Christmas


"choo choo!" christmas afternoon


on the train to santa fe, 12/24


12/23/08-- daddy's birthday


still jetlagged in early december -- sleeping on the futon








unwrapping all the ornaments

DFW airport with trunki


Yokohama Pier with Yokohama in the background


Yokohama Pier


cooking teppanyaki with Yusuke and Sayaka. This pancake had cabbage shrimp and cheese in it, topped with mayo and bonito flakes. it was delicious


even the construction in Tokyo was beautiful


pizza with eleri's new friend Yuse


another nighttime shot, this time in Akihabara "electric town"


trying on boots at Zara in Tokyo

more animals

Eleri's meal at the wedding reception. Unfortunately she didn't eat much, as she was asleep for most of the party.


a small side street in Tokyo. Gloriously bright and busy. We couldn't get enough of the bright lights. email us if you want more photos, we have a ton....


lost in translation....


here's eleri on the shinkansen. she got a whopper bruise on her cheek by jumping off this point and landing with her face on the neighboring armrest-- oops.





our bedroom, "japanese style" in the machiya in kyoto. If anyone is travelling to kyoto and wants to stay in one of these: Iori


this was one of the first temple like buildings we visited, the Imperial Palace in Kyoto. This particular building has a crane room and a tiger room. we peeked inside the tiger room with Eleri and from then on, any temple we saw was a "rowr house", or tiger house -- approached with much excitement. She even learned the proper bowing and clapping sequence to perform in front of the temple and the fun of throwing money in the little box.


temple hopping in Kyoto


"I've got to have that, " Sam and Eleri simultaneously


the bamboo path in Kyoto


in the foreground is a persimmon tree, a very popular, in-season fruit


the stairs in our machiya in Kyoto

Here's photos from our trip to Japan. This set goes to Yusuke and Sayaka's wedding which was on 11/16. We left ABQ at 7am on 11/12 and arrived in Tokyo at 5pm on 11/13
So you can get the idea that we have a million pictures. We got home on 11/30 and are all 3 just starting to recover from the jet lag. I'll try and post these in some installments, and for those of you on facebook, there's some there too.







these 2 in the DFW airport


Eleri saw this in the safety manual on the plane and made pig noises. Genius.


riding the tokyo subway











dinner at yusuke's parents' house with his sister Tomoko. we were very honored to stay with them our first two nights in japan


Checking out the totally cool BAPE store


sharing a crepe with daddy in shibuya


the bride and groom and the lowly commoners

todays brief post brought to you from the tiny computer outpost at the Benesse Oval. check it out online, you:ll have to look yourself. Naoshima Island, Benesse House, Oval, Tadao Ando. Very serene and beautiful, we stayed 2 nights in the Ando designed Benesse House Park Hotel. Eleri status:napping, Sam status:photo snapping, Megan status:blogging. tomorrow back to tokyo for the rest of the trip, and home on 11/30, only 25 minutes after we leave Japan :-)
love to all, pictures soon.

awake in kyoto

it's 5:30am and we've been up for 2 hours with crying eleri. trying to decide if its jetlag, or
just waking up in the night like she was doing @ home. japan is
fantastic & we're having a blast. hopefully we'll be able to sleep
through the night again soon....

find "alone in Kyoto" by Air and give it a listen

moab