If you want to see Japan...

Then this is the post for you, my friend!

Oh, Japan; It's been too long since I've posted any pictures of your wonderful territory. I picked a few of my favourites out of nearly 500 photos. I tried to keep them in order in accordance to events. Enjoy!

I was extremely fond of walking around and snapping pictures of people with reckless abandon.

I wanted to get a feel for what this country was all about and that includes its people.

I also was really curious about how everyday folk dress for school/work/etc.

Here are some school kids that I snagged a shot of on our first day.

Aw. Father and I. I feel like we barely have any pictures of us together, so I thought this was nice. This is just after I took the picture of the school kids above. We were heading to lunch.

I loved their walk signs! Each time I said "DICK TRACY! YOU MAY WALK NOW!"

How was I not going to post this?? This was in Machida.

Ah. This made me so happy. It was official; I was in Harajuku and needed a marker of it.

This was the one place I wanted to be. A huge motivator (besides my family, of course) was knowing that Harajuku would be there for me to float around while wearing something absolutely bonkers.

This is a picture of me and my sister-in-law, Miyuki.

We were trekin along in Harajuku and decided to cozy up and get a picture of us :)

This was the Oriental Bazaar/Dior right next door.

This was along the streets of Harajuku which reminded me of Michigan Ave/State Street...except more ritzy for sure. And CLEANER.

An outfit that was along the main streets of Harajuku.

Clearly you can see why I loved it here.

Also in Harajuku. They are all looking at my camera and they all looked kinda spooked out.

I told you I was a crazy street picture taker.

My brother and I on the train coming back from Machida.

I have my matcha green tea in hand.

We went to Kamakura to see the big Buddha! This was really neat!

Us in front of Buddha.

My big bow headband was one of my favourite purchases, along with my tail.

This was where the real tradition kicked in.

We stayed on an Army base for the majority of the trip on Camp Zama

We went upto Harkone to stay in this awesome hotel.

It was very, very traditional and it was great to have the technology gone for awhile.

What a beautiful place!!

My bed for the night! I wanted to be close to the window and these beds were SO comfy.

The room was actually quite large. There was a full "sitting" dining room, two bathrooms, a washroom, a sitting area, and two balconies. After our large dinner (some pictures below) my brother and sister-in-law came up to the room (after my dad had gone to bed) and we stayed up late talking. I loved this night so much. I can picture myself in the room perfectly.

This hotel/atmosphere will most likely be something I'll never experience again.

Our view from the balcony. I still feel so lucky.

Oh, Japan cuisine--you were certainly tricky!

(I lost a lot of weight) heh.

Part of the same dinner.

And still the same course. I actually find myself CRAVING this.

You take that raw beef and they give you some boiling water and you pop that in there...

WOW. It was perfection.

To know how big this dinner really was....

There were 7 of us (one baby)

Wow. Can you tell how happy I am that they had brought rice along with our 12+ course meal?!

I felt extremely awful for not being an adventurous eater, but there is only so much raw ::insert anything with fins here:: I can gnaw on. So yeah, there I am with my beloved rice!

This was the washroom. Bathrooms are not in the same area.

What I thought was hilarious was that EVERYthing in this room was in Japanese.

Except the fixtures were in French. Ha.

This was the Hot Spring. Hot water from the mountain flows into this tub.

You can add more water to it, but it is almost always hot and full.

You also have to shower before you get in here, because, well, the water doesn't really drain.

So ya gotta get scrubby before hoppin in the spring.

This was a rose outside of our hotel. This is kinda artsy, right?

We got on the ropeway the next day. This was such a groovy time. We went passed Mt. Fuji and took it to Lake Ashinoko,

View from inside!

This was a huge tour ship that took us across the lake to our destination where we would be having lunch.

View from the ship. What a beautiful sight.

I took some pictures of this, but really wanted to soak it in.

This is a picture of my dad and I on the boat. This picture is so funny to me because I feel like it sums up our relationship. I probably made some "wise ass" remark and my dad is giving me his famous "what the hell did you just say?" look. It's hilarious. You'd have to know our dynamic to get it, I suppose.

This was on the last day. Miyuki and I went out shopping together since I didn't really have a chance to shop very much when I was there (believe it or not).

This bathroom was so cool! I had no problem modeling for it.

We were so lucky to have seen a dance competition on our last day there in Machida!

I was so excited and wanted to run out there, grab a fan, and do a lil jig myself!

I hope these photos gave you a good taste of Japan. Again, I wanted to capture so many aspects of the country. I wanted to post so much more, but it would be getting a little ridiculous. What an amazing experience. I still can't believe it. It seems like it happened so quick (except that damn suck-the-life-out-of-you flight) I miss it so much and I miss the people that reside there. Japan is efficient and definitely holds a certain funk to it. If you want to see anything else or anything specific I might have, email me! Tessaabee@gmail.com

-Tessa