Osaka Museum of Natural History.

We visited this museum last month & then again this past Sunday. It's right next to the stadium that Tyler had a couple of his games at so it was really convenient for us. It was full of bugs, ancient fish, shrubbery, skeletal remains of dinosaurs/extinct animals, and lots of Japanese descriptions. They handed me a pamphlet when I walked in with a little bit of English on it, pretty much only what each room was called. And some of the plaques had English writing on it. Obviously, Drey's favorite room was the one with the dinosaurs in it. He was a little upset that they didn't have a full blown T-Rex & they only had a head. He said i guess we'll just come back when they find one. Haha... I guess so buddy.

On the other side, they have a huge indoor/outdoor botanical garden. It's just a giant park with giant plants and gorgeous flowers. We didn't go inside their building because I couldn't bribe Drey into it, but the outdoor exhibits were so pretty. Japan is such a beautiful place. You have to look through the windows of the concrete jungle to find them, but that's where you'll find the natural gems. And it's amazing. 

ps. i am such a nerd and love everything history. museums are my shit, you guys. i love them.

kyoto - according to my iphone.

We visited a beautiful handful of temples in Kyoto this day. 

Normally I'd have a 1000+ pictures to sort through/edit to share with you guys, but I didn't check my dslr battery before we left & turns out, it was d e a d. I was actually okay with that though because I got to experience the moments rather than try to capture them on my camera. However, I did snag a few from my iPhone. Holler.

but first, hogwarts.

you guys should know by now that ty took me to universal studios japan for my birthday. i've been talking about it on here for like weeks and then i blew up insta & snapchat when we got there. we were really excited to take drey to jurassic park, the boy is obsessed. however, i have been itching! (and secretly so has ty)  to go to the wizarding world of harry potter. and let me just tell you, it was freaking awesome.

so before you can actually go into the harry potter world, you have to get a ticket for a set time. we figure so it helps with the congestion, but regardless, it was a cluster of asians. so many people! most of them were dressed up, too. it was easy to pretend i was really there ;-)

first thing we did was get butterbeer and it was delicious. obvi. i 'ooooed' & 'awwed' at how awesome life was while drinking harry's favorite drink. we walked around diagon alley for a bit, going into a couple stores like ollivander's! shelves & shelves of wands. i saw people with armloads of wand boxes waiting to checkout. one girl had a huge bag full of them and tyler said "you think we should tell her the wands aren't real?" haha.. seriously though. 

then we did the castle walk. *cue gasp* soooo cool! it was dark, gloomy, talking pictures, we went through the griffyndor dorm entrance complete with sassy portrait, dumbledoors office, snapes classroom, hagrid's little home, the greenhouse... the whole time i was like whaaaa?!  i want to live there. for realz.

afterwards we had 2 choices. stand in line for 2.5+ hours for the greatest freakin' ride we'd ever get to go on OR split up, i'd take drey on flight of the hippogriff & tyler would stand in line at honeydukes (which had about an hour wait to just go inside). we chose the latter. I took drey on the hippogriff coaster & ty got a spot in honeydukes line. we made it back to tyler just before he went inside so drey weaseled his way over to him and got to go inside. $40 later they came out with a box of bertie bott's every flavor beans, chocolate mint frogs, fudge flies & 2 "swally-pops". 

be jealous.

downtown osaka in photo's.