Our trip to Japan

Well, we have been back in China for a bit now but summer time with two little ones hasn't left me with much time to blog.  I am going to try and sum up our trip to Japan overall and then do another post about Disney since i have had a lot of people asking about it.  We spent 8 days in Tokyo, Japan flying from China to Japan wasn't too bad, we drove 3 hours to the Shanghai airport and then had about a 3 hour flight to Tokyo.  We got in pretty late for us, around 9pm after a delay in our flight, we took a taxi to our hotel and $200 usd later we arrived.  We couldn't believe how expensive the taxi ride was, about an hours drive with no traffic!!!  We paid the driver, luckily they take credit cards because we hadn't exchanged much money yet, and checked into the hotel.

It was our first time staying for a week in one hotel room with the kids, usually we try to get a serviced apartment or a one-bedroom so we can put them down for naps and to bed around 8 and not disturb them if we stay awake, in China this is fine, in Japan even a single hotel room was expensive.  We decided to stay in one hotel the whole time so we didn't have to move with the kids, we were at the Hilton Tokyo Bay, and it was a 20 minute train ride into the center of Tokyo.  The hotel was western style, the food was mostly western in the breakfast at the hotel, and we noticed there was a fair amount of Chinese people staying there as well.  We spent our first day at Disneyland, after not getting the best night sleep since we got to the hotel much later than the kids bedtime and trying to get them to sleep in a hotel wasn't so easy it was a bit of a rough day.  We powered through and went to Disneyland Tokyo.  

There was a monorail you could ride for about $3 usd to get you to the park or to the main train station to go into Tokyo so that was pretty convenient.  We spent 5 days between the two parks in the end.  The days we weren't at the park we took a day at the hotel to swim with the kids, we let the kids ride the monorail around, you all know how much Blake loves trains.  Another day we spent the day seeing a little bit of Tokyo.  We found a train museum and decided to get directions to get there, this was after a day at Disneyland so the kids slept in a little bit and we got a late start.  After taking the monorail to the train to another train to a metro we finally arrived 2 hours later at the train museum.  Now if you have little ones, ours are 1.5 and 3.5 you know it is not so easy to travel with little ones, you are always toting snacks, toys, diapers, medicines with you and then to entertain them for 2 hours on trains and switching in between wasn't easy.  There are A LOT of stairs in Tokyo, you have to change stations and go up a few flights of stairs, then across the street and down a few flights to get to the next line.  So in the end this was an extremely long process, luckily we left the stroller at the hotel.  Oh, and I was that lady with a screaming baby on the train, what can you do, she was screaming for absolutely no reason and wouldn't stop......oh my gosh!!!

Once we arrived to the train museum it was great, Blake was in heaven!  There were trains for the first to recent parked in the first floor of the museum.  The kids could get on the trains and walk through, which for Blake was awesome!!!  They had a section of miniature trains that you could watch move around a bit and lots of information on the trains but it was all in Japanese.  One thing we were warned about and noticed is there isn't a lot of English writing or speakers in Japan.  In China, we are used to many signs in English and in the big cities like Shanghai and Beijing you can find someone who speaks English.  On the first floor they also had a small train you could ride, similar to one at the malls but it was on a track, and then they had individual train cars that you could drive, of course we did it all!  The third floor was more hands on, the kids could touch things to see how they worked, more of a science of trains and they had a blast.  There were also toy vending machines all over the place in Japan so we let the kids check a few of these out.

