Tokyo - Day 6

Our last full day in Japan was another gorgeous day.  Elizabeth arranged a whole bunch of bikes for us to take a ride to Showa park. It was such a great time and probably my favorite day overall in Japan. The blossoms were breathtaking on our ride to the park. 

 All of us on the way. There is a really cool bike in Japan called the mama-chutti. There is a seat in the front and in the back for young kids to sit in. They were all over the place in Japan and both Elizabeth and I drove one.

Outside Showa park entrance:

 Our first stop was at the Japanese garden. I loved it. It was so serene and quiet and beautiful. We visited the bonsai garden and I loved seeing all the different trees. It's a totally fascinating type of horticulture and some of the trees were hundreds of years old.

 The oldest tree in the garden was 350 years old

Having a bonsai lesson from the gardener/caretaker:

 Bonsai for everyone!

My favorite was this Japanese maple tree:

 Mini Kumquat tree:

 Dads + kids in this cool reflection pool:

 We took lots of pictures with the blossoms:

HUGE bundles of blossoms - kind of like a popcorn ball that would smell so sweet:

Allen and Addie on a tandem bike:

 After walking through the Japanese gardens we went to the kids play areas. The park had a huge area with these inflated marshmallow bouncers. It was so much fun. The kids had the best time. You can see how big the area was in this picture:

There were also a ton of fun slides:

It was a slide but the older kids treated it like a ski hill:

There was also a huge ropes course. It hurt the kids feet so they didn't do it for very long:

 We had a slew of tired kiddos by the time we rode back from the park. Here's Madeline, David and Emery completely crashed out. You can see the bike in this picture better. Elizabeth sat on the seat right in the middle.

After the park we changed clothes and had a quick dinner before we left for the airport. It was another complex trip getting from point A to point B. Two cars to the get us all to the bus station and then we rode a bus for an hour to get to the airport. We had an uneventful flight back to KSA and we all slept almost the entire way. We were tired after an eventful and fun week.

We loved our trip to Japan so much. It was wonderful to have so much time with Nathan and Elizabeth's family. Our kids got along wonderfully and just loved having time together. It seems like they enjoyed each other no matter what we were doing. It is the best to see cousins bonding. We also loved spending so much time together as adults. We had some really great conversations and were able to build our relationships. We feel like we scratched the surface of all Japan has to offer and can't wait to go back!

Tokyo - Day 5

Our 5th day in Tokyo was the only day it rained during our entire trip. What a blessing! Tokyo is about as rainy as Seattle so it is pretty much a miracle that it rained only once. It worked out perfectly because there were quite a few things we wanted to do indoors so we crammed them all into one day. 

We started the day at the 100 yen store. It's like a very glorified, huge $1 store but not nearly as trashy as the stores in the U.S. We spent a long time in the store and the kids loaded up on lots of fun trinkets and treats. I loved seeing all the different things you could buy there. They had awesome office supplies and travel items and we bought quite a bit. 

 There were definitely some interesting snacks. This is freeze dried shrimp:

 Freeze dried sardines:

 Dried seaweed with tempura:

We headed over to get conveyor belt sushi for lunch. Unfortunately a bunch of my pictures from lunch got deleted so this is all I have. We LOVED the sushi in Japan. And we tried some pretty crazy stuff and liked just about everything we tried! Our kids are great and adventurous eaters and they ate a ton of the sushi too. The little girls loved Udon noodle soup with tempura shrimp. The menu is all on computer screens and once you pick the pieces you want, they travel to you on a conveyor belt (missing pictures - boo). It was so much fun! The kids couldn't get enough of watching the belt deliver our food.

 You are charged by the plate and these are all our plates we ate. About 80 plates with 2 pieces each for our two families. It was seriously yummy!

After lunch we headed over to a karaoke place. Karaoke is huge in Japan and there are lots of places where you can go and rent out room for a few hours and sing to your hearts content. It was a blast! The place had unlimited drinks, we brought snacks and they had thousands of songs to choose from. The kids had so much fun singing so many of the popular songs (and a few of the same ones over and over again). It was loud but such a fun time.

