Author: travelingexpatfamily

Ok, so we’re back to our regularly scheduled program! I haven’t been great about writing because I’ve been working so hard on my grad school work, but I’ve got a month long “break” and I want to get caught up on here and the massive amounts of housework I have let slide. So bear with me while we time travel back to August.

In August we went back to Thailand- honestly, I think that even if we got nothing else from coming to China (which isn’t true) my family’s love for Thailand would be worth it. When we asked Alex where he’d like to go, he immediately answered with Bangkok. This time though, we wanted to do more of a beach relaxed visit, and really spend some down time together.

We stayed in a nice little hotel, in a very different part of town than we stayed in last time. This one was closer to things we wanted to do and most importantly, really close to a metro stop. The “downside” to this trip was that it was during the rainy season. But that really only affected us a little.

So priorities in this group always lean towards food, and so we got up and went right out to find something to eat. We ended up yelping for something nearby and ended up in the Tesco food court at the mall/metro stop near our hotel. It took us forever to find the stand we wanted, but the food was so good it was well worth the wait.

After lunch we found a Dairy Queen… now, we do have a Dairy Queen at the mall by our home in Haining, but it really only has Oreo as an option for blizzards (ice cream blended with candy or cookie bits) – Although this last time I thought I was ordering a strawberry blizzard and ended up with rose flavored… tasted a bit like body wash. But… this Bangkok Dairy Queen had other flavors! Mark had a heath bar blizzard and was very happy!

The hotel had a pool (since that’s something we always look for, don’t all people with kids?) and if we were at the hotel, Alex wanted to be in the pool.

The area surrounding the pool had tons of beautiful flowers and birds of paradise around, it really felt like a little island in the city.

That night we went out to a fancy dinner place that Mark found. I don’t remember the name of it (maybe he will remind me when he reads this) but it was wonderful. I don’t think they get a lot of kids in there, and there definitely weren’t while we were in there. The very first thing that happened, was they gave Alex a big glass of water, and as he went to take a drink, it slipped put of his hands and right onto the floor– smash! He felt so bad about it, he was beating himself up for most of dinner. Thus the less than happy expression on his face in the picture above. We had a really great lime sea bass here, and it set Mark on a journey to find that taste again.

Our second day in Bangkok, we went to the famous Terminal 21 mall. This mall is themed, each floor has a city that it is modeled after, and has kitschy themed things throughout. The whole mall is set up to look like an airport- with arrivals and departures listed on the escalators. It also boasts the world’s longest escalator… we didn’t go on that!

We thought that was funny, since we had just gotten back from Tokyo a few weeks before. And it was a very Tokyo feel, the stores had things we had seen in Tokyo, and the signage all felt very accurate

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

We ate lunch at Terminal 21, but we ended up finding where we wanted to eat in the basement area. There was an Ippudo Ramen spot there, so while Alex ate Subway (because he’d always eat Subway) Mark and I got to have Ippudo again. It wasn’t as good as the one in Tokyo, but it was still very good!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Overall, we had a very good time at the Terminal 21 Mall… it was an easy metro ride from our hotel, which saved us time and money in the rain. And we found a place across from the mall that the guys were really excited about!

This was a really great way to spend our rainy afternoon. Mark found it using one of his secret ways, and we thought it would be a nice surprise for Alex. When we got there, the hardest part was picking which of their huge game collection to play!

• 

• 

We have always said how great it would be to have somewhere like this in Haining, maybe we’ll have to open one ourselves.

We still had one day in Bangkok before heading to our island portion of the vacation…. so we did what any normal family would do, we went to the Snake Farm.

Now, the snake farm is not just a bunch of snakes in cages… it’s also a really important part of the antivenom production system in Thailand (and globally). This is something I’ve learned more about since starting school since snake envenoming (snake bites from venomous snakes) is a neglected tropical disease and that’s what I’m working on. So we had to go check it out. The cab driver had never heard of this place and didn’t know why we would want to go there.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The snake farm was really neat, and I think if you get a chance to go see something like that you should. I learned a lot from it, and now am even more invested in it because of my research.

After snakes, it was time for lunch, and we went to an all you can eat hotel buffet at a nearby fancy hotel- it was good, Alex was treated like a little prince and was in 7th heaven.

