Tokyo in a BIG Nutshell-Leg 4

How are we already into the middle of July?!  My goodness, these past couple of months have flown!

We flew into Tokyo Christmas Eve.  On the airplane we were seated 2/3/3/1.  I was the lucky one to have my own seat.  Connor was seated between Taylor and Brett.  They didn't realize that he wasn't buckled until we landed and braked hard and he slid right out of his seat.  It made for a good laugh.

Our trip from the airport to Shane and Heather's proved to be eventful.  We caught a bus from the airport that took us to a hotel that is near Shane's apartment.  We had to take 3 taxis to get from the hotel to the apartment.  Heather talked to the lead driver and gave him the address and proceeded to tell the other 2 taxis to follow.  They agreed.  Heather got into the lead taxi with Jackson and Brooke and started to take off.  For some reason our taxi (the middle one) just sat there for 30 seconds as we watched the taxi turn the corner.  Troy and I were dumbfounded as I'm sure Taylor and Brett were as well.  We proceed to go.  We turned the corner and Heather's car was no where to be found.  Our guy decided to turn right and drove for a bit.  Meanwhile, Troy and I are exchanging confused glances.  Finally we ask the guy if he has a phone we could use using the universal hand gesture for phone.  They guy looked at us as if we were crazy.  We finally stopped at a light and Troy hopped out and went to the other cab.  The driver was younger and understood Troy's hand gesture.  We were able to call Shane and get the address.  Our guy said that he knew the way and started driving again.  We turned down an alleyway and he came to a stop.  It was not the right place.  Thankfully the other cabbie knew where to go so he took the lead.  Our guy did not know how to follow and we got caught at a light that he should have made.  Thankfully by then we were only 2 turns away from the apartment.  What was supposed to be a 10 minute taxi ride ended up being at least 30 minutes.  Heather came out to settle the bill and told the guy that she would only pay a certain amount because that was what she had paid her cab driver and they were suppose to follow.  Our guy was so offended that he threw her money and then some back at her.  She ended up make $30 that night.  Score!

The cityscape looks slightly different than Hong Kong. 

 

 

Shane and Heather were so kind to take care of Christmas for us complete with stockings for all the kids and adults.  The kids were thrilled that Santa remembered that they were in Tokyo and not in Colorado.  The remainder of the day was spent chilling around the apartment.

 

Saturday, we hit up a local park in the morning.  The kids were thrilled to be out running around freely.  Later in the afternoon we biked over to the Tokyo Tower.  Dylan caught naps anywhere he could including the front seat of a bike!

We hit up this small crepe stand twice while we were in Tokyo.  I really liked their savory options with pizza sauce

We finished off Saturday with a bike ride to the local ramen place.  There was a slight mishap with a bike and me.  I'm not very confident when it comes to riding bikes around people.  I have spatial issues.  Add that with riding at night, on a sidewalk shared with pedestrians, and a motorized bike with an empty kid seat on the handlebars and back and it made for the perfect storm for me.  It's customary to share the sidewalk with bikers and pedestrians.  A lady past me going the opposite way on foot.  I scooted over to give her some space and collided with a guard rail.  The wind was knocked out of me and I made a horrible guttural sound.  It took me, what felt like an eternity, to catch my breath.  Everything seemed in tacked but my rib hurt.  We checked later and there was no visible bruising but for the amount of time it took to heal we guess that I fractured it.  Nevertheless I couldn't let a fractured rib get in the way of tasting Japanese cuisine so I hopped back on the bike and rode to dinner.  It did not disappoint!!!!  I wish we could have stayed longer and ramen hop all over Tokyo.  We even ordered our food from a kiosk then handed the receipt to the cook.

 

Vending machines could be found all over Tokyo.  We found drink (including hot chocolate), ice cream, cigarettes (flashback to the 80s), beer, etc.  The kids were excited to spend all their coins at the machines.

Sunday, we went to church.  Half the clan biked while I opted to ride with Heather.  Didn't want to have another run in with a guard rail.

Monday, we navigated through the streets of Tokyo and headed to the Aquarium.  It was a bit flashy but not surprising.  The kids had a blast and oohed and aahed over all the sea creatures.

 

 Tuesday, we rented a minivan and took a drive into the mountains.  Good thing Troy had Shane to follow or else I don't know how successful we would have been driving on the other side of the car on the other side of the rode.  Troy only hit the wiper switch a few times.  We went to hot spring in the mountains.  Interesting...they had several hot tubs that were scented.  Some of flavors were chocolate, sake, wine, green tea, and coffee.  I opted to stay in the regular, mountain spring water.  We even paid $1 to have fish nibble at our toes.  I paid $1 to keep my feet elevated above the water.

