Finishing up Japan...a month later!

There are so many pictures and so much to write about Japan that, so far, I have only been able to blog about half of our trip. I still need to write about Osaka and Kyoto. So, here it goes...

Osaka

After a delicious breakfast of McDonald's (which tasted just the same as it does at home), we checked out of our hotel, bought sandwiches to take with us on the train for lunch, and took a quick taxi ride from our hotel to the train station.  We hopped on the Shinkansen (bullet train) and headed from Yokohama to Osaka.  After about two and a half hours, we arrived.

Here are some pictures from the train ride, starting at the train station before we left.

The beautiful view we had of Mt. Fuji from the window of the train.

Olivia enjoying her first train ride.

Olivia with her obaachan. She had a great time playing with the bottle of green tea.

When we finally arrived at the hotel around 2:30 or 3:00, we took a quick rest before heading to explore the area around our hotel. Yusaku's parents, meanwhile, headed to his cousin Aiko's wedding.  Osaka was a very busy city and reminded me more of New York than Tokyo did.  The area where we walked around and looked at shops was absolutely packed with people (see pictures below).

We called it an early night. Olivia, who was pretty fussy, stayed with me at the hotel, while Yusaku ran to the department store across the street to grab some dinner for us.

The next morning we woke up and walked to Krispy Kreme (see picture below) for breakfast. Like McDonald's, it was pretty much just like it is in the U.S.  I had been kind of expecting there to be some Japanese influence - perhaps some green tea-flavored or red bean-filled doughnuts - but there wasn't.

We took this picture the day before. We didn't wait in this crazy line!

After our healthy breakfast, we browsed around Daimaru (the department store across the street from our hotel).  We then headed back to a restaurant at our hotel where we met up with Yusaku's mom's side of the family. We saw his grandma, great aunt and great uncle, cousins (Kanako and Kaoru), and his aunt and her husband.  After lunch we headed back up to the hotel room to visit a little longer.  Here are some pictures from our visit.

Olivia with her other great-grandma (Yusaku's mom's mom)

Olivia with her great-great uncle

Olivia with her great-great aunt

Olivia with her great-aunt

Olivia with her great-uncle

Olivia with her cousin, Kaoru

Olivia with her cousin, Kanako

The whole gang

After saying goodbye to everyone (except for Kanako) we headed to the Osaka Aquarium.  Yusaku and I had been there on our last trip and enjoyed it, so we wanted to go back. Olivia actually seemed to enjoy it more than I expected. Yusaku carried her around in the Bjorn with her facing out and she seemed to really be looking at the fish. Check out the pictures from the aquarium below.

We arrived just in time for a penguin parade!!

A giant fishing trying to eat Olivia! :)

We finished off our day by having a nice dinner with Yusaku's parents and Kanako before having to say goodbye to her.  Here are a few more pictures from the rest of our time in Osaka. I will write about Kyoto in my next post.

Cloth Diapering - Our Latest Adventure!

 You might think we're crazy, but we've started using cloth diapers.  It's something that I had considered doing before but hadn't started to seriously consider until recently. I know a couple people who do it and I started to research it.  It's something you have to really be sure you want to do and be ready to commit to before you jump in. My two main reasons for wanting to do it are because it's better for the environment (less disposable diapers in landfills) and also better for Olivia (she's not exposed to the chemicals in disposable diapers).  Since I am currently a "stay-at-home-mom," I have the time to devote to doing it. If I had gone back to work, I think I would have had a much more difficult time taking this on. I figure I have no good excuse not to at least try it, so...I am giving it a shot. 

When I started researching cloth diapers, I couldn't believe how much information was out there. There are so many different ways to go - from the traditional prefolds with waterproof diaper covers (of which there are many types and brands to choose from) to pocket diapers (a diaper cover with a pocket which you stick an insert into) to all-in-ones (just like it sounds, you put it on just like a regular disposable diaper, except you can wash and reuse the whole thing).  I'm sure that's more than you ever wanted to know about cloth diapers!