After we got back to our hotel (and went swimming again!) we had a plan for the last night in Bangkok of this part of the trip. Mark had found a pad thai place that is YouTube famous, in a equally famous section of night market that we wanted to go try out. We were also going to try a popular place for Cha Yen but they closed right when we got there, so no such luck.

It took us forever to find the place because the addresses aren’t really labeled, and it’s all in Thai anyway, so all we can do is ask people and look for a sign that looks the same as what we’ve seen in the YouTube videos. In the process though, Mark and Alex got to pet 3 or 4 stray cats, we ate a traditional Thai dessert, and saw a rat about the size of a small cat…. so, it was an eventful night!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

And then in the morning, we had to get up early and get a cab to the other airport in town, hop on a plane, ride a van, get on a boat, get on a smaller boat to get to our beach vacation!

We woke up pretty early, unlike the Disney’s in the US- even if you stay in the hotel, you don’t get into the park an hour earlier- but you do get to use a less crowded entrance. Alex and I were up and ready to go right away, but Liz has two teenagers and like most teenagers, they like to sleep in. So we checked out and went ahead and they met us at the Park when they were ready.

First order of the day… breakfast! Alex didn’t know that this was the plan, but it’s always nice to surprise him and keep him on his toes.

 

I am writing this one out of Chronological order, so that I can post about Christmas relatively close to Christmas, I will get back to our summer adventures after this post.

This semester we have had some great visiting professors that we have become good friends with- one of the families will be here the whole year and you will see more of them in upcoming posts. The other family will sadly be leaving in a few days– but we have had such a great time getting to know them and having mini adventures with them. So this is a shout out to the Hsiao-Weckslers!

Liz is a visiting Mechanical Engineering professor, and her two boys, Jack and Doren (Doren has been going to school with Alex). We have been talking about Shanghai Disney pretty much since she got here, but have always had something come up and wreck our plans. One hiccup has always been that I was a little afraid to go, I was worried that it would all be in Chinese and too hard to navigate. But I am delighted to report that that is not the case and we really enjoyed our visit!

This trip involved a slow train to Shanghai, and then a metro ride to the end of the line and then a shuttle bus to the hotel.

We went to check into our hotel first to drop off our bags and rest a bit before hitting the park. We stayed in the Toy Story Hotel, and it was as cute as you would expect

A quick 10 minute stop into the rooms, and then we headed off to the park. Picking up our tickets was a breeze, we walked up to the turnstiles, handed over our passports and were handed our tickets. They even had discount tickets (I think because of Christmas) that let you into the park after 4pm.

I was expecting it to be mobbed, I’ve been to Disneyland in California before at Christmas time and it was so packed you couldn’t move- but it was actually relatively empty. The big rides had “long” waits, but I think Soaring was an hour and Tron was even less.

Tron was really hard to try to get a good picture of- Abby and I waited below for everyone else.

A good time was had by all the riders. Alex will quickly tell you anytime he is asked that Tron is his favorite part of this trip. After this we grabbed some dinner and waited for the tree lighting ceremony.

After tree lighting it was back to running around for rides. As soon as we got over there, Pirates of the Caribbean closed temporarily- so we moved on to Fantasy land where we rode the Storybook ride (think Jungle cruise but with princesses) and Peter Pan’s Flight- which is the same at all the parks I think- and wander through gift shops (because we all had a roughly$12 coupon on purchases over $22).

After shopping for a bit, Pirates was back open and we were able to get on it with no wait at all. Pirates was pretty cool, lots of CGI and different special effects than the ones in US Disneys… and a bit darker too. Not to spoil too much, but in the famous scene with the guys in jail trying to whistle the dog with the keys over… In Shanghai it’s all skeletons, the guys and the dog. The whole ride is in Chinese, and while I didn’t understand it, you don’t really need to to enjoy the ride.

• 

• 

After that we decided to head out of the park as it was about to close for winter hours, and while Abby and Nora went to find a good spot to watch the closing finale, the rest of us went on Seven Dwarf’s Mine train since there was no wait.

