Tokyo! WHAT??

Well a lot has happened since the beginning of November, and I really have no clue where to start!

Paul is officially done with the long distance trips to Japan. It's amazing. It was a great opportunity, but I am overjoyed to have him (mostly) back in Seattle with me.

Many know this, but I was able to alt-travel to Tokyo to be with him for Thanksgiving! It was so great to see so many beautiful shrines and temples, and to be surrounded with the Japanese culture.

It's a place that means a lot to Paul. He served a 2 year Latter-day Saint mission right there in Tokyo, and worked there this year for about 4 months. The very best part of visiting was watching Paul speak and interact with the Japanese people. Despite Paul's top-notch translating, I was still a bit confused about what everyone was talking about :) Not to mention all of the subway systems, trains, and characters in the writing and whatnot. Good thing I didn't go by myself!! But everyone was so kind and friendly. It was definitely a memorable trip, and one I'm glad we were able to experience together. Here are just a few actually quite a few pictures. (Sorry in advance for the wide variety of photo sizes, some were super grainy and that seemed to help! haha)

so excited about business class OJ!!

& even more excited about business class ICE CREAM!

view of the city at sunset- beautiful!

Paul was a shabu shabu regular & they LOVE him haha

shabu shabu is hands down our fave

Harajuku (ie tween girl fashion/ hello kitty epicenter)

we checked out Tokyo Disney Sea!

Midway Mania had about a 3 hr wait. Crazytown.

our giggly best buds we met on a cramped Small World boat ride

visiting the Imperial Palace Gardens

more Imperial Palace Gardens. So beautiful.

maybe my favorite site- the famous Meiji Shrine

people write on these wooden blocks (a type of prayer roll)

one of the Meiji Shrine welcome gates

Paul's Mission Home

the Tokyo LDS Temple!

one more of the actual temple.

last but not least...TOKYO TOILETS! haha!

Whew! Very impressed with anyone who made it through all those...it was an action-packed 4.5 days!

(More to come on other memorable happenings of December & January now that things have settled a bit)