Dear Elliot, Emmala, and Eliza,

This is a picture of one of the trains we rode on today. We actually rode on two different trains, but we went the farthest on one like this. It is called Shinkansen. The one we rode on went as fast as 120 miles per hour. That is twice as fast as the cars go on the Freeway by Mount Vernon!

There are a lot of new experiences for us in Japan! Today we visited two temples and we saw ponds with Lotus plants and lots and lots of giant carp fish. Emmala would have loved to see the turtles that we saw in the ponds as well. I didn't get a picture of the turtles. There were just so many things to look at that I forgot to take pictures of some of the things.

We walked in a park that also has a zoo, but we didn't go in to see the animals because we didn't have that much time. One of the things about the Zoo in Ueno is that they have pandas that came from China. There are lots of signs in the stores that are near the zoo that feature pictures and cartoons of pandas. We even found two bakeries that have panda buns!

There is so much to see in Japan and we will have a lot of stories to tell you when we get back to your house.