Australia - by Katie

Katie was inspired by her success in blogging about our trip to Guam and kept a written account of our trip to Australia. I carefully collected and kept all of her various scraps of paper, promising to put them in the blog when we got home. Once we were back, I promptly lost them. I just rediscovered them today, so I'm finally keeping my promise.

December 20th

I love Australia! I like being able to swim. I have only been to one place I like more.

Meeting Grandpa at the Cairnes Airport

Swimming in the pool, because the ocean was full of jelly fish and mating crocodiles!

Holding a Koala

On the Snorkeling boat with some of our souvenirs

Katie was much to cool to put on one of these outfits!

Dec. 25th

It is summer in Australia. It seems weird to have Christmas in the summertime. I miss having Christmas in Cincinnati.

Dec. 28th

I am loving Australia! Sometimes I was a little whiny, okay a lot whiny, but I like it. Anyway I won't let silly things ruin my vacation. Doesn't that sound like a good idea? I am getting close to Kangaroo Island.

The baby seals were my favorite!

The joey was adorable

This is in Adelaide, the city near Kangaroo Island. Laura was just pretending to be pinched.

I lost my very first tooth!

Dec. 29th

Wow! Kangaroo Island wasn't what I expected. You would be surprised too!

Either Katie lost interest at that point or I've just lost the rest of her notes. Her favorite parts of the rest of the trip were watching the fireworks in Sydney on New Year's Eve and chasing the waves on the Gold Coast.

The ferry boats we took back and forth across Sydney Harbor

Trying on hats on the Manly Beach Boardwalk

Eating dinner while we waited for the fireworks to start

Finally!!

Playing on Bondi Beach on New Year's Day

Katie desperately wanted to go here, but we never made it. Maybe on our next trip!

Hanging on to dad so that the waves wouldn't knock her over

Being buried alive!

Fall Vacation in Guam - Reflections from Katie

Last week our kids had fall break from school. Our original plan was to travel all over China for 9 days. Unfortunately, both Laura and Nathan came down with mycoplasma pneumonia the week before. The illness wasn't too bad, a low grade fever and a cough, but the fever lasted for 10 days. We didn't feel comfortable bringing sick kids on a whirlwind tour of China, so we cancelled the trip. By Tuesday of that week, both kids were fine however.

We managed to find cheap fares to the island of Guam, a U.S. territory that is only about a 3.5 hour flight away from us. In addition to a huge military base, it is also a beach resort. We found it a little more grimy than we're used to, but had a great time playing in the water, despite being rained on for about 30% of our 4 days there.

Katie decided to keep a journal while we were there. I thought her perspective of the trip was a lot more interesting than mine!

First Night - Stuck sleeping in the bed with Nathan after being in a rain storm. Mom and dad are talking too loud next door and the door that leads into mom and dad's room locks when ever you close it.


Next Day - All day we swam. For dinner we ate at the California Pizza Kitchen. Our food was free. We got ice cream. I was so full I couldn't eat it all.


The Following Night - It's hard to decide what to eat for dinner and it is hard to breathe because Nathan keeps farting. Today we at last went to the beach. Still the beach was boring. It was better than being stuck inside all day though.


Our Final Morning - Time for us to go for a walk. I love walks but first we have to watch a boring show.

Shiawase-no-mura

For the last 2 years, Matt has been trying to convince the family to spend a day at Shiawase-no-mura "Village of Happiness". Last weekend we finally made it!

According to the brochure:
Shiawase-no-mura is a comprehensive welfare complex equipped with a variety of integrated facilities designed to support independent living for the disabled and the elderly, and their participation in society, while also serving as a meeting place for all Kobe citizens to deepen mutual understanding and work together to create a society in which everyone can lead a full life.


It is a huge facility with 32 different activity areas like golf, horseback riding, fields for various sports, hiking trails, etc. They also have living facilities for handicapped and elderly on the premises. It's actually kind of a cool concept. The Japanese are much more focused on inclusion of the handicapped and elderly in society than we are in the U.S.


We parked the car and went on a short hike to the recreation center. When we got there, we had to make our through an obstacle course and down the hill to get to the playground. It seemed a bit much for a place that was supposed to be handicapped accessible but we realized later that we'd come in the back entrance. Yet another pitfall of being illiterate. We spent the afternoon at the playground. Before we left we drove through the rest of the park. We were very impressed with the size and extent of the facility. Our pictures are all from the playground, which give you an idea of just how huge the place was!

Missing Matt

Tonight I miss my husband.

Expat life has been very good to us. The kids are going to a top-notch private school. We've traveled to exotic destinations. We haven't had the stress and heartache of those at home facing a scary job market. 


However, it also has its downsides. We're far away from family and friends. We can't be there during a crisis. We miss the details of our family and friends lives.


This year, we've also dealt with distance from one another. Not just emotional or intellectual, but 7,000 miles of physical distance. In the last 12 weeks, we've only spent 18 days together. Skype is an amazing invention but it just isn't quite the same. 


I miss Matt. I want to talk to him for longer than a few minutes here or there.  I want to share the boring details of my day with him (not just the highlights) and things like the cleanup of the kitchen, making school lunches, and putting the kids to bed.


