Skyland?

So yesterday we went to a mall off of Blue Street. We actually went to go get something from the bakery in the basement. When we got in the elevator we started reading everything there was on the other floors. Tony wanted to go check out all of the kitchen items. We began heading up to the fifth floor where the kitchen section was when we read skyland on the top floor. We decided to head up there to see what it was. As the elevator doors opened I could tell we were going to be in trouble. It was a huge game and rides area outside on top of this mall. It was pretty cool but I knew that Vann was gonna go crazy. Sure enough I don't think that he could have gotten out of the stroller fast enough. He was off, from one ride to the other. Tony decided to ride the train ride with him. Of course he loved it and wanted more. We tried to get him to ride one of the bumper cars but for some reason it wasn't working right. I thought Tony was to big and weighing it down. We were both kind of disappointed considering the ride was two dollars. As we started to head off to a different ride an attendant rushed over to the car opened it up and gave us our money back. I was very great full. That is one bad thing about the language barrier, you cant always tell anyone what is wrong. We ended up riding a couple more rides and then decided it was time to leave before we spent to much money. Vann through a huge fit. The elevator could have come any faster, we needed to get out of there.

Tokyo's Black Market and The Ueno Zoo

Saturday night none of us slept good because Vann ended up catching a cold or something. I think that I managed to get 3 hours of sleep if that. Tony said that we weren't going to worry about going anywhere on Sunday since we all didn't sleep good and Vann didn't feel good. We ended up waking up at regular time and Vann was doing okay, not great but okay. I told Tony that we shouldn't waste the day since we only get two days to go sight seeing. We headed out towards Tokyo to go to the Black Market. It was suppose to be all the knock off brands. I was really excited but when we got there both Tony and I were not very impressed. Everything was still really expensive. As we walked down the street we stopped by a coffee shop to take a break and go over the map of the area. We knew that the Ueno Zoo was close so we headed off to find it. All of the cherry blossoms are just starting to come into bloom so the park was packed with people taking in the great view of all the trees. We made it down to the zoo and I could not believe how big the zoo really was. Very different then the other zoo we went to. This zoo was so big it was broken up into two parts. You could take a small monorail from one side of the park to the other. The line was pretty long so we ended up walking to the other side. It wasn't that far plus there was a lot to see on the walk down. Vann was really excited to see all of the different kinds of animals. This zoo had hippos and Vann went crazy. He tried to say hippo but he kept calling them pippos. In fact after we got down seeing the hippos he thought every animal that he say was a hippo. We had a great time despite our disappointment with the black market.

Tony and I thought that this sign was funny.

Kamakura and the Brass Buddha

Today we took the train to Kamakura to see the huge brass Buddha. I didn't realize how big it really was until we got there. The park area that we were in was gorgeous. Everything was very clean and orderly. After we walked around and took some pictures we went inside of the Buddha. That was pretty cool because it was completely hollow inside. I have some pictures that show the inside and the big hole that you see is where the head is. When we were finished at the park we went back into Kamakura to have lunch. Out of all of the places that we could have eaten in Japan we found ourselves at McDonald's of all places. The funny thing is there McDonald's is not the same as ours. I did get a regular cheese burger and Tony had a quarter pounder, but Vann had a chicken shaker. A chicken shaker is a chicken breast that you get in a bag and then you get a seasoning to put on it and shake it up. It was pretty good. Well I had to try it! There McDonald's also sells hot dogs and shrimp burgers. After lunch we walked up the street to this very long median in the middle of the road that was lined with cherry blossom tress on both sides and lanterns. It was really pretty. I would love to go back and see what it looks like at night with all of the lanterns lite. As we were walking down the walk way we noticed a guy video taping. I thought he was a news caster but then we saw a man and a women walking down the walk way towards us. We then realized that it was a wedding party. It was neat to see what men and women wear to there wedding. As they past we continued walking. When we got to the end of the walk way we entered another park. On the hill in front of us you could see a very large shrine/temple. On the walk towards the shrine there were food vendors on both sides of us. There tents are very different compared to ours back home. We had to stop and buy a candy coated grape. Yeah grape! They were really good, I am going to have to try to make them when I get home. We finally made it up to the temple, to see that there was a wedding taking place right before our eyes. I could not believe that there was a couple getting married right in front of anyone that wanted to watch. It was fun to see everyone all dressed up. We decided that we had done enough walking for the day so we headed for home.

On the way to the Buddha I found a rice cracker stand where they make rice crackers fresh. I couldn't pass it up considering I love rice crackers and have never had a fresh one. It was really good and really big.

Here is Tony touching the wall inside of the Buddha.

Look how big these rope sandals are.People buy incense to put in here for good luck

This tree looked like it had seen better days but it was still alive and even had a blossom on it.Here I am washing my hands with the holy water.

Here is one of the trains that we took to go see the Buddha.Tony and I thought that these dogs were dressed really funny. Not only did they have shirts and jeans on the female dog had a hair wrap in her hair.

Here is one of the wedding parties that we saw walking down the street.

Here are the vendors that we saw.Here is the other wedding party that we saw in the middle of there ceremony.