warming up for Hawaii

The hotel we stayed at on the weekend was quite good - it was very family orientated (kid seats in restaurant, baby bath chairs, kids yukata, rice for the kids at dinner, even tho we didn't pay a CENT for either K or L), and of course the kids pool and regular pool were great fun! It was kinda cool in the water (ok, the kids pool was pretty darn cold, but the regular pool was ok). But K had an absolute ball, so it was worth it.

We arrived at the hotel around 2pm, they let us check in an hour early, and we hit the pool (good timing as the rain had just stopped) for about an hour. Then back inside for a bath (onsen water, too, which is a plus) before dinner.

Dinner was ok, nothing to really write home about. A bit lacking in volume (I ended up eating L's rice too!!)

Breakfast was all-you-can-eat and I did! Another quick swim from 9am (too cold for me in the morning, so J had the honours) before another quick bath before 11am checkout. Had a quick look at the waves around the surf-spot at Chikura, but flat, so we just had a bit of a play at the 道の駅　before making our way slowly home.

For less than 15,000yen for all 4 of us to stay (thanks Japan's version of lastminute.com) it was a cheapie but fun weekend away.*


So yeh, it was a kinda prelude for the possible hawaii trip (GW - totally sponsered by MIL, of course!! as if we can afford a week long vacay in the land of the rising sun, long cloud......umm, what is Hawaii the land of? Loco Moco perhaps?




* except for the altercation that occured after dinner, back in the room when I asked J to brush K's teeth before bed. He was almost passed out after 1 (yes, ONE) beer with dinner, and wouldn't get up to brush her teeth. I asked about 10times, but he refused (seriously) so I lost it, brushed her teeth,, turned the lights off and we all went to bed at something like 8pm!!(well, except for me of course, coz little L had other plans), but man I was pissed - for goodness sakes man, pull your weight!! end rant.

we're goin' on an airplane

just payed for the tickets. (on J's credit card which is why I am still so jovial, haha).

I originally found a cheap direct flight with one of those random travel agents on yahoo travel. (why are they all located in Tokyo kanda area?) Anyway, I was a bit stumped because they didn't quote a fuel surcharge price for K. Last year when we went home (with her being only 5months old) I was charged the full adult fuel surcharge price, so I didn't want to make too much about the fact that there was no surcharge price listed, just in case it was a mistake on their part. So I went to the JAL site, just to squiz, and found the direct flight available for only 1000yen more than the hole-in-wall travel agent was quoting. So I reserved on-line at the JAL site, thereby holding my seat, while I reconsider everything, make sure dates are ok, etc etc (warning - worry wart alert, haha!!). I check the on-line reservation every day this week (to make sure what, I don't know). I snatch J's credit card off him as he leaves for his island getaway, as I have to pay by Monday 15th and my credit card limit is a piddly 10man.


So I get the courage tonight to actually plug the credit card details in and push the little button on the screen to make that 14man purchase, not bad really for direct flights to Bris, returning Jan 4th, just in case J can get time off work over Xmas/New Years to come over for a few days.... I live in hope! Lucky I had reserved my seat earlier this week, the ticket price for the same day has now gone up about 6000yen - they automatically adjust the price based on how booked the flight is, the more booked it is, the dearer the fare, it is called "dynamic pricing" I think.

But as I was about to push the buy button, I had a sinking feeling that the price quoted from the travel agent was actually 13man (ok, only 1man difference, but it all adds up - and I always try hard to get the best price, and every yen counts, right!?!) But I double checked, and I was mistaken - they travel agent had quoted my fare and K's fare (about 7000yen, only 10% of the seat price, plus a bit of tax, and no fuel surcharge)separately. phew.

So I bought the tickets - yahoozies! And the countdown to take off begins. Can't wait. Although I am sure as soon as I get home, I will be pining (sp?) for Japan and J, lol!