After karaoke we went to the Japanese bathhouse - called Onsen. This is one thing we really wanted to do in Japan and it was a fabulous experience. The bathhouse is split by gender and each side has tons of different baths to get into. The waters are different temperatures and different scents, some indoors and some outside. You cleanse yourself really well before you get in. I don't know how to explain it well but it was amazing and just incredibly relaxing. We spent a few hours enjoying the baths (the guys had taken the littlest kids on their side so it was especially relaxing for the moms). It is probably my favorite experience of the entire trip and so memorable. My kids have talked about it non stop since we got back.

After the baths we headed back for a late night dinner (we ate at about midnight) prepared by the guys. Another great and full day.

An added note. Addison's teacher sent us an email about 2 weeks after we got back from the trip and said that Addison had written a story in class about our trip to Japan. She scanned it and sent it over to us. She had written about our time at the onsen and included several anatomically correct pictures (you onsen with nothing on). She said it is her favorite story she's had a student write in her 20 year teaching career. Super hilarious and we all about died laughing. It's a keeper for sure!

Tokyo-Day 4

One of the things I love about traveling is seeing the differences between cultures in everyday life. I love taking pictures of the random things we see that illustrate those differences. 

We saw lots of cars parked double-decker in residential areas. Space is a premium in Tokyo so this is how they get more cars in tight spaces.

There are vending machines ALL OVER Japan. We were told that there is 1 vending machine for every 5 people in the country. That amounts to millions of vending machines! Most of the machines sell drinks only. The kids loved getting different drinks to try every day. The only thing that was familiar to us was an occasional Coke. Most drinks were unique to Japan.

There are funny signs everywhere! We love this one on an elevator:

Carter and Allen loved this one and had to reenact the "Clash"

Our first stop of the morning was at the Sensoji temple which is the oldest Buddhist temple in Tokyo. This is the gateway to enter into the grounds and called "Thunder Gate." We love the iconic and huge lantern in the background

We didn't see too many people dressed in traditional Japanese clothing but saw a few at the market outside the temple. When I stopped these girls to get their pictures, they were so thrilled and loved talking to me about living in America. On a side note, I LOVED people watching in Japan, particularly seeing how the women dress. They dress immaculately in beautifully tailored clothes. It was such a treat to see! Beautiful bags, shoes, clothing and coats. I was in clothing heaven!

This is the 5 story pagoda inside the gates and it is actually a Shinto shrine.

The cleansing fountain before entering the shrine:

The ceiling of the shrine

Interior of the shrine where the monks were leading the people in prayer:

Inside the shrine was quite dark and most of my pictures did not turn out but it was so fascinating. There were lots of differences between the Japanese and Sri Lankan Buddhist shrines. A couple of the things we loved were getting to pick our fortunes from a huge array of drawers that correspond to a randomly drawn stick. There was also a pagoda filled with incense that when breathed in helped keep evil spirits away.

We loved visiting the shrine and seeing the beautiful and intricate art and religious beliefs in practice.

After visiting the shrine we boarded a boat to take a cruise down the Tokyo river. The river is lined with cherry trees and it was amazing to see the beautiful blossoms along the river. Our crew on the boat:

It was an overcast and chilly day but the blossoms were beautiful:

I loved seeing the replicas of traditional ships along the river:

One of the fun things about this trip is all of the modes of transportation we used to get around Tokyo. We rode in an airplane, took trains, busses, cabs, subways, car, rode on a boat and rode bikes all within the week we were there. Such a fun memory! Here we are crammed onto a bus to go to another stop. 

In front of the Hachiko statue in Tokyo. The story is that this dog waited for his owner for 9 years at this train station after he died. It was a really popular spot and lots of people were taking pictures. 

After a long day on our feet we headed back to the hotel for dinner and some swim time.

We caught a late night bus back to the air force base after 3 days in downtown Tokyo!