Perfecting the art of the Self-Portrait

In 24 hours we will be boarding a plane for Los Angeles, California, and will arrive at our destination seven hours before we left.

That is WEIRD.

I have so many more stories and pictures I could share, and I would, but I'd hate for you all to get bored and stop reading/commenting ...

(PS- Thanks to those who did finally comment! You get prizes.)

(Just kidding.)

(But Fig, we really are sending you a prize when we get home. Sorry it has taken soooooo long.)

Anyway, do you have thoughts on that?

Slice said I had to post these pictures; he was angry that I wouldn't be serious.

We spent the first half of this week in Yamagata, a rural northwestern place that was mostly cold and rainy. Still we visited the Prefecture Museum - where we ran into a Japanese model photoshoot - the Kaminoyama Castle, also a museum, and an old Samurai house. The rest of the time was spent in the Niwas' house, where we ate good food and talked all night.

Once I had a long Skype conference call with my four older siblings and their spouses; that was really fun.

Kaminoyama from the top of the Castle

Me arguing with Slice over how to hold chopsticks.

The Niwas were wonderful to us, and we had to leave too soon. We spent two nights in the Tokyo temple patron housing (NO LUXURY there. Coughing, moaning roommates who turned on lights and left, in the middle of the night + almost no padding on wooden bunkbeds + pillows made of strange beans = the worst night EVER. But it was cheap.), went to the temple again, and visited the Tokyo Tower which, they tell you over and over, is taller (and lighter!) than the Eiffel Tower. You can see all of Tokyo from the top ... if there even is an "all of Tokyo."

Seriously, at the top of the tower I stared and stared and stared. Tokyo is ten times bigger than the biggest city you have ever imagined. Almost 13 million people! Its vastness is incomprehensible to a Utah girl like me.

Yesterday we met up with Takakusagi Choro, Slice's trainer, and he took us to Chinatown for a bit. We walked up and down the streets, ate some butaman, and came back to his house to stay.

The couple has a darling baby daughter, almost a month old, and Slice can't stay away from her. He's threatened to kidnap her several times.

That's a good sign, right?