We decided to head in and get shopping while everyone else was watching the finale. When we got done, we headed to Disney Town (which is the equivalent of Downtown Disney or Disney Springs) to have a late night dinner at Cheesecake Factory.

And all of this was just the half Day at Disney! Abby and Nora only joined us for this half day because Nora was a responsible student who had to study for a test… unlike me, who had a final in two days but hung out at Disney anyway!

The last day in Osaka was a little more laid back, but still very fun!  There was a famous temple nearby our hotel that I wanted to check out and I hadn’t asked for too many temples this trips, so everyone was agreeable. 

The first view of the shrine is the beautiful archway entrance. It kind of sneaks up on you because this is in the middle of a neighborhood of apartments and businesses. Then BAM! Shrine!

This shrine intrigued me for a couple of reasons, it was close to the hotel, it’s a pretty famous one, and it’s all post WWII reconstructions for the shrine buildings that were burned in air raids.  I like a little double dose of history for my buck. 

This is  Ema-Den 
It is believed that the wide-opened mouth of the lion swallows up evil spirits of worshipers and calls for victory and success. And who couldn’t use a little more victory and success in their lives.  At this time, I had applied for the PhD program, but I didn’t know if I had been accepted yet and I felt like some victory and success was needed. 

Alex wanted to do another wooden prayer card, but at 500 Yen a piece, we can’t afford his prayers!

At the top of the stairs to the Shrine, you put in your offering into the box, say your prayer, bow, and pull the ropes shown which rings a bell. 

Next to this , out of camera shot is a bin of different shaped keychain type souvenirs, and attached to them is a fortune (good or bad). Alex wanted to get one, but we couldn’t translate them and wouldn’t want to bring a bad luck fortune home with us.  

Mark and I had an idea for a B horror movie here, with college kids getting bad luck fortunes and keeping them and bringing the evil spirits back…. if you use that idea, you have to give us credit!

After walking around the shrine, we were ready to go to our second escape room of Japan. now I got no pictures of this escape room, but I will say that I think it was my favorite escape room we’ve done yet.  It’s run by two brothers, called Escape Osaka. And I won’t give anything away, but the story line is super creative, and the room and clues are really well done.  I would recommend it to anyone spending time in Osaka, it’s worth a day trip if you’re in Kyoto too.  https://www.escapeosaka.com/

After we beat the Escape room, we went back to the hotel for a little cool down and rest before dinner.  We decided to go to another ramen place near our hotel, and then walk back to the game station area so Alex could play his new favorite game (more on that later).  I apparently didn’t take any pictures at the ramen place– bad blogger!– but it was terrific, and had traditional sitting on the floor seating, which was the only time we did that while we were in Japan.  It wasn’t a far walk to the game station in town,and I was excited to go back to Daiso and buy more souvenirs and fun stuff while the boys played games.

This time though, we got a little turned around and ended up going to a different game station- there are tons of them all over the city. And of course, this one was nowhere near a Daiso, so instead I watched Alex play his game.  

We call the game Battleship Girls, I don’t know what it’s really called.  You basically choose a character and then it spits out a card, and you can only play characters that you have cards for- and each time you play that character and build up the strengths, it gets added to the card.  Now, Alex only has three cards, but the guys playing next him had several boxes of cards, like you would keep index cards in.  So I think you could spend a lot of time and money on this game if you lived near enough. 

To me, Alex looked like a little old man that you would see playing slots in Vegas… laser focus, not talking or answering questions, he would only talk to us when he needed more coins, and even then, it was only a “Dad”  with his hand outstretched behind him, never taking his eyes off the screen.  After an hour we called it and said he was done.  He would have stayed for much longer if we let him. 

On our way home, we decided to pop into the train station and buy our expensive tickets to the airport for the next morning, since it was going to be really early. 

The next morning, we tried to use the tickets only to be told they were invalid. Since we bought them the day before, they were only valid until midnight that day. So we had to rebuy them that morning anyway.   So if you’re in Osaka, and planning to prebuy your metro tickets- don’t, it won’t save you anytime and will actually just be more complicated. 

And that was it for Japan. We had a great time there, and would go back anytime.  Next up is a trip back to Thailand and other summer adventures!