During my research, I discovered there was a diaper service available locally. They provide you with a week's worth of cloth diapers (prefolds) and a wetbag (where you store the used diapers).  They also pick up your dirty diapers once a week and replace them with clean ones.  Since I am new to this and didn't really know what I was doing, I thought this would be a good way to start. It offered me the opportunity to try it out without having to buy all the diapers. Also, they offer a risk-free trial (you put down a deposit but can get your money back if you decide to cancel after two to three weeks) so I figured it was a win-win situation.

So, last Thursday, the woman from the diaper service came out and brought me the diapers and gave me a little tutorial on how to use the diapers and diaper covers.  It's not as easy and convenient as disposable diapers, but it's really not so bad.  The funny thing is that they are much bulkier than disposables and therefore, make Olivia's bottom half look quite big! :) Here's a picture of Olivia wearing a prefold with a diaper cover.

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Here's what it looks like on the backside. Pretty cute, right?

I also discovered a store in Centerville - Cutie Patooties - that has just begun selling cloth diapers.  Since they are the only place around here that sells them, I went to check them out. I would much rather be able to touch and see what I am thinking about buying in person than have to order stuff online and not be able to do so.  The owner of the store was very nice and told me that she would work with me to order more of whatever I wanted. Right now, she doesn't have all that much since she has just started carrying them. I bought one each of the all-in-ones and the pocket diapers to try them out. I really liked the pocket diaper. It was soft on the inside and outside and fits nicely. It's also a lot less bulky. Here's a picture of Olivia wearing the pocket diaper. It's the same one as she is wearing in the top picture, except a front-view.

Here's a picture of Olivia in the all-in-one. It's cute, but huge and bulky.

Right now, we are doing a mish-mash of prefolds, pockets, the all-in-one, and disposables (mostly at night and when we are out and about).  It's been good to try out all the different types to see what we like best and decide what we think we want to go with.  We are leaning towards investing in more pocket diapers as they have been our favorite so far. We will probably cancel the diaper service and get our deposit back, not so much because we hate it, but more because we'd rather invest that money in the pocket diapers and wash them ourselves.  I'll keep you posted on our cloth diapering adventure as we go along!

Olivia's Baptism

Olivia with us and her godparents, Sarah and Daniel

Despite a weird little blip (see next paragraph), the weekend of Olivia's baptism turned out very nicely. Kaitlyn, Daniel, Aunt Patty, Uncle Rick, and Grandma all got into town on Friday and we enjoyed a nice walk in beautiful weather in Hills and Dales, as well as a nice dinner at my parents' house. Sarah got into town late Friday night so we didn't see her until Saturday morning.

I went to bed feeling fine Friday night and woke up with excruciating pain on the right side of my neck. My first thought was maybe I had just slept on it funny and had a stiff neck. It turned out to be much worse. I was having spasms in my neck. My mom's friend Laura, who is a physical therapist, was kind enough to come over and do a little work on my neck and show Yusaku some things he could do to make my neck feel better.  I was hoping not to have to go to urgent care, but it turned out I was in too much pain not to. My dad drove me to urgent care while the rest of the family did other, hopefully more fun, things. It turns out I had spasmodic torticollis. I have no idea what caused this but it wasn't very good timing as my whole family was in town for the baptism. Luckily a little muscle relaxer and some naproxen later, I was feeling much better. I also had to wear a soft cervical collar to stabilize my neck.

Here's a picture of me in my beautiful collar Sunday morning before the Baptism.  I was putting a cross necklace on Olivia that was given to her by my mom. It was my moms as a baby and she wore it at her baptism.

The weather was beautiful on Saturday and we took a trip to Orchardly Park with the whole family. Here are a few pictures from that outing.

The baptism - the reason everyone came into town - went wonderfully. Olivia wore the dress that my mom, my sister, and I all wore at our baptisms, which was very special. She also wore a sweater that I crocheted for her and finished just in the nick of time (about half an hour before we left the house for church).  She looked beautiful, of course!  Here are a few pictures from her baptism!