Miyagi Trip (finally)

We went on a 4 day road trip up to Miyagi for O-bon, hoping to escape a bit of the heat. But it turned out to be pretty hot up there too!! And rainy! We took the tent with the intention (haha) of camping out, but a serious lack of camping areas meant that the tent never got to see the light of day. A week later here is the round up of our trip.

Wed August 13th
We left home at about 8:30pm, so K pretty much fell asleep right away in the car.And she stayed that way until 10minutes after we stopped for "the night" at about 4:30am at a service area, when she decided to wake up (just as J and I were finishing counting sheep) so I had to then entertain her in the back of the car (as it was raining outside) for 2 hours.

Thursday August 14th
When J woke up we drove to the nearest town, stopped again and we all had a very average breakfast of soba noodles at a 道の駅.
Today we went to Kesennuma city, to the Ice Aquarium, which I had seen on TV recently. It was bloody cold in there - they have the aquarium in a walk-in freezer, basically, and hand out thick coats to wear as you are going around. It is only really tiny, thank goodness - only took about 3 mins to walk around it, because did I mention it was cold in there?!? Not really worth it, but hey, you get that. It was still raining and K was getting grumpy after this, so we stopped off at Aeon to get some sushi packs for lunch, which we ate in the Aeon carpark then drove on to Onagawa, another sea port, where we set up camp (well, parked the car)for another night.

Friday August 15th
Let R and K run around the sea port in the morning to burn off some pent-up energy, then drove down the Oshika Peninsula. It was a lovely drive - nice coastline. We stopped at Oshika Town for lunch at this little place. J and I both had uni (sea urchin) rice bowls and they were delish!! Oshika (Ayukawa) is an old whaling town, so there was a whale museum there too, but at 700yen entrance fee, we decided to skip it and drive further down the peninsula in search of a camp site to relax at for the day. Found a park at the end of the peninsula that had these gorgeous orchards growing in the wild
I had to really control myself not to pull out a few to throw in a vase!

Unfortunately the beach that J camped at when he was a wee lad with his parents was no longer there, and the only other campsite an expensive "auto camp site" so we stopped off at the roller-slider for a bit of a slide with R and K (they lurve their slippery dips) before heading towards Ishinomaki, then Okumatsushima in search of a better campsite.....only to be dissapointed that there was nothing better, in fact, the closer we got to Matsushima, the less chance we had of finding a campsite, as apparently you are not allowed to camp anywhere in the Matsushima region. Even the youth hostel wouldn't let us set up camp on their lawn, so we got ourselves a dorm room and stayed in the youth hostel for about 4000yen each for the night.

Saturday August 15th
We set off early to get to Matushima, the main attraction of this trip. It is known as one of the top three panoramic spots in Japan. Hmm, I am not sure if I agree or not. It was nice, but I think I have seen more beautiful spots too. I don't know, maybe Matsuhima just didn't do it for me. The town is located on a bay of 260 islands of various sizes, which all have pine trees(matsu) on them, hence the name. The thing to do there is take a sightseeing boat cruise around the islands - 50minutes for about 1400yen. We stopped off at a 7-11 about 1km from the main town area, and I asked for a discount ticket for the boats....well, they showed me the computer ticket selling machine and rushed me through to the boat cruise, so I bought the tickets there for 1260yen - only to find out we had bought tickets for the most obscure boat that only had 2 departures each day, so we had to fill in time before our 10am boat ride, only to find ourselves the only passengers!! At least it worked out well because it meant that K could run around as much as she wanted without having to worry about other passengers. lol.




