We had a great sendoff in Beijing before heading to Japan. The night before we left, friends we met in Yangshuo, Ben and Tammy, who live in Beijing took us out to dinner. We tried many new foods including stinky tofu, screw, dragon beans, salted duck, brown sugar lotus root and lily and yam congee. It was a great way to end our visit to China as once again it showed us that there are some really wonderful people around the world that will do great things for you on a moments notice.

We had an early morning flight the next day and were greeted with a quite a surprise, 6 inches of snow had fallen in Beijing. This is highly unusual and fortunately for us did not impede us in getting to the airport and on Delta flight 618 bound for Tokyo. There was a delay on the flight, but we were more than ok with that as we had a full catalog of movies to watch so we dug in. I watched Lincoln and half of Argo and Amy took in Life of Pi along with Silver Linings Playbook.

It was quite exciting landing in Japan. Immediately we saw such meticulousness and attention to detail in all things. We were easily directed to our train and made sure we made the right changes. And of course bowing ensued. We took the train about two hours north to our final destination of Nikko. A lovely mountain town with a large national park outside the megalopisis of Tokyo.

For the first time in weeks the air was clean, the sky was really blue and there were beer vending machines to be found. A welcome site to our eyes. We're staying at the quaint and cozy Nikko Lodge. It reminds me of my friend EZ's house, no shoes and a cool yet comfortable thermostat set to 66.

While here the girls are getting caught up on school work and we're taking in the shrines all around Nikko National Park. Yesterday, Nina and I have spied the Misty Mountain overlooking Kirifuri Falls. Today we take a bus and trek to check out the waterfalls surrounding Lake Chuzenji. We've managed time to squeeze in checking our NCAA brackets and watch an episode of Breaking Bad.

Tomorrow morning we take a train to Toyko and meet up with some good friends who are flying in to party with us in Tokyo and Kyoto. We'll also be taking the bullet train to Hiroshima for the day. Japan rocks!

AG aka IML