I wish I had taken a picture of Hong Kong's metro system.  Seems like a piece a cake compared to Tokyo.

 

Wednesday, we trekked around using the metro system.  We stopped at Harajuku and went shopping down a crazy crowded street.  Very interesting and unique experience.  It made for great people watching.

Like I said before, I wish we had more time to try all the different foods.  I don't even know what these are called but they're like ebelskivers with seafood added to them.  They were pretty tasty but I wish I knew exactly what I was eating.  We went to an udon noodle place and it was delicious.  They even had a different spin on carbonara that was delicious.

Dylan held onto that balloon all the way home.  Had to have been at least a 15 minute ride.  He loved it.

Dylan loved being able to ride on the bike whether it be in the front or the back.  It was quickly decided that for the safety of children (and myself) that I would not transport any of the kids.  What a relief! 

Our last meal in Tokyo was on New Year's Eve.  Oddly enough a lot of the restaurant and quick eat places were closed but there wasn't any big hoopla celebrating the new year.  Anywho, the place that we were going to get dinner was closed which was a big bummer.  It was a curry place and I remember that I was really looking forward to gorging myself.  We ended up finding a place...good ol' 7-eleven.  Yup!  Good ol' 7-eleven to the rescue.  I can't recall if they had slurpees but they had a variety of food and it was actually good.  We loaded up and brought it back to the apartment and filled ourselves.  It was delicious. 

Tokyo was a blast!!!  I expected Tokyo to be similar to Hong Kong as in the hustle and bustle of people but really it just felt like a downtown.  I don't know if it was just because we were there over a holiday.  I do remember it being very quiet whereas Hong Kong is a blast to all your senses; sight, sound, smell.
Stay tuned for our return home!!!!!

20,000 Steps Later (Days 2-4)

Day 2-  We started early this morning.  I mean...really early...as in the boys were bright eyed and busy tailed by 3:00 am.  It was expected but since we were staying in such close quarters we did everything we could to keep them quiet and happy.  Everyone was finally up and moving by 7 or 8 and it was off to breakfast.  I stayed behind to wait for my parents and was so proud of myself for getting directions to a yummy 'jook' (rice porridge) place.  Between the little English the security guard at the apartment could speak and my very (very) broken Cantonese I was able to find the place and my parents and I were well fed.  Dylan was asleep on my back by 9:00 am and slept through all of breakfast. Thankfully Hong Kong is full of little bakeries here and there that we were able to stop and find him something he could eat on the go.

After breakfast, we went for a nice walk along the harbor.  Our first stop was the LDS church office building.  There's something about walking inside and feeling the peace and stillness.  They had nativities on display from all around the world. 

 

 From there we slowly made our way to the Star Ferry to take us across to the Kowloon side.

 

 Dylan was a champ the whole time.  He didn't mind being piggy backed everywhere we went and spent majority of the time in Hong Kong attached to someone. 

 We hiked up a hill and found the Hong Kong Temple.  A few years ago when I went to Hong Kong for my Ye-Ye's (grandpa's) funeral we were able to meet with one of my mom's old church friends and he told us of how the Hong Kong Temple came to be.  Pretty interesting story.

 After walking to the temple and eating lunch we headed to a Buddhist Garden.  It's amazing that such a quiet, peaceful, outdoor place can exist in the middle of such a busy city.

Dylan was thrilled to finally be able to run around and stretch out his legs.  Thankfully he didn't protest too much when it was time to put him back in the carrier.   By the end of this day we had walked well over 20,000 steps and the kids did AWESOME.  Brooke and Connor walked most of the way and were happy about it.  No meltdowns or tears.

 Day 3-My parents took the kids in the morning leaving the rest of us (Troy, Taylor, Brett, Heather, Jackson, and I) to explore.  We started out with a delicious breakfast courtesy of the same place I had gone the day before.

All the food you see above plus a little more cost maybe $13 and left us all feeling very full and satisfied.  We were able to find some pizza to satisfy Brett's hankering for American food.

We then headed up to Victoria Peak.  The tram ride up is always fun.  I'm not sure what the incline is but it's pretty steep.

Unfortunately we picked the wrong day to go up and it was pretty cloudy.  So much that we couldn't really see the harbor.  Bummer but it was still fun.  Then we headed to Stanley Market and finished off the morning with a later lunch at Din Tai Fung.  I wish I had gotten a picture of our meal.  It was heavenly.

The afternoon was spent walking around some more and shopping.  The uncles loved every minute of it!