After the boat ride, we went to the Kanreitei Tea house, which had such a good write up in the tourist books. But I was VERY dissapointed by this. Yes, the view was very quaint,

but the tea they served (at 700yen with a small zunda mochi) was terrible. I am no tea expert, but I have done tea ceremony for a few years(BK), and always look forward to being able enjoy a matcha, but they always dissapoint me. Green tea really needs to be prepared properly to taste nice. This means warming the tea bowl, and definately not using water out of those electric pots because they are just not hot enough. Very very dissapointed (sigh) and I wouldn't recommend anyone going there. Even J's iced macha was bad - it had lumps of green tea floating around in it. Oh, and the thing that amazed me the most - you had to actually put your own tray away - they had 4 different plastic containers to put the tea bowl, plate, tray etc in seperately. That is like blasphemy. The tea bowl is supposed to be one of the most important (and usually expensive!) parts of the tea ceremony, chosen to show your hospitality for your guests. I couldn't believe that any one who actually knows anything at all about tea would be fine with stacking the tea bowls up in a plastic container. (end rant, lol)



After sightseeing we headed off to our pet hotel, booked especially for R! It was up in the mountains, so really quite cool, the first nice cool weather we had - seems Miyagi had a bit of a heat wave for the first few days we were there. Here she is (photo is on the side, can't turn it, sorry) enjoying herself. The pet hotel simply means that she is allowed into our room, as opposed to being stuck alone in the car again. She also got some doggy champagne and cigars when we checked in (no not really haha). The ofuro here was nice, so J and K went in first, then I went in by myself, then later on K and I went in again. We also had a nice morning bath. Being cool outside meant the ofuro was just right!

Sunday August 17th

Had a bit of a sleep in, enjoyed a leasurely breakky and bath, then drove off to see Mt. Zao, but got halfway there and turned back since there was fog about as thick as those o-baka-charachters on Japanese tv, so figured we wouldn't be able to see much there anyway. Also, I got very VERY car-sick on the windy road up there. I never used to get car sick, but ever since being preggars, I guess my body has changed. I get it a lot now. (boo-hoo) Stopped off at a cool little farm that was free to pat the rabbits and goats and sheep. K enjoyed it so much - she is definately not afraid of animals. There was also a cheese factory there, so we spent 30mins sampling all their cream cheeses 20 times over before buying nothing and leaving.

The car ride home was LONG. We got stuck in 2 big traffic jams, the first one 5mins after J decided thatit was time to change drivers as he was sleepy so I got to crawl along the highway at 15km an hour....for over an hour. Fun fun. The second was closer to Tokyo, but just as long. K did a fantastic job for being stuck in a car seat for most of the day, chucking an understandable wobbly at about 6pm when we still had over an hour and half to go to get home.

And finally, last photo is for Gaijin Wife - thought she might like to see that we somwhow ended up in Kunimi!! hahah!


I am buggered now - talk about mammoth post. It has only taken me over a week to get this done, mainly because K really hasn't wanted to leave me alone and gets pissed off whenever I sit at the computer, and because the computer has been playing up a bit recently and making everything twice as long to get done. Congratulations to anyone who read this far - hope I didn't bore you too much, lol!

cherry picking, new cars and old hags

it is wierd, i keep on "writing" posts in my head, but when it comes around to sitting in front of the computer, I can't be bothered to actually get them out of my head and onto the screen! hehe. This post has been "in draft" for over a week now!
So probably time to put it all together in another round up of events, maybe

July 12-13
We went cherry picking (not cherry blossom picking as I might have got confused with and told mum, coz she was asking when we got back how the cherry blossoms were, hehe) in Numata, Gunma, with the PILs. We went two years ago, on the first weekend in July. This time, we were already well into July, so the cherry season was pretty much over. Last time we got to try 4 or 5 different types of Japanese cherries, but this time only Satonishiki (nice, sweet) and Napolean (relatively tasteless) cherries were still around. And only a third of the cherry fields/farms/orchards?? (not sure what you call them) were still open, the ones at slightly higher altitude. So we got a discount - 1000yen each for 15mins of all you can pick-and-eat cherries, but they actually said we could stay for as long as we want. Truthfully, though, there is only so much cherry you can eat at one sitting (or picking! hehe). It was fun, and hot! The nicest cherries were to be found at the top of the trees, the branches closest to the top of the greenhouse roof, so it sort of felt like we were eating cherries straight out of the oven!

