Trip to Japan: Day 4

On day four of our vacation we went to the biggest city in the entire world, Tokyo! We learned of this cool little place called Asakusa. Asakusa is the center of Tokyo's shitamachi, "low city", one of Tokyo's few districts, which have preserved a certain atmosphere of the old Tokyo. 

For many centuries, Asakusa used to be Tokyo's leading entertainment district. During the Edo Period, when the district was still located outside the city limits, Asakusa was the site of kabuki theaters. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, modern types of entertainment, including movies, set foot in Asakusa. Large parts of Asakusa were destroyed in the air raids of World War II. While the area around the rebuilt Sensoji (the temple) has regained its former popularity after the war, the same cannot be said for Asakusa's entertainment district.

It had a very large street with a canopy over it and along both sides were tons and tons of little shops. 

Since Asakusa is one of the few destricts that still strives to preserve old Tokyo you can find things like professional old fashion doll makers, wooden shoe makers, and candy makers. It was pretty cool.

We then headed to Asakusa's main attraction, a very popular Buddhist temple, Sensoji, which was built in the 7th century. 

There was a shrine at the front of the temple but tourist were not allowed in so this was the best picture I could get of it. 

At the front of the shrine and the temple there were these huge metal containers that people would throw money in and pray to the shrine... we felt a little weird being there and watching people do there thing but it was interesting. 

There was some very cool paintings on the ceiling though, I always wonder how long it took people to paint things like this and how uncomfortable it must have been doing so...

Anyway. The we made our way to Tokyo Tower!

Close to Tokyo Tower we found this cute little set up that was kind of hidden behind some bushes. I thought it was pretty! 

Tokyo Tower is 333 meters high and is 13 meters taller than its model, the Eiffel Tower of Paris, and the world's tallest self-supporting steel tower. It was completed in the year 1958 as a symbol for Japan's rebirth as a major economic power. There were two main observatories, we went up the the first one, 150 meters and got to see all of this...

You really got to see how big Tokyo actually was! We had planned on going all the way to the top but that was only if the weather really good because we wanted to see Mt. Fuji, but it was too cloudy. This is us in the tower...

They did have a few places that had observation windows that you could walk on top of glass and look straight down... there was a lady there that reminded me of my mom... the lady was freaking out and I think my mom would have too =D Love you mom:)

Then it was time to go home and Gabriel fell asleep in Josh's arms! 

When you travel with a baby you always have to try to make it back to your hotel early. So to some people it may seem like we don't do that much in one day but it's as much as you can do with a baby. That and transportation took forever in Japan and you have to walk a lot which kills time too. It didn't bother us though, Josh and I are pretty laid back and like to relax on vacation so getting back to the hotel early was perfect for us! 

Trip to Japan: Day 3

The day after we arrived in Japan, Wednesday, we headed to a place called Onjuku. It is a small town on the edge of the Pacific Ocean.

We wanted to head there within the first couple of days because there was a tropical storm right off the coast of Japan and there was supposed to be some big waves coming in because of it. I also wanted to just see the ocean once and for all. No Sea of Japan, no Mediterranean Sea, no Lake Superior (ok, that one is not comparable), but just THE ocean and I finally did so I had to get a picture of it!

We had to take the train of course...

...and we found out that some of the trains in Japan are really nasty and super old and really just not comfortable. You can kind of see it in this picture of my men!

And then we walked around and tried to find a place to eat. We were really surprised to find out that considering this was supposed to be a tourist town, there were hardly any restaurants so we ended up going to this place...

...it ended up being the best decision EVER! Oh. My. Gosh. They had amazing food! Oh my! Honestly, when you haven't had really any good food for almost 6 months and then you have something like gravy and meatloaf and green beans... oh so good! I almost cried it was so good... or not, but whatever, you get the point!

Then we headed down to the beach!

We found this camel statue thing that was pretty cool and it was right along the beach. I don't know what was up with this town but they had a ton of camels everywhere... we thought it was a little odd. Gabriel was very tired and didn't feel like looking at the camera though...

...but we got him to look at me once...

...and by the time he got to Daddy it was pretty well time to fall asleep...

So underneath this bridge that heads to the beach, do you notice all the little dots in the water?

Well all those little dots are these honkin' fish!

The little canal they are swimming in came right from the ocean and the fish would come up to the top of the water near where you would stand over the bridge and wait to be fed. Unfortunately we didn't have any food to give them:(

So then we spent a little bit of time at the beach, we found some very unique sea shells and Gabriel finally fell asleep.

Then we walked back to the train station and hopped on the train. These pictures are from by the train station. I wasn't kidding when I said the town was small and it was very out there, this was the scenery for most the the train ride. 

We had a ton of fun and we were super glad that we took the long train ride all the way out there! 

Japan Trip: Days 1&2

So we have made it safely back from Japan! It was a super long trip back and totally not fun, but I will get to that when we get to that day of my blogging about Japan:) We are all very tired today and Gabriel is not the happiest camper but we just need to get into the swing of things and all will be fine.  

So, day 1 of our trip was Monday. We got up early and got a ride from the teachers aide, Sandy, to the bus stop in Yangpyeong which is about 20 minutes away. There is no direct bus from Yongmun that leaves for the airport so that is why we had to make the special trip to Yangpyeong. Also, because Yangpyeong is still quite a ways from the airport, they only have three buses that leave during the day. Unfortunately they were all too late in the day for us so we had to head in a day before our flight and get a hotel. So we took our bus which was a little over two hours long.