PS —

I forgot to post about our lunch that day, which was memorable- so I’ve gone back to add it in now. 

We went to a tempura place, because we couldn’t find the original place we were looking for. It was the Angry man place from a few posts ago 

While we were there, the chefs noticed Alex watching them and they got invested in making sure he was having a good time.  So they made him a throwing star… and then several more. 

The chef even made sure that Alex got a little toy when we left- it was a great addition to the final day.   The food was great too, we tried Japanese curry and it was different in all good ways.  We got a lot spoiled by the food in Japan!

Day 2 in Osaka started as all days on a trip in the Traveling Expat Family start…. with a discussion of food.  I don’t know where Mark found the following place, he’s got a variety of ways to find food depending on which country we’re in.  So in the heat of the day, we set off to find a traditional Osaka specialty. 

This restaurant is well known, and only has place for about 12 people. You have to wait outside, and for once we timed it right to be at the front of the line and because of that got a bench seat to wait on. 

While we were waiting, a local man came by to talk with us and asked us how we heard about it and why so many foreigners were waiting in the heat to eat there.  He was a very nice man, and I wish I had thought to get his picture.  We talked about current events in America, what it was like in Japan post WWII to now, the decline of birthrates and the aging population. Then it was our turn to go in, so we said goodbye and headed in. 

 Okonomiyaki is Osaka soul food. Osaka-style okonomiyaki is the most common style , found throughout most of Japan. The batter is made of flour, grated nagaimo  (a type of yam), water , eggs and shredded cabbage, and usually contains other ingredients such as green onion, meat , octopus, squid, shrimp, vegetables,or cheese.    There are only two people working here, the guy behind the grill and the server/hostess/ amazing lady.

While we were waiting for our choices to be cooked, we got to play around a bit, they had two samurai helmets and a sword, so of course Alex had to check that out!

There are build your own options for ingredients, but we picked set types. 

When we left lunch, we were each given a special eraser to take with us to remember them with. Mark got a unami sushi eraser, I got a salmon nigiri eraser and Alex picked a gyoza eraser. 

After lunch, we decided to do something special for Alex. He’s been into Pokemon for a couple of years now, and when anyone would mention Japan he would tell you that it was the birthplace of Pokemon. So what to do but bring him to a Pokemon Center. 

Now, for those of you whose children are also super into pokemon… let me save you the heartbreak we had,  bring your pokemon cards from home if you want to play!  We didn’t know what the Center would have and it actually has a place to play against other people.  Even if we had bought new cards, they were all in Japanese. 

So this ended up being just a really big expensive Pokemon store to us. Alex got to pick out a few things though, he got a Lucaro keychain (I’m sure he will tell me I got that wrong) and a wallet to carry the most important cards in. 

While he was super sad not to play, he was excited to see all the different options for Pokemon Swag, even if his awful parents told him two things was the limit. 

For dinner, we headed back to Dontonburi for a ramen adventure. Again, Mark found this place in his mysterious ways.  This was a visual throwback in a very modern and neon area. 

Mark and Alex had the same ramen, and I got a happiness ramen.

It was delicious. The soup was the thickest broth soup I’ve ever had. I’m pretty sure we got gyozas too… but I can’t remember for sure. 

After dinner we went wandering again. There is so much to see and do in this area (especially at night). 

Osaka was so much fun, It was hard to believe it was almost over already. 

While I forgot to get any pictures of the train to Osaka, it was a really fun ride. Mark and the boy played the new switch and I watched the scenery go by. unfortunately, as is often the case, we couldn’t see Mt Fuji from the train because it was too cloudy.   Alex even got to get an ice cream on the train (because Mark loves him more than I do).  While we were waiting to board the train, because I have to get everywhere ridiculously early, Mark and Alex wandered around the train station and found a place that sold sandwiches- we had french sandwiches and a baguette to share on our bullet train ride.

Upon arriving in Osaka, we had to get on a metro to head to our hotel, and a bit of a walk as we figured out where our hotel was.   We stayed at the Midi Hotel, and while it wasn’t fancy, it was clean and had a huge pull out couch bed for Alex (which was a serious upgrade from the half couch/ chaise lounge thing from the Tokyo hotel).  It had a real key that we had to turn in each time we left the room, which was both quaint and slightly annoying.

