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!

Amanohashidate "Bridge in the Heaven"

Golden Week is a week with three holidays at the beginning of May. It is a very popular time for travel in Japan. This year we had planned to go to a city named Hamamatsu for a huge kite festival on the sand dunes. However, the festival was cancelled in memoriam to the victims of the Tohoku earthquake. Finding ourselves at loose ends, we decided at the last minute to take a road trip to the Japan Sea side of the country.

We have only taken a few road trips during our time here. Usually, we are intimidated by the traffic, tolls, endless tunnels through the mountains and the whining of the children.

Traffic and tolls-its never cheap or easy to travel within Japan!

Picturesque tunnel through the mountain. Most of them are much more utilitarian without much charm.

Our three munchkins

This time we decided to go for it. The trip itself was remarkably pleasant. It took about 2 hours and the kids amused themselves with books and electronics while Matt and I enjoyed the beautiful scenery.

Rice paddy being planted - the tractor is tilling the flooded fields

Ancient burial mound. It was in great shape 

but the road tunneled right under it!

Pretty little town in the mountains

Unfortunately, taking pictures from a moving car is not one of my strong suits, so I don't have any images of the cherry trees lining the flooded rice paddies and looking like puffs of cotton candy as they leaned over the highway. Rows of stone tablets stood in memorial on hillsides overlooking the rice fields. One of my favorite sights was the row of giant carp banners blowing in the breeze. The towns were crammed into every flat space between the forested peaks. It was a glimpse into the rural Japan that we very rarely see.

Amanohashidate is considered one of Japan's three scenic views. It is a sandbar that stretches across Miyazu Bay, almost linking the two sides. The land bridge is about 3.3 km long and is covered by a pine forest on one side and a sandy beach on the other.

Pine forest on one side

Sandy beach on the other

The 3.3 km path down the middle of the land bridge

The land bridge is connected by man-made bridges to either side of the bay and most tourists cross from one side to the other via foot, bike or boat. We decided to walk across and take the boat back.

Drawbridge connecting land bridge to one side of the bay

The bridge itself is beautiful! There are over 8,000 pine trees lining it and many shrines, sacred spots and benches tucked into the forest. The beach is gorgeous! It was too cold to swim during Golden Week but the kids could have spent all day just digging in the sand.

Fallen pine tree

Walking on the beach

On the far side of the bridge was a picturesque little town with a large shrine and a tram up the side 

of the mountain.

Shrine

Little tourist shops lined the roads. They lots of different trinkets and knickknacks. The most interesting were the dried fish.

We finally found an explanation

Dried squid

We took the tram up the mountain in order to see the view of the land bridge from above. This is considered one of the most scenic views in all of Japan. Unfortunately, it was a bit hazy that day but it was still gorgeous! The tradition is to stand at the edge of the mountain and bend over and look through your legs at the land bridge. It is supposed to look like a bridge from the land to the heavens from this point of view.

Our ride up the hillside

Bending over to look at the view

View of the Bridge to Heaven

Right side up

The girls and Matt took swings back down the mountain, while Nate and I rode the tram again. We saw a few other pretty nooks and crannies as we walked back through town as well as a Buddhist monk with his begging bowl. 

Laura riding on the swing down the mountain

Monk begging on the side of the road

It was a wonderful outing. I'm so glad we attempted it!