We stayed overnight in a small hotel at Shima Onsen - the hotel was dissapointing, the food average and the onsen really small and poky. PILs were not impressed. No brownie points for us this time (boo-hoo).
let me take you through the dinner conversation:

MIL - "what do you think the "main" item for dinner is?"
FIL - "there is no main"
MIL - "don't you think these pickles taste wierd."
FIL - "this (insert every single food item that was on the tray) is tasteless"
etc,etc.
as I said, though, the food was VERY AVERAGE. Especially for the price of the hotel. Ok, so we only paid about 13000yen per person, as we booked at the last minute and go a discount, but the usual fee is like 19000yen or so. We *so* thought we were going to get better food and hotel by going up a rank (we usually go for the 10000-12000yen range hotels.)

The onsen at the hotel was pretty dissapointing too, very small (and mouldy! ugh! cos it was all wooden - gotta do that right or else it is a bad result)

Dinner was served in a private room, with little trays, we sit on the floor on zabuton. This was, obviously, a menu for disaster with K - she didn't want to sit down (I think she was high from an overload of cherries) so I spent the whole time running around trying to keep her away from the mini fires on our trays (shabu-shabu on the menu, and rice cooking in the small pots on our trays too, sigh!). But she was an angel again at breakfast which was in the big room with all the guests, again with the small trays, so I can't be too upset with her.

On the Sunday, we drove via Haruna Lake. We tried to park, but the carparks lining the lake are all taken by the little mini old time stores, who come running out to say "you can park here IF you buy something from our shop". Now we are not so bad that we wouldn't buy anything, but we were looking for milk for K, and of course none of these shops had it, so we decided to drive on to see the Haruna Shrine first (which the nice old lady at the shop said was just up the hill...) 3km later we arrived at the shrine (more comments that we should have seen the lake first, now we have come so far away,blah blah blah). And the sign at the entrance said it was a 15min walk to the shrine (PIL - "15mins?? well I guess we should go we have come this far")

But you know what, the saving grace of the weekend was that Haruna Jinja was really cool!! There are some pictures here. It was a beautiful walk up to the shrine, along side the river. The shrine and area had character. (small amount of brownie points for us! lol!)

J and I had a good weekend anyway, and it was cool to see that K is now quite comfortable with the PILs - she runs up to them and gives them hugs! So all good.

Other news.....our new car came! yay! I have been test-driving it every day this week so far. Gotta look out for those new-car bugs; catch any problems asap (lol).

Oh, yeh, one more thing, I think that when I was upset a few weeks ago, and I went to local supermarket and the staff were almost cursing me for being in the road in the ailes, well I am starting to think that they are just actually really rude. See, I went back there yesterday, when I was 100% rational and no hormonal issues, and the old hag, uh, I mean lady on the checkout didn't even say "Irashaimase" or "Arigato Gozaimasu" to me. Thinking it was just me, I listened as the next customer was served, but yet again, there was no niceties. Hmmm. I feel better it's not just me that they are rude too, anyway!

Right, the chu-hai has hit maximum effect. must go before I write about my deepest darkest secrets (lol).....have to get K's dinner ready anyway.

the week in review

saturday morning, 6:03am. We left home in the rain with K (awoken from her sleep to be shoved in a car seat) in a suprisingly good mood. She even managed to fall back asleep on the drive out to Narita. It only took 1hour, almost to the dot, to get from home to Narita, which is pretty cool I think! It then took me something like 20mins to find my way into the carpark - I swear they have changed things out there - I coukdn't find the carpark I usually park in, which puts me out in the open (as opposed to in those multi-story car parks where I can never remember if I am parked in the blue penguin or the yellow giraffe section) and right next to the entrance to the walkway to the airport arrivals floor. So we drove around and around, entered one carpark, then realised it was for buses and employees, so quickly exited that one (nice guy on the exit booth even told me I wouldn't have to pay - gee thanks, I mean, I was in the carpark for all of 5 seconds, I would HOPE I don't have to pay!).
It all worked out well, and i got to the arrivals hall about 10mins or so before my friends arrived, so I had just enough time to feed K her breaky before we got back in the car for the ride home! Oh, and R didn't end up coming out to the airport - actually the PIL's took her for the week, which was a great help, so that while I was off galavanting around the sights of Tokyo, she was being pampered and probably feed up with snacks all day, I bet she loved it!