After a quick rest, we decided to head to the famous Dontonburi section of Osaka, to see what they had to offer food wise.  It was a little too far to walk, so another hop back on the metro and then a bit more wandering to find it.

One of the first things we saw was a Daiso store.  I had been looking for one in Tokyo but hadn’t come across it there.  For those of you who don’t know, Daiso is a dollar store, but a really nice one.  They are all over Japan, and sell some really cool and unique things.

 

Osaka (and especially the Dontonburi area) is known for the big displays outside of restaurants.  I was not disappointed in the variety and size of them. The boat pictured below was big enough that three or four people could sit comfortably in, with room for gear. And it was hanging outside a sushi restaurant.

While we were wandering through the back streets, we came upon a little temple, and like in Tokyo where we happened to find the world’s busiest street by accident, this time we found the famous Osaka Hozenji temple by accident.

We stumbled upon this at the right time, and the monks were singing. Alex gave them a small offering , and they gave us a small packet of band aids with something written in Japanese.

This is the shelter for the statue. It is a statue of Fudo Myo-O, who is a deity that takes away bad luck and greed.  In front of the statue is a little box to put your donation in, and then you take a ladle of water from the bowl, make a wish and splash the water on the statue (for extra luck we put some on the little statues as well)

It was a really neat experience, and I think it was one of my favorite moments from Japan.

Alex wanted to hang up an Ema, which is a small wooden plague, that you write your prayer or wish on, and then hang it up with the others.  At special times and events, those wooden prayers are burned and supposedly  allow your prayer to come true.

This kid just killed me with his wish, I was trying not to cry, he was so earnest in his wanting another cat.  So he wrote it down and hung it up.

 

After we finished hanging our wish up, we went in search of food (which was really Mark’s wish)   I couldn’t get enough of the fun decorations advertising for restaurants.

 

 

The Octopus is a landmark of Osaka that most people know, and despite saying over and over that we wanted to try them, we did not end up sampling the octopus balls that they sell there.  It is a specialty of Osaka, but by the time we walked by this place, we were always too full!

Dontonburi has a fun and exciting feel to it, lots of people, lots of restaurant hawkers trying to get you to come to their place.

Each place has their own unique sign, and while I am going to bombard you with photos, this isn’t even all of them!

We stood in line for a little while for the angry guy place, but then we found out that it wasn’t actually the sushi place we wanted, but a tempura place.

This first night, we were looking for conveyor belt sushi (which Alex just loved). Mark found a place on yelp and we went to find it.  The line was pretty long, and Alex was getting hangry.  So he waited in a very typical Chinese squat.  

I couldn’t get over his face here, it’s so very him. He’s both happy I’m taking his picture and irritated because it’s taking too long to go eat.

No pictures of the sushi place, because I was too busy eating and being excited about sushi. Alex again ate his weight in salmon and tuna,  Mark splurged on a few nice pieces of tuna, and I discovered tuna salad sushi is actually pretty awesome here.

The crowds were starting to pick up by the time we got done eating, and it started being a little chaotic. So we walked around in search of ice cream and then decided it was time to head back to the hotel.

 

 

Dontonburi was great, and we went there again the next night, so the next post will have some more pictures of that.

 

Our family is pretty into board games, and when I say that, I mean, one footlocker we brought to China was just games.   We also got into doing escape rooms together.  There aren’t any english escape rooms that we could find in China, but we did find two in Japan.  The first was Escape Tokyo I think.   When I booked the hotel I thought isn’t that convenient, it will be walking distance to the owl cafe and the escape room… and it was, but a long hot walk. By the time we got there, I was dying and I think we just barely made it before our time to start.

While in general, I applaud the efforts of the guys running the escape room, it wasn’t our favorite one by a long shot.  I won’t ruin it in case anyone else heads to Tokyo to escape, but some of the clues were ridiculously hard to figure out, and even after they were explained to us, we still weren’t quite sure how the one puzzle worked.

After our failed attempt to escape, we grabbed a Mister donut across the street and recuperated from the walk and running around in the escape room.    As we were leaving, we saw another group of the Mario go-kart Tour.