The bus took us straight to the airport so when we got there we had to call our hotel and they came and got us with their van (cause they were cool like that!). I didn't take any pictures, but the hotel wasn't super nice, but good enough to hold us over a night. Gabriel ended up tripping and getting a bruise on his cheek that didn't go away our entire trip so poor Boo is going to have a bruise in all the pictures:(

The next morning we got up early and took the shuttle to the airport!

Check-in was a breeze along with immigration so by the time we got to our gate we still had plenty of time to sit around. Gabriel had lot of fun walking around and checking out all the different things. Unfortunately, he decided to try running again and he's just not very good at it yet and tripped and fell and got yet another bruise on his forehead:( I felt like a horrible mom and I think every day of our vacation some stranger asked us what happened, I think they thought we were beating the poor kid... I ended up putting make-up on him so people would stop asking us but it still didn't cover it up very well! Anyway, besides the little bump at the airport everything went great!

We got on our plane and found out that we had been upgraded to Economy Plus because they didn't have any other seats left that you could sit in with a baby. It was awesome! I love Economy Plus, everything is just so much nicer! 

Gabriel had fun playing with his life vest. See, whenever you fly over the ocean with a baby the flight attendant will come by before you take off and give you a special life vest for the baby. The first time this happened it made me really nervous, like they were expecting us to crash and die or something, but this time I was prepared and knew it was a common procedure. 

And you know how I told you that Koreans were paranoid about the Swine Flu? Well, it's not just Koreans, it's the Japanese too! I snuck a picture of a Japanese person and a Korean wearing their ever so fashionable masks. You see a lot of this in Korea and Japan.

For much of the plane ride Gabriel was fascinated by looking out the window! I'm not sure exactly what interested him so much because we were sitting right on the wing and couldn't see the ground very well, but non the less, he spent the majority of the flight like this...

When we got to Japan things continued to run smoothly. When we went through immigration they sent us to the priority line just because we had a baby. Because we got through immigration so fast we were also one of the first to grab our bags and the shuttle for the hotel was pretty easy to find too. 

When we got to the hotel Josh went to check in while I sat down with Gabriel. The hotel clerk told Josh that the room was not going to be ready for another two hours and we were going to have to wait. Josh came and told me and we were super bummed because Gabriel was in much need of a nap and we didn't want to sit in the hotel lobby for two hours with a tired, cranky baby. The clerk then came by a couple of minutes later and said that she called ahead to the cleaning ladies and they had cleaned our room and we could go up! YES! Score! We were super happy! I loved that hotel!

Anyway, so that night we went into town and I forgot my camera:( But all we did was eat and walk around a little bit. I had some very yummy dish that I can't remember what it was called, but it was rice with a creamy white sauce with mushrooms and duck! Delish! Gabriel thought it was pretty great too and ate half of my food:)

So, that's our first two days! Things went great and I actually liked traveling in an airport for once... until we came back of course, but like I said, we will get to all of that later.

Sneak Peak

For those of you who read my blog regularly, you have probably noticed that I have not blogged for about the last week. Well, I have a good reason! Well, I think it's a good reason anyway. I'm on vacation! Yep, Hubby and I with our little munchkin are in Japan! We have been here since Tuesday and today is our last full day here. Tomorrow we fly back to Korea land and English Village. Now, you may be wondering why on earth I am blogging while on my vacation especially on the last day. Well, we're tired, we're back from our day in Tokyo already and both my boys are sleeping peacefully behind me for a nap before we head down to dinner. Yes, I should probably be joining them in their sweet slumber but I just don't feel like it! Sleeping can come later:)

Anyway. So I won't be posting much right now. Next week when we're back home I will give you some more detailed posts about our time here. As for now I will give you a little sneak peak of what we have spent A LOT of time doing...

Anyone want to come to the subway station with me?

Or hop on a train?

You may or may not be surprised to find out that this was not the busiest station or the most packed subway that we were on. There were many stations where it was much worse then this. Though that is not to say that there were times when there was hardly anybody on the train but that wouldn't make for very fun pictures now would it:)

a little more

Last little update on the school. So they had another meeting on Friday and the school told the teachers (keep in mind this is a day after good ol' Brian told us he was going to try and get a us different job) that none of the teachers can transfer to other schools. Since we are government based the government is restricting that. I guess if we wanted to break the contract ourselves and find a different place then we could but we would forfeit all benefits, but we don't really want to do that. Anyway. Since the school is government based the school thought that the government would bail them out and give them money, but apparently the government is not going to do that either. I didn't get all the details but it was something about taking tax cuts or something and not having enough money to bail the school out. 

Our three main options right now are all loofy. We can either stay at the school and ride it out and see if Koreans magically are not afraid of EV anymore and re-schedule their programs within the next month or so, if they don't then we have no idea what the future is going to hold... possibly being stuck here with no job or maybe the school would give us a plane ticket (which if they don't have any money at that point I don't know how that would happen). Our other option which we already tried on them and they rejected is to ask the school to send us all home (Josh, me, and Gabe) so we don't have to pay for the ticket. This option would actually be cheaper for the school instead of keeping us here. Since they already said no to that one we're going to try and talk to them again in a few weeks and see if they changed their minds. Our last option is basically apply for jobs back in the States and hope that they either would fly Josh and/or both of us back to the States or would at least pay enough that we could pay back a ticket within a couple of months.