Chris & Abbie

Last Saturday we got to spend the day with a new friend, Shizuka. Shizuka is friends with Kitty. They knew each other when they were both living down-state. As we were coming to Japan, Kitty found out that Shizuka only lived about 40 minutes from us! So Saturday we finally met her and spent the day with her.

She took us to the town of Nikko, to see the Toshogu Shrine. The Shrine was so huge; there was building after building of beautiful Japanese architecture that was built in the 1600's. It was very interesting and sad at the same time to see all that had been built to worship false Gods.

This is Ashley, me and Shizuka in the town of Nikko. They had a beautiful bridge and waterfall. Turns out that Ashley, who is on our team, also knew Shizuka - what a small world!

The theme of the day was STAIRS - this is the first set of 100 stairs that we climbed throughout the day. We started to count at one point, but I never heard the final number.


Japanese Monks

People write their prayers on these papers and tie them to the post. Reminded me of the Wailing Wall in Israel.

The Five-Storied Pagoda

The original hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil monkeys.


These arches are put in front of every shrine in Japan.

There was lots of gold. This arch had dragons carved into it, and every dragon was different.

This cat is a national monument. I think it means "good luck", but we're still not sure why it's so famous.

Chris and the scary man

There were HUGE trees there. We wanted to know if they were from the 1600's too.

We had a great time and were excited to see a new part of Japan and make a new friend!