We actually went all the way down to Odawara on Saturday, to see the Odawara Castle, and Sunday headed to Hakone, the bubbling hot springs of Owaku-dani, and lake Ashi-no-ko and the shrine there in the pouring, and I mean pouring rain. We came back home a bit earlier than planned on Sunday coz it was just tooo wet to do much else.

Monday it was overcast, but not raining, so we headed in to the Imperial Palace, Ginza, Omote-sando and Harajuku and the Meiji Shrine.

Tuesday was a perfect day, so we started off at the Hama-Rikyu Gardens, then caught the "water bus" up the Sumidagawa river to Asakusa. Saw a sumo wrestler down the back streets and got a photo with him - he leaned over and touched K on the head - I think I head somewhere that is supposed to bring good luck? (J knew nothing about it, hehe)! Came back home Tues afternoon for a rest, before heading back to see Tokyo Tower at night.

Friends left on a 9am train on Wed morning out to Narita and K and I have spent the last 2 and a half days lazing around, lying on the couch, taking long naps and trying to recover! K has had a cold (runny nose, all stuffed up, cough and sore throat) since Wed last week, and she got a bit of a temperature again on Sunday night (it hit 38.5) so we took her down to the outpatients again and got some meds for her. Her temp came down pretty quick. But she is STILL stuffed up. *sigh* Apart from Sunday night when she had the temp, she has been her usual genki self, but I have kept her home from playgroup this week and last week, as I don't want to have her spluttering all over the other kiddies and giving them a cold too. And I am all stuffed up too (my sore throat over the weekend has gone, but am still very flemmy). Plus yesterday was really cold, and rainy. Today is back to warm and sunny weather, so we just headed out before to buy some veges for dinner (oh, and a donut from Mister Donut for mummy's afternoon tea break.) Which got me thinking about why if

fruit = fruutsu; and
nut = nattsu; and
donut = donatsu
then why is it called Mr. Donut?

we have had a big day

K managed to get use out of her oversized hat today, as the sun finally decided to make a reappearance. Since it was the first day since the weekend that there wasn't rain around, I thought that we should treat R to a big walk. Usually we go for 2 walks a day. I try to make one of them a "big" one, of about an hour or so.

First off though, at about 9:30am this morning, we went out, K in the ergo on my back, down to the end of the street for R's little walk, you know, the "get the business outta the way" type walk. We walk right past a community kid's centre （児童館), and for some reason, I felt the need to go in an ask if there were any gatherings for 1year old kids. Turns out there was a group meeting at 10am this morning, so we cut R's walk little walk short, headed home and got ready to go back. It actually started at 10:30am, and it was just like a playgroup - so I joined up!

There are about 16 mums and kids about 1-2 years old. K was HYPER the whole hour of the playgroup. She was just running around the hall, trying to get into everyone's bags and drink bottles. Basically she didn't stop the whole time. I hope that she was just excited about seeing so many kids. K is definitely NOT a wall flower. She gets into EVERYTHING and is always trying to get everyone's attention (just like R, actually). I was sort of debating about whether we should actually join up the playgroup, coz if she is like this every week, well, they will probably kick me out. (lol) AND I was absolutely buggered at the end of the hour anyway, coz I ended up chasing her around the hall for the entire time. sigh. hopefully she will be a bit more interested in doing things next time?!