Day 4-We spent the morning in Hong Kong then headed to the airport to begin leg 3 of our trip.  We are so grateful my parents were able to join us on Hong Kong.  As always, it wasn't nearly enough time but it was time well spent.  I'm especially grateful that we were spend time with MaMa and that Brooke and Connor have memories of her.

Gellin' Like Magellan Part I

Over Christmas break we flew to Hong Kong and Tokyo.  Ever since Brooke was born I wanted to go back to Hong Kong and have my grandma (mama) meet another one of her great-grandkids.  She met the oldest one, Jason, when he was 11 months old.  He's now 10.  Troy's brother moved to Tokyo about 1 1/2 years ago and we wanted to visit them so we decided to take the plunge and travel half way around the world.

We left Denver Saturday, Dec 19 in the evening.  We had a short 2 hour layover at LAX before crossing the Pacific.  I had already mentioned that to Troy that I wasn't comfortable with such a small window at LAX but there wasn't much we could do.  When we landed in CA we had to book it to get to the international terminal.  Thankfully we made friends with a small group of college age girls from the University of Wyoming that were headed back to Australia for the holidays.  They were so helpful in getting our stuff to the terminal.  It wasn't easy for us to carry Dylan on our back, 2 carry-ons, a car seat, and 2 kids through the airport at 9:30 Denver time.  Although Brooke and Connor were excited for the big trip you could tell they were exhausted.  We made it to the ticket counter to check in Dylan around 9:45 and we had 10:30 flight to catch.  We got him squared away and proceeded to head to security.  We had to show our boarding pass prior to getting in the security area and found out that the ticketing agent in Denver had given us the wrong tickets so we had to go back to the ticket counter and get the rest of our tickets.  We went through priority screening which I don't think was any faster.  They weren't too happy with the gallon size bag of pouches that I had brought for Dylan so I ended up having to get patted down instead of TSA testing each pouch individually.  By the time we headed to our gate it was well past 10 and we walked right on.

The kids were pretty excited to be on such a big airplane and to have their own TV screens.  After taking off we were quickly fed dinner then they dimmed the lights for the duration of the flight.  Dylan didn't last too long after dinner and spent 8 hours sleeping on the ground.  He started out in the carseat then we transferred him.  I like to think that the hum of the plane's engine helped keep him sleeping.  Brooke and Connor stayed up well past midnight Denver time watching movies but we finally had them settle down.  They started in the sleeping position posted above but then we quickly moved Connor to the floor and they both slept for a good 7 hours.  The adults didn't sleep very well but at least we had some good flicks to watch.

We arrived in Hong Kong around 6:00 am.  The kids did awesome on the flight.  We quickly found a bathroom to freshen up and headed towards baggage claim to meet my parents.  Then...Dylan had the biggest blowout.  We didn't have our luggage yet so we had to change him back into the dirty clothes he wore the day before.  And I had to dig into the recesses of my brain to figure out how to ask for a plastic bag to put his yucky clothes in.  It was difficult but I managed to get a garbage size bag.  We met up with my parents then hopped on a bus to drop our luggage off at my aunt's apartment.  The kids were beat and quickly fell asleep on the hour long ride.

We met up with my aunt then headed off to dim sum.  Yum yum!!!!  We were able to meet up with Mama at lunch and had a nice short visit.  Afterwards we walked around the harbor, visited a fireboat museum and a small playground.  The kids were happy to stretch out their legs and get a good amount of energy out and we were just happy to not be on an airplane anymore.

Then we headed to Mama's apartment.  I have fond memories of when I visited when I was a little younger than Brooke's age.  I told Brooke of a time that we visited when I was around 5 or 6.  Yeye (my grandpa) was still working at that time and would ring the apartment when he was leaving for work or coming home.  We could watch him on the security camera on their TV.  I remember thinking it was the coolest thing to see my Ye Ye on tv.  He's famous!

We decided to make this a short day.  We had an early dinner then headed back to our apartment that we were renting.  I really wish we had taken pictures of the place.  It had to have been somewhere between 500 and 600 square feet for 9 people.  It was our family, then Brett & Taylor, and Heather and Jackson.  There were 3 bedrooms--literally rooms for beds.  Brett was too tall for the beds so he and Taylor ended up sharing the sofa bed.  Brooke slept in the maid's quarters on a tiny bed just perfect for her.  The boys shared a bedroom, Heather and Jackson were in another, and Troy and I were in the last.  For tight quarters I think we managed it very well. 

That's it for Day 1 in Hong Kong.  Stay tuned for Day 2 & 3!!!