Japan Trip: Part 3 (Kyoto)

We arrived in Yokohama on Wednesday, after a fairly long day of traveling (a train to the Shinkansen station, the Shinkansen, and then a hotel shuttle bus ride from the train station). After checking into our hotel, we decided to do a little exploring and walked to Nanzenji. Unfortunately, it was closing so we didn't stay too long.

Instead, we walked to dinner and had some yakisoba (probably my favorite Japanese meal) in a small restaurant. This was our first time on the trip to eat in traditional Japanese style (no shoes, on the floor) and Olivia got a big kick out of it.

The next morning, we headed back to Nanzenji. We climbed very steep stairs to the top of this building (see pic below). It was freezing, as we climbed up there in just our socks.

After Nanzenji, we stopped for some coffee and warmed up a bit and then headed a little further down the road to the Kyoto City Zoo.

It was fairly small and undergoing construction and very different than the zoos we have been to at home, but we had fun nonetheless.

After the zoo, we stopped for some lunch at another traditional Japanese restaurant and then walked to Heian Jingu (see pics below). We walked around the beautiful garden there. After such a busy day, we headed back to the hotel and decided to stay in and have dinner at the restaurant there.

Friday morning, Yusaku, the girls, and I had breakfast at our hotel and then met up with Yusaku's parents to go to a paint-your-own pottery place. This was probably one of my favorite experiences of the trip. I love doing hands-on activities and it was a nice diversion from sightseeing. We had to leave the pottery there to be fired so we asked them to send the finished pieces to Yusaku's uncle with the plan of Takashi picking them up on his trip in March and bringing them back home then. I can't wait to get them!

After leaving the pottery place, we grabbed some lunch before returning to the hotel to meet up with Yosuke and Manami. All of us hopped into two taxis and headed to Kiyomizudera. I love the walk up the hill Kiyomizudera. It is lined with lots of little shops selling souvenirs and foods and people are handing out samples to try.

We were a bit frozen after exploring Kiyomizudera, so we stopped into a restaurant for some coffee, tea, and snacks to warm up. After leaving the restaurant and some more walking around, we took a taxi to the restaurant where we were meeting the Arakis for dinner.

We ate a delicious multi-course meal in a private room of a traditional style Japanese restaurant. It is always nice to see them. I wish we didn't live so far away. They are a very nice family.

On our last day in Kyoto, I started off the day by trying vending machine coffee for the first time. It wasn't bad. Still seems strange to me to get a warm drink from a vending machine, but, oh well.

We went to Kinkakuji (see pics below), had some lunch, and then checked out Ryoanji before taxing a (very long) taxi ride to the train station. This was followed by a train ride to Osaka, which is where I will pick up my next post.

Japan Trip: Part 2 (Yokohama)

On Sunday, our first full day in Yokohama, we stopped by the Babies R' Us (very interesting to see and compare to the American Babies R 'Us!) and picked up an inexpensive umbrella stroller. This came in very handy during our trip even at home Olivia rarely rides in a stroller anymore. It was so nice to have when we were out and about all day and she needed a chance to rest.

After that, we headed to the InterContinental Hotel for lunch with Yuskau's dad's side of the family. We met with Yusaku's uncles, Shunzo and Katsuhiro, their wives, and children (Maki and husband, Hiro and wife, and Yoko and husband and son, Mahiro). Including Yusaku's parents, the four of us, and Yosuke and Manami, there were 19 of us there! Even though most of his family doesn't speak English, we had a nice time visiting. They were excited to meet Natalie and see Olivia again and both girls received MANY presents.

After lunch, we took a short walk to Yusaku's uncle, Katsuhiro's apartment.

We spent a good while there, visiting with everyone. We had a very nice time!

On Monday, we walked around the harbor and checked out the deck by the cruise ship. It was freezing! After this, we headed to the mall for something warm to drink and a bite to eat before heading back out to a store where we could buy Natalie some diapers.

view from our hotel room

It turned out that the store where the diapers were was very close to the Anpanman Children's Museum, so we decided to check that out. It was an interesting experience for sure.

After the museum, we had some lunch (a ramen set) at the mall food court, shopped at Uniqlo, and headed back to the hotel. Natalie and I called it an early night, while Yusaku and Olivia headed out for some dinner with his parents.

Tuesday, we had lunch with Manami's family and later, dinner with Katsuhiro and his wife.

Japan Trip: Part 1 (getting there and Tokyo)

We've been back now for about a week and our sleep schedules are finally returning to normal (thank goodness!). We had a great time and the traveling (planes, trains, etc.) went much better than I was expecting. It was fun to see Olivia experience as a 3 year old this time around...much different than when she was 4 months old (see my post about her first trip here). Both kids were troopers.

I want to document our whole trip, if for nothing else than my own memory. So..here it goes.

We dragged the kids from the warm beds around 5 am the morning we left (Thursday, January 9), stuck them in the car, and headed to the airport. Not surprisingly, once Olivia was awake, she did not go back to sleep for a LONG time after this. Our flight from Dayton to Dallas went off without a hitch and then we had a couple hour layover in Dallas before we boarded the plane to Japan.

Unfortunately, we ended up sitting on the plane for the next two hours before they decided the mechanical problem with the plane could not be fixed and we all had to get off and hope that they could find another plane for us to use later in the day. This was disappointing, especially after we had all already been awake for so long. I just wanted to get the journey started, not prolong it. Fortunately, a few hours later (about 5 hours after we were originally supposed to leave) we boarded a new plane and took off. The kids did really well and they both even slept a good bit (about 6-7 hrs). It was almost 10:00 pm Friday the 10th when we arrived in Japan. After waiting for our luggage, we took a quick cab ride to the airport hotel and slept for about 6 hours.

After some breakfast at the hotel, we checked out and took the hotel shuttle back to the airport to catch the Narita Express, which we took to Tokyo. This was our first train ride of the trip and thankfully, Olivia did great. We stored our luggage in lockers at the train station and headed out to see the Imperial Palace. It was a beautiful day. After a few hours in Tokyo, we headed back to the station and caught another train for Yokohama. Once there, we checked into our hotel, had dinner (tonkatsu sandwiches and super delicious strawberries from the grocery store in the basement of our hotel), and headed to bed.