After the train museum we decided to go to Shibuya which is know for its crazy pedestrian crossing of 6 streets, and the bright neon lights at night.  We took the train there, this broke up our train ride back to the hotel.  After checking our trip advisor we found that where we got off was in walking distance to a well rated (#2 in Japan) tempanyki restaurant, we didn't have reservations but it was a weeknight so we took our chances.  A very nice pair of ladies tried to help us find it and ended up walking us right to the door of the restaurant.  We got a table, one of two tempanyaki tables, the rest was bar seating in this tiny restaurant and proceeded to look at the menu and order.  We figured, "when in Rome..." and orderd the Kobe beef which also came with vegetables and rice.  After getting inside the restaurant you could see this was a mom and pop type establishment, the lady that owned it was probably in her 70's and she came over and prepared our food for us.....as you can see from the photos it was delicious.  They toasted a piece of bread for each of us and everything was served on the toast, then at the end they cooked it over a little butter and it was amazing!  The beef was some of the best i have ever had, melted in your mouth like butter, even the kids loved it!

fter dinner we went walking for a few blocks so we could see the night lights of the city.  With two little ones we don't get out much at night so it is always nice to see a city lit up and to watch the hustle and bustle of a big city!  We then made our way back to the train, to the metro and the monorail to get back to our hotel.

They had smoking rooms in public places, this one was inside a restaurant in the airport.  They did have some beer, Brian tried it out!  They like the seasoning below, not sure what it is.  Green Tea and Melon seemed to be popular flavors there, this is Melon Fanta.  And teriyaki chicken with edamame in the bottom corner.

 

The other day we spent in the city we went to Asakusa which was another part of Tokyo, we took the monorail to the train and then i think one or two metros to finally get there.  It was raining and we had rain jackets and umbrellas, and had to walk between stations, ask for help twice and then found our way.  This is set up to seem like an old Japanes town, they have a temple there, and lots of tourist shopping and restaurants.  It was nice to see this and compare it to what we have seen in China too.  We were watching as they made small cookies, they were bean curd inside of a sponge cake with a cast-iron machine, umbrellas were everywhere as people lifted theirs up high or ducked down low to avoid the next persons umbrella, it was pretty close walking together like China, not so much personal space.  After roaming around and buying some souvenirs we found a restaurant, again with a screaming baby (by now we just think being off her routine and not taking good naps this week is taking it's toll) we had another traditional Japanese meal.  We were lead to our table where we took off our shoes, and sat down on pillows with our feet below ground level, what you would think of as a traditional Japanese table.  We ordered tempura, udon noodles (hot and cold) and some sake.  After this meal we adventured our way back to the hotel through the metro, on the train and finally the monorail to get back and rest.

 

I have to say in Japan I was so impressed with the toilets, in many areas there were diaper changing stations in both the men and women's restroom which made it very easy having both kids.  In the women's they offered a baby chair to have the baby sit while you go to the bathroom, in your stall of course.  The toilets had options, you could use a dryer, a bidet, or play water noises while you were in the bathroom.  Blake got a kick out of rinsing his tushy!  All the bathrooms were clean, had western toilets, soap and paper towels.....so different than China!

There were vending machines everywhere!  They mostly had beverages in them but a large variety and you could use your metro/train pass which was convenient too.  We got a sumica pass and didn't have to buy tickets every time we got on a train or a metro.

While we really enjoyed seeing another culture, it was a difficult place to travel with children.  Our kids were exhausted, they like their routines and do so much better behavior wise when we keep them on a routine of sleep, naps, and meals so that shook this up a bit.  There was a lot of walking and stairs and the kids want to walk but only so much before they get tired.  The weather was HOT!  Walking so much and carrying kids was a task with this weather, but this is when we could schedule the trip, I am sure other seasons are much more bearable.  We don't know if we will every be in Asia again so we are trying to take advantage of seeing countries and learning about other cultures while we are nearby, so for us we knew we wouldn't make it to Hiroshima or Okanawa, even Mt. Fuji with the kids but we did get to see Japan and had a great family vacation!  This was actually our first trip as a family of 4 with no friends or family so we enjoyed being together and made some fun memories!!!

And we celebrates 4th of July in Japan, with family Old Navy shirts!!!  (Brian wasn't happy about this one)  But as in China, there were a ton of people wearing matching clothing)