Once a month they have a volunteer come in and do some movement and songs and tell a story (today was it!) The other times they have the members take turns to plan a craft or thing to do for the day. Apparently next week is "going fishing" - we have to take along crayons, scissors and sticky tape to make the fish and the poles I guess?? Anyway, I am glad that I got up the courage to go in to the community centre and ask. And now we have something to do on Thursdays, and the other mothers, although I didn't really get a chance to talk to them, seem ok. A bit of a mix, some youngish mums, all done up like they are going shopping in Ginza, a few more mature mums but generally most of them looked very down to earth and friendly.

After the playgroup, we got home and K had a big lunch (obviously all that running around made her hungry) of rice, with tuna and veges stew that I had left over from her dinner the night before. Then she slept. And so did I. Only for an hour though. But I managed to get K back to sleep for another hour after that, though.

Then we headed off to the river after K woke up from her afternoon nap. I made her avocado sandwiches,2 slices of bread rolled up to make "pin wheel sandwiches" which she devoured most of before we even got to the riverside. and it is only a 10 min walk away! lol.

Along the river, there are 3 walking/cycling roads. The "high road", which is bitumen, the "low road", which is like a dirt road, but pressed down dirt, so it is smooth, and easy to walk along, and "the middle road" which is 砂利, a real dirt road with pebbles, so it is really bumpy, especially in the stroller. Poor K, she just about had the sh*t shaken out of her as we walked along the middle road.

Also they are actually at three different levels. I have to cross the road, and go up the embankment to get to the high road, then go back down the embankment to get to the middle and low roads. There are a few places along the river that have slopes that you can take your bike up and down the embankment, but they are a bit steep for the stroller, so I usually use the slope that is more stroller friendly. But today, I decided to cut to the chase, and head down the grass! straight down!! R was pulling us, and the embankment was a bit muddy from the last few days of rain. I am lucky we didn't go R over Z! I think I will stick to the proper slope next time, even if it is a bit out of my way.

At the riverside, we ran into another Jack Russel terrier. I think we have actually met them before at the river, coz they knew R's name. But I couldn't remember them. Sometimes I wish dogs had meishi (business cards.) Also chatted with the owner of an Italian Greyhound. All the dog owners gather at the end of the golf course at 4pm I think for a doggy playgroup?! (lol). We didn't go though.

So after our big 1 hour walk plus, we brought R back home, then headed straight out again with K to the shops to get some milk, and bananas. It was 5:50pm by the time I actually got home. So then it was a quick grab some things out of the freezer for K's dinner (chicken-tofu burgers, with peas, carrots and corn and mashed sweet potato) followed by a quick throw together whatever I have in the fridge for my dinner (bacon, red capsicum, long onions, asparagus stir-fry with rice, and natto!!). J is away for work, so I am trying to use up lots of left overs and bits and pieces for my meals.

I have rambled on enough -I think the excitement of the day has made me hyper too!! I think I am gonna put the kettle on for a cuppa. there are still a few "coconut sable" biccies left with my name written all over them.

out & about today

we were at yamada denki, looking at new laptop for J.
K played in the kids area - seemed to have great time throwing all the toys around.

then went to a interior/furniture store,but all we bought was this pair of toilet slippers at J`s insistance.

I never see much use for them, but he says we need them for any japanese guests （think he means his folks!).lol

lost in tokyo

tokyo station、 that is! Yesterday I went in to Tokyo station to meet up with a friend from primary school`s mum & 2 sisters、 who are visiting Japan for a week. I can`t even remember the last time I went to Tokyo station、 its not somewhere I ever need to go to! I`m glad I gave myself plenty of time before I was suppposed to meet them、 coz I reckon I wandered up & back & around for a good 20mins before I ゛saw the light゛ and made it outside! Having k in the stroller means things take longer too- its hard enough trying to find the right exit at a station u don`t know、 but searching for a lift is even more fun (not) especially when u realise there IS NO lift & u have to lug k in pram up & then usually BACK DOWN the stairs! Good exercise、 I guess - you should see my abs!lol!