And lastly, a few pictures from our celebration back at home afterward.

Cutting the delicious cake from Taste of Elegance

Cute cousin pic!

Opening the beautiful sapphire ring from Gram (my Grandma)

Checking out the gifts from Aunt Sarah

Olivia is very blessed to be so loved by so many people.  I'm so glad all of my family - immediate and extended - could be there for her baptism. She is also very blessed to have two wonderful godparents!  We had a great time visiting with and celebrating her baptism with everyone.

Olivia Rolling Over

As promised, here's the video of Olivia rolling over for the first time. It's my first time trying to post a video, so hopefully, it goes well!

Yokohama

We arrived in Yokohama in the early afternoon and even though we were pretty tired and wanted to check into the hotel and take a nap, our rooms weren’t quite ready. So, we went to Landmark Tower, which had a big, very nice mall inside (see picture below) and lots of places to eat and had some lunch. 

We also searched for diapers since we hadn’t found any while in Tokyo despite looking seemingly everywhere and we were running low. We went to a drug store where they didn’t sell any but could at least tell us where they did sell them.  Since we were tired and wanted to head back to the hotel, Yusaku’s parents offered to run out and pick them up for us, which we appreciated!  Here are two pictures of our hotel.The first is the outside and the second is of our room.  We had a great view (p.s. check out who's in our bed)!

After a nice little nap back at the hotel, we met up with Yusaku’s aunts and uncles – his dad’s older brother Katsuhiro and his younger brother Shunzo. We had dinner with them at a "viking" restaurant. Apparently, they call buffets "vikings" there. Here is a picture of all of us at dinner (minus Yusaku’s dad who was taking the picture).

The next morning, after having a "viking" breakfast, we headed out for a chilly walk around Yokohama Bay. There was hardly anyone out. I suppose that's because the area where we were staying was mostly filled with businesses.  After our walk, we bought some sandwiches in the basement of the subway station by our hotel to take with us for lunch and then hopped on the train for a 45 minute ride to visit Yusaku's grandmother at her nursing home.  All the subway stations in Japan have very nice places to buy food to go - everything from sandwiches to sushi and everything in between. See picture below.

I was amazed at how clean the nursing home was. Not that I should be surprised - everything in Japan was very clean. It seemed like everywhere we went, people were cleaning. When we walked in with our stroller, a woman came out from behind the front desk and asked permission to clean off the wheels of our stroller. We were then instructed to wash our hands at a sink in the lobby before we headed upstairs to meet his grandma. 

Even though his grandma doesn't speak English and I don't speak Japanese, it was so nice to finally meet her and for her to meet Olivia and see Yusaku again after so long. We had lunch together in a private room that his dad had reserved. His dad's cousin was also there. We had a great visit and one of the best parts was that while we were sitting around visiting, Olivia rolled over for the first time. We were so excited and proud and luckily, caught it on video. I will put the video up in the next post. For now, here are some pictures from our visit.

Olivia meeting her great-grandma for the first time!

Group shot

Yusaku's dad's cousin - not sure what that makes her to Olivia :)

Saying goodbye! :(

Four generations

I found it very sad to say goodbye, but hopefully we will be able to see her again before too much more time goes by.  When we got back to our hotel, we met up with with Yusaku's cousin Yoko and her son, Mahiro.  It was so nice to meet her. She actually spoke English fairly well, which was really nice for me.  We headed over to Landmark Tower for dinner with them. I got a kick out of watching Mahiro, who is 8, and Yusaku's mom, play. They played many rounds of rock, paper, scissors - the Japanese version...pretty funny! Here's a picture of Kazumi and Mahiro and another picture of all of us after we had just enjoyed some gelato and crepes for dessert.

Finally, back at the hotel, we squeezed in a quick visit with Yusaku's other cousin, Maki and her husband.  Even though it was a short visit, it was really nice to meet her as well and for her to meet Olivia.  I'll wrap up this very long post with this picture of Maki and her husband.