silver week

Warning: This post is super long! I did more in five days of vacation than I’ve done in 2.5 weeks at school. (:

The first half of this week was part of a break called Silver Week, which contains Respect for the Aged Day (Sept. 21) and the Autumn Equinox (Sept. 23), both of which are national holidays. Silver Week was celebrated this year from Sept. 19 – 23, meaning I got a rare five day weekend! I know I haven’t been working very long at all (only a couple weeks), but it was still wonderful to get a break. One of my Japanese friends, Natsumi, invited me to go with her to Kyoto and her hometown in Wakayama, which I gladly accepted. Natsumi and I met in high school through an exchange program that our schools have been doing for many years now. During Silver Week we met up with a lot of other friends from her year of the exchange program, which was great! It’s really nice to see that the TJ-Chiben program extends so much farther than just one year of high school.

The majority of this post is going to be pictures, because nothing I write is going to do the beauty of Kyoto any justice. On Friday the 18th (my sister Emma’s birthday!), Natsumi and I took a late night shinkansen (bullet train) down to Kyoto. It only took two hours and 15 minutes, which was even faster than I had anticipated. We spent the night at our friend Mami’s apartment before exploring together the next day.