate dinner. It was a long travel day and I couldn’t wait to go to bed. It was very quiet.  People in Japan are very respectful of other people so they are quiet. Even on the train nobody talks. It is very different than other places in the world that I have been.  

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Today we left Osaka. We got on a train and went to Kyoto.  It wasn’t the Shinkansen (bullet train), but it was still really fast, only 25 minutes.  When we got there, we went to our hotel and waited, then we walked over to our cousins Airbnb (Arun & Mila, Mila is 6 Arun is 6, they are twins). When we got there we went to dinner together at a Japanese family restaurant.  Then we went back to their Airbnb and played. It was SO GREAT to see my cousins!!

The next day we went to the Fushimi-Inari Shrine which has the famous Torii gates!!!!!!!  (Did you know that there are over 30,000 gates??!!!!!!) The shrine is at the base of the mountain and has a lot of smaller shrines along the trails in the mountain.  We hiked up the mountain and stopped at some shrines. I had a fun time exploring freely with my cousins. Everybody comes to this area this time of year because of the changes in the colors of the leaves on all of the different kinds of trees that grow here.  The colors are really beautiful in the mountains and streets in Kyoto, like the bright yellow leaves of the ginkgo trees and the bright red of the Japanese maples. There are a lot of orange and green leaves too. It is really pretty. We also saw some little waterfalls and so much beautiful nature.  

After visiting the shrine we walked down the mountain and stopped for lunch at a ramen place.  Then we walked to the train station and went to Nishiki Market. It is a huge market with all kinds of different stores, stands and goods.  The most popular thing I saw there were mochi balls on a stick with hot white and orange and black cream over them. Nishiki is also a great place for shopping for handmade goods and souvenirs.  We have been there many times now.    

After Nishiki Market we walked along the Kamo river.  It is the main river in Kyoto. There are a lot of little rivers in Kyoto because it is surrounded by mountains on three sides and all the water flows down into the city.  No wonder the water here is so fresh!! And we can drink it right out of the tap which is SOOOOOOOOOOOOO nice since we couldn’t do that since Lucca. We walked to our cousins house and played again.

Today we woke up at our cousins house and mom and dad came over and we all went to the “Golden Temple”.  We took a bus to get there. It is really called Kinkaku-ji Temple but it is known as the Golden Temple because it is painted gold.  Then we went to Anna and my favorite restaurant…KURA!!! It is the same one as in Osaka and as our favorite in Torrance. It’s a conveyor belt sushi place with slots for the plates.  When you put in 20 plates, a ball comes out of a machine at your table and it has a prize in it. We got a prize! It was a Star Wars keychain!

Then we went to Arashiyama.  It is a part of Kyoto that has a lot of nature.  There is a big bridge over a river that we needed to cross before we got to the mountain.  Then we hiked up to a cool monkey area. They were SNOW MONKEYS!!!!! And there were BABIES!!  The snow monkeys were really aggressive except for the babies. The rules were you couldn’t pet them and you couldn’t crouch down and take a picture of them or they may attack you.  You have to keep your distance and give them space to move around you. It was fun.  

Arashiyama also had a bamboo forest that we visited.  There are no Giant Pandas there because they are not native to Japan.  Those are only in the wild in China. But the giant bamboo forest was really awesome because there were so many and all around you was green and it was so quiet.  

The next day we were a little sad because our cousins were leaving to go back to Tokyo and then back to Chicago.  We met them at the park near our new house and said goodbye. I was sad to see them go, but I knew I would see them again in two and a half weeks in Chicago after we get back from our trip.

Taiwan is awesome!!  We are in Taipei, which is the capital of the country.  It feels more modern and clean here than anywhere I’ve been in a while.  We went to the market and had a little bit of a hard time because Google Translate doesn’t work very well with Chinese.  People speak Mandarin here and only some young people speak English. We found some some snacks and got rice and eggs. You don’t need a lot of groceries here because there are lot of street markets and restaurants.  In fact, a lot of people don’t have kitchens in their Taipei apartments at all because eating outside of your home is very common here because there are SO MANY restaurants and food stands. Then we went to the park and played for a while and then went home to our apartment.  

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Today we got to Krabi.  It was a pretty short flight, only two hours. We took a taxi from the airport and drove into the jungle.  The car was really cool!!! It had rainbow lights on the ceiling and was cool because it was dark outside.  When we got to Ao Nang we got out of the car and walked up a ramp and turned right to our house! Our house was cool!! It had 2 big bedrooms, a kitchen and a nice bench instead of a couch.   We went to dinner at the resort restaurant and we were the only ones there! Then a German family came and sat next to us. After that we went back to our house and fell asleep.  

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Off to Southeast Asia

The last mornig in Rome, we woke up and went to the airport.  We went through security and to the lounge and I ate meringues and pasta. Then we got on the airplane and it was awesome.  

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