We've stayed busy with homework, play dates, and birthday celebrations. I look forward to little things like coffee at Tully's, lunch with friends and even to catching up on old episodes of "True Blood" he's already seen.

I've gotten myself involved in a few projects, set some goals, and done the kinds of things I’m supposed to do to make the time go faster.  To help myself forget that I miss him. 

It doesn't really work. I still miss him.  I want the coffee he pours me each morning, his daily goodbye kiss  and seeing his smile as I relate the kids' latest adventures.  I still want snuggle on the couch at the end of the day and feel his warm body next to me at night.

I want to laugh with him.  I want to have him listen while I  whine.  I want to see him smile when Katie rushes to him yelling "Daddy!" as he arrives home, and I want to share  the exhaustion and anxiety that comes along with the job of parenting too.

I miss him. 

Just one more week until we're both back home, back on the same side of the planet, back in each others arms. 7 more days.

I can't wait!

Sarah's visit to Japan

I'm a little behind on the blog, 3 months or so! This one is about the beginning of our summer vacation 2011.

June 10, 2011 was the kids' last day of school and, even more importantly, it was the day that Sarah Giglio arrived in Japan for a 10 day visit with us. We were all super excited to see her!

Meeting Sarah at the airport

Fortunately, it hadn't gotten very hot yet but that was partly because of all the rain we were getting. We didn't let it spoil our fun though. The day after she arrived, we went to Nara to see the giant statue of the Buddha and the free roaming deer.

Nara was the first permanent capital of Japan and has 8 UNESCO World Heritage sites. We went to see the main Buddhist temple, Todai-ji.1200 deer run free in the park surrounding the temple. In pre-Buddhist times they were considered messengers of the gods. Today, they have the status of National Treasures.

Bamboo Forest on the perimeter of Nara-koen (Nara park)

Lazy deer

Someone told us that if you bowed to the deer, they will bow back. Katie and Laura tried but the deer didn't seem too impressed!

This Buddha is one of the largest bronze statues in the world.

Pagoda in the woods

Later we took Sarah to her first Japanese dining experience at a yakitory restaurant. It's kind of the Japanese equivalent of fast food. The dishes are all cheap and of fairly low quality and high fat content. Most of the meat is served on sticks and the vegetables are drowned in butter. Our kids love it! Sarah tried some of the chicken but was happiest with a baked potato and rice.

Two days later we headed for Tokyo on the shinkansen (bullet train). Our family had been there before to watch Matt in the Tokyo Marathon, but there were still lots of areas we hadn't seen.

The Tokyo Tower was modeled on the Eiffel Tower in Paris but it is a little bit taller and a bright orange/red.

From the tower we could see a shrine with a cemetery nestled in a small park surrounded by skyscrapers. 

We went to Hirajuku to see the cosplay kids. These are teenagers who appear at the Jingu-bashi bridge on the weekends dressed in goth make-up, punk outfits, and anime inspired costumes.

Across the street is the Meiji-Jingu shrine. It was huge and bustling, the busiest shrine I've seen in Japan. We were able to witness part of a Japanese Shinto wedding. It was really cool to see.

The bride is seated in the back, surrounded by guest in formal  kimono

Monks in procession

The groom and bride

A separate event. We we're sure what it was commemorating but the procession was beautiful!

We also went to Shibuya Crossing,one of the worlds most famous 4 way intersections. The number of people crossing the street was incredible! This is an enormous shopping area. The number of stores was almost overwhelming. We also walked all around the outside of Shibuya station but we never did find the famous statue of  Hachiko, the dog who waited at the station for his owner for 11 years after the owner died. It's a famous meeting spot in Tokyo, but somehow we completely missed it! :)

We went to Shinjuku at night to see all the neon lights. The lights were a bit dimmer than usual due to the power shortages but it was still amazing!

It was a lot of touring in a short period of time and it felt like we spent half the time on the very crowded trains!

We went souvenir shopping at Nakamise-dori, the shopping street in front of the famous Senso-ji temple in Asakusa, and never even bothered to go see the temple!

I've seen lots of men in kimono since moving to Japan, but this guy was unique. I think he may have been an off duty  sumo wrestler.

We spent 3 days in Tokyo and were pretty worn out by the time we got home, but Matt, Nathan and Sarah gamely headed off to see the Hanshin Tigers baseball team play that afternoon. As I've mentioned in an earlier blog, going to a Japanese baseball game is very different than going to an American one!

Our last adventure was to spend the day in Kyoto at the Golden Pavilion, Kinkaku-ji. The trip there was very long, crowded and hot but the pavilion was absolutely gorgeous! It was originally built as a retirement villa for a Shogun but was later turned into a temple. The building is covered in gold leaf and is surrounded by gorgeous gardens and ponds.

Matt's birthday was on June 18th and Father's day was June 19th.We planned our trip back to the States so that we'd be able to spend both days with him. On June 20th, Sarah, the kids and I headed back to the States.

We really enjoyed Sarah's visit! She's a fantastic guest and having visitors forces us to go out and see new areas of Japan we haven't visited and to revisit some of our favorite places. Now that we know we only have 10 months left, we'll have to start doing a better job of that on our own...unless someone else wants to come see us!