 

We needed to head to the main train station to buy our tickets to Osaka the next day, so we hopped on the metro and headed to Grand Central.

 

Leaving Grand Central after getting our tickets, we decided to walk to a famous spot in Tokyo, the Emperor’s palace. The walk there (while still really hot) was so lovely. Right next to the busy train station and shopping area was this peaceful little lake and there were two swans swimming around it.

Alex was having such a good time watching the swans it was hard to get him to keep heading to the palace.

The first views of the palace area, it may not look like it, but this is all surrounded by water too, but it’s covered in water lilies so thick that it looked like grass.

The gate way into the palace. There were more people here than I was expecting given the heat.   As soon as we got into the park, there were signs warning about heat stroke and directions to the air-conditioned hut to cool down. That was our first stop.   I was so hot, I couldn’t make it any farther, so I sat at the bottom of a hill and Alex and Mark went up to see the remains of the palace.   The pictures below were all taken by Mark.

After all this, we went back to the hotel to cool down and recuperate a bit (and on the way home clean glasses again)

We had one more place to eat in Tokyo, another Food Ranger recommendation, Ippudo. This was a really great ramen place, and i think my favorite place to eat in Toyko. it was nice because it was a big table that we shared with another family. The food was terrific, i had a spicy tofu based ramen and the gyoza were so amazing.

the other family did rock paper scissors at the end of the meal to decide who was going to pay, and we all laughed and smiled when the son lost and had to pay- and then the mom asked Alex to play. He lost but said we had to pay anyway.

Leaving the restaurant we met a group from China who asked Alex about himself and they lit up when he said he lived in China and knew Chinese. We ended our stay in Tokyo on a really high note, with tons of great memories. Early the next morning, we would leave for Osaka!!

 

First, let me explain the recent delay in posting. If you’re on my Facebook, you’ve already heard the news, but I’ve been accepted into a phd program here on our campus.  I start on Monday in the biomedical sciences program at Zhejiang University University of Edinburgh.  This has caused a ton of chaos trying to get everything ready to begin this new adventure, and will probably mean slightly fewer posts on here, but hopefully some really interesting topics.

 

And now, back to Tokyo!

The 2nd day, we walked around our neighborhood in Tokyo- walked in and out of several anime/gamer stores and eventually found this shrine to stop in.  Unlike our trip to Thailand, I really didn’t put too many temples/ shrines on our list for Japan because Alex just isn’t that into them and who can blame him, he’s only 8.  This one was so beautiful and in the middle of this busy area, you walk in through the gate and it’s quiet and peaceful.

 

The statues in this shrine are so detailed and intricate, the one below is one of my favorites and pictures don’t do it justice. The eyes glowed yellow and they just looked awesome!

At the time of this picture, we were completely clueless as to what the water trough was for. There are little metal cups sitting on it, and we thought maybe it was to get a drink.  In reality, it is meant for you to wash your hands (and face?) before entering the shrine. 

This Statue is at one end of the shrine, and I loved the way the light and shade from the trees played on the face.  It was a really wonderful break to spend some time in this area before heading back into the city. 

After leaving the shrine, Mark looked around and found a really famous place nearby for lunch.  As much as I complained at the time- everywhere Mark wanted us to go for lunch or dinner had about an hour wait, but every time it was worth it.  This was no different.  While we waited in a line outside the restaurant, Alex chased pigeons like a loon in the alley. It was a smallish place, maybe 5 tables upstairs and a bar area for eating downstairs.

I didn’t take any pictures of the lunch apparently, but it was absolutely amazing.  We had tempura chicken and pork, cabbage salad and rice. The meat was tender, and the sauce was too good to describe!

After lunch, it was back to walking around. We found and took Alex into a Game Station, which is basically 5-7 (depending on which one you go to) floors of arcade games. Anything from a variety of claw games to old school Mortal Combat, from professional level Dance Dance Revolution set ups to first person shooters. Alex was in heaven and would have stayed there for the rest of the trip if we let him.

MArk and i had been discussing for a while whether or not to buy a Nintendo Switch. It has some cool features, but it’s another game system, and we try to limit Alex’s time on video games.  The big seller for us, is the new Zelda game that came out, we all like Zelda a lot and we can get Mario Kart, which is also a big one for me at least.

