China and JAPAN

(Side note: I'm posting this in my pajamas after waking up from night SIX of the GenArt Film Festival - it's been amazing so far - really really impressed with the caliber - hopefully will catch up enough to post about it soon!)

Whew! So...after the whirlwind of Simply Stylist and a brief escape to Palm Springs, I hopped on another plane and took off to Japan! Spent a good week there romping around Kyoto, Okayama, and the Southern Japanese countryside and had a perfectly splendid time! So many different kinds of food and art and scenery and behaviors...it was a lot to take in. I didn't manage to actually pick up more than a word or two of Japanese (though Nate valiantly tried and tried again to teach me), but the trip was a nice dip into a drastically different culture that I appreciated wholeheartedly. That and traveling with Nate is like traveling with a modern Indiana Jones...oh the adventures...

And China? Well, that happened mostly by accident. After a last minute re-scheduling of my flights left me stranded in Beijing for 10 hours, I hired a car and went to the Great Wall of China (might as well, right?). It was AMAZING and so worth it. I could have picked better shoes though...

Enjoy :)

 Rickety lift up to the wall...

Make-shift bobsled to get down! (and yes, I did it)

 My guide took me to this beautiful factory where craftsmen make traditional Chinese cloisonne

 Gorgeous.

Then hopped back on the plane and off to KYOTO!

 I'm in love with the colors of this wood paneling...

 This tiny, smiling ball of energy pulled me and Nate UPHILL in a rickshaw for 20 mins. We were speechless.

 This is probably the most bizarre placement of a cultural reference I've ever seen. Sedona? In Japan? Really??

 Way cool creepy night temple. Definitely climbed up it. Definitely weren't supposed to.

Bus to Okayama...

Japanese kids are soooo cute!

The coast of Japan is flanked by hundreds of tiny islands. Spent an amazing day romping around one of them: Naoshima. Felt like a James Bond movie...

 

 Frog buoys...

 

 Feast back home in the little town of Niimi.

 Tiny, ramshackle karaoke bar. Ridiculous night...

 Okayama again for a day on my own...

Spent a day at Nate's school, meeting the kids he teaches. Some of the sweetest, most amazing young smiles I've seen in a very long time. I can't speak ANY Japanese, but their English was surprisingly good and they were so welcoming and enthusiastic that I was stuck smiling about it for at least 24 hours afterward.

 Last night in Niimi...

(thanks, Nate, for about half of these pictures!)

Perfect trip. Japan is such an intriguing, interesting and drastically different county. It was an honor to get a chance to explore those differences for a week and get to know some of the local culture of a world I had never really been exposed to before. Nate signed his contract for at least another year. I'm definitely contemplating going back...