We decided while we were in Japan, home of Nintendo, that we would buy it there. We got a better deal on it than we would in China, and I think a better deal than in the States as well.  Alex was over the moon! He was not expecting to get one, and was really surprised.

But wait there’s more! This was only the halfway point on our 2nd full day in Tokyo.  We had talked as a family about going to another cat cafe while in Tokyo, but my allergies act up so bad it’s not much fun for me. Luckily in Tokyo, there are dozens of different available animal cafes to choose from.  We ended up settling on an Owl cafe, and couldn’t wait to get to meet our new owl friends.

Once we got to the owl cafe, we were shown a table while the other groups came in and got settled.  The rules were simple, no loud noises, no flash photography.  We got to wander around and see what owls we would like to get to hold.

My owl White bait and I had a really eventful hour together.  He sat on my shoulder almost the whole time, until he decided that my head was a better spot to be.   While he was sitting on my shoulder, he was so comfortable with me, that he threw up an owl pellet on me… so that happened.  And then after climbing onto my head, the handler removed him from my head to keep him from pooping on me (which I appreciate) and said that the owl would have to be super comfortable to do that, but I think they were just trying to make me feel better about almost getting pooped on.

We had such a wonderful time at the owl cafe, I would do it again in a heartbeat.  We also got a family photo of the three of us with our owls.

So I will admit, I have a tendency to be a little gullible at times. I read things on the internet and I think they’re true, because why would someone lie about that?  The picture above is one of those things.   I read an article about Pocari sweat drink in Japan being made from the sweat of a jungley cat and that it was supposed to be an aphrodisiac.  So I mentioned it to Mark, and he decided to try it.

It’s not a cat sweat drink, or an aphrodisiac. It’s a sports drink like Gatorade.  So much hype for nothing.  Mark did really enjoy it, and ended up getting more of them during the trip.

For dinner, we decided after all this adventure, we needed conveyor belt sushi.  This was our first time doing conveyor belt sushi at a good place. It wasn’t fancy, but it was good. Again, there was a pretty long wait for this, but it was worth it in the end.

This was a great 2nd day of a trip, we had good (but hot )weather, good food, and good times.   Next blog is on the 3rd and final full day in Tokyo.

 

pump that gas!  Parents of small kids may know this quote, from Mater’s Tall Tales, Tokyo Drift… if you don’t, you can check it out on YouTube here…. Tokyo Mater song. Because Alex made us watch this so many times when he was younger, it’s something that stuck with us and we kept saying it the whole time we were in Tokyo.

Day one in Tokyo involved a trip that was near and dear to my heart. It involved a few metro rides and since it was a time specific event, and me being the time loving person that I am, we left way earlier than we needed to.  This left us time to get off in the station we needed to and have a nice leisurely lunch.

Despite the fact that we were there for lunch, as you can see from the pictures, the guys decided to get breakfast stuff instead.  Alex also found an Auntie Anne’s pretzels and wanted to get them, but we told him he could after lunch.

After lunch we were supposed to catch a bus, which I had read was going to be so easy- the museum we were going to had a dedicated bus with pictures on it and you can’t miss it. Except that we did.  We walked all over the bus stop area and couldn’t find the bus anywhere, so we decided to walk it, it wasn’t going to be that far.  And really it wasn’t, but it was 97-100 degrees everyday we were in Tokyo, so it was just so very hot.

We were headed to the Studio Ghibli museum. For me, this was the main reason I wanted to go to Tokyo.

Because they don’t allow any photos inside the museum, I tried to get some good shots of the outside.

Once we went inside, the first thing we saw was a room full of the history of animation and how animation works.  They had 3d models of characters with small changes and then a strobe light would come on to create the movement.  It was fun to watch Alex getting into the technical side of animation.  There was a replica of Miyazaki’s home studios, filled with sketches from all the movies.  For kids there was a big stuffed Catbus that they could play in and soot sprite stuffed animals they could throw around.  I was sad when Alex said he was too old to play in there, Mark and I both said we would have done it if we could.

Outside the Catbus play area, there was a door leading outside, and then a beautiful spiral staircase up.

And at the top of the spiral staircase was a rooftop garden, with a giant robot soldier from Castle in the Sky.

Before we left, we got to see a short cartoon that Miyazaki had made just for the museum.  I wish we had watched it before going to the gift shop, because I couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to buy these weird poop creatures… then I saw the movie and wished I had bought a weird little poop creature (which is actually a caterpillar).

The boys were nice enough to indulge me in a stop to the Straw Hat Cafe, which while cute, wasn’t as themed as I was hoping.

All that museuming made the boys hungry, and since they were so patient for me, I had to return the favor.  Mark really wanted to try a Ramen place he saw on “food Ranger” and there were several of them around Tokyo, but we had to go to the one that was on the show.

A shortish metro ride and short walk led us to a basement restaurant with a line going all the way up the stairs, which means it has to be good right?

 

I got a level 2 heat (I should have gotten 4) extra garlic and extra green onions. It was fantastic, worth every minute of waiting.   The experience is something too!  This is the place (a place?) where you order with a vending machine, and then someone double checks your order, and finds you a spot. You wait in a little personal booth, a curtain goes up, your food comes out and the curtain goes back down.

If you’re going to Tokyo, this is worth it, make it a priority to try!  While we were walking out of IchiRan, we saw another iconic Tokyo activity, the Mario Kart tour through Tokyo. We looked into doing that, but there is no room for passengers and you must have a driver’s license. Sorry Alex!

This dinner trip took us on accident to a famous place in Tokyo that hadn’t made our personal list of must dos, but I know it’s on a lot of lists. We ended up in Shibuya at the “busiest intersection in the world.” Now I don’t know if it really is the busiest, but at 10pm there were still hundreds of people crossing in every direction.  It was a neat experience to be a part of.

This was at night too, so not the busiest time at the intersection either.

Japan has been on the top of our list whenever we discussed vacation spots.  I don’t know exactly what the draw was, the culture, the food, the history… but all three of us wanted to make this trip. Admittedly Alex mostly wanted to go to Japan because “it’s the home of Pokemon, they will be everywhere.”

A few days before we were leaving, we turned on the news to see that lots of Japan was hit hard by flooding, there were almost 100 people missing or dead. We weren’t sure whether we should cancel the trip, or go anyway and just have a back up plan in case things went sideways while we were there.  We kept a watch on it, and waited since the worst flooding was in the south of Japan, we modified a few of our day trip plans and just stuck with our main plan. 4 days in Tokyo and 3 in Osaka. .

The first day was a long day of traveling. It’s only 3 hours between Shanghai and Tokyo, but we still had to get to Shanghai.  The morning started with a Didi (Chinese Uber) ride that got caught up by construction, causing us to almost miss our train.  I’m a little crazy about time… ok, a lot crazy about time. I come by it honestly, my dad is the same way.  He always told me if you’re early you’re on time and if you’re on time you’re late.  Mark has a much more causal approach to time, more of a you get there when you get there approach.  Needless to say then, that our travel styles are also a little different. I’m happy to get to the airport 3 hours early and just sit in my gate waiting, and Mark has, on at least one occasion, been the person running to catch the plane before they close the doors.  Catching this train was more Mark’s style, while we were riding the escalator up to the platform the train was pulling in.  40 min train ride, lunch in the train station and an hour-long metro ride to the airport. I had the whole day planned out perfectly.

We landed in Tokyo and got the metro from the airport to our hotel, a relatively short walk from the station and we were there.

Our hotel was in the Ueno area and right around the corner from our hotel was a strip that was full of places to eat.  We picked a sushi place and settled in.

 

The hotel room was fairly small, but very clean. It had a fancy toilet,  and a huge bathtub for Alex. One of the best things about the hotel was the distance to the metro. Just about two blocks away, and along the way, we found something special for Mark that became our ritual when we would go out in the morning or come back at night…

A local eye-glass place had several glasses cleaning machines outside their store. And every time we passed it, Alex would insist that Mark get his glasses cleaned (because Mark likes clean glasses and Alex likes pushing buttons). It was such a great marketing idea, if I had to buy glasses I’d go there first.

The next post will be about our first full day in Tokyo.