Tokyo Day 2 - Nikko National Park

On Sunday we took a tour out of the city to Nikko National park. We had about a 2 hour bus ride so we got to see the area surrounding Tokyo and the surrounding country side. Part of the problem in Japan is with their limited land area and massive population, they still live in houses or buildings that are only a few stories high. This creates massive urban sprawl that looks like this:

In Korea the high rise apartments may not be scenic, but I would say they are more scenic that the above photo. They also keep the countryside more pristine. The Japanese country side was pretty run down and kind of dirty...
Sasha was out cold on the bus but Teddy was wide awake and hanging out with me in the back of the bus. We stopped at a rest stop and I got Ted some strawberry popcorn and some little bear cakes for snack. He was psyched!

This is Japanese money. Some of the coins have holes which is pretty cool. 1,000 Yen is about $11 so we kind of thought of those bills as $10 bills, (except they buy you waaaay less than $10 would in the states...) And the 10,000 Yen note is like $100.

This is a special red bridge leading up to a Shinto Shrine. Only the Emperor and the Shogun (or Samurai?) were allowed to go over the bridge to the shrine. Seems like kind of a waste of labor and resources to build a bridge for 2 people...

That gate behind us is how you know it's a Shinto Shrine.

Cool Pagoda:

This complex had a ton of different buildings:

The original "hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil" carving...

An amazing gate that leads to the main shrine area:

Yup, more buildings:

Dragon carvings everywhere! Where to look first....

A portable shrine that you can take to the grocery store, on vacation, wherever!

After the Shrine we went to a lake very high up in the mountains. It was really cold and there was still snow on the ground!

Check out the amazing waterfall in the background:

Beware the Japanese style toilet!! Squatters only. You have to wait in a long line for the one western-style toilet at many of these tourist spots....

Finally got a cup of coffee! $5 and it was only half full. Gotta love Japan.

We are now masters of the Tokyo Subway.

So that was pretty much day 2. I have to say if you've seen one shinto shrine, you've seen them all. At this point I was feeling very cultured and was ready to rock the Tower of Terror yo. We were excited for Disney the next morning.
We got back pretty late from our tour and all the restaurants at our hotel had 40 minute waits so we decided to order room service for dinner. I have never done this before. It is AWESOME. I am such a fan of room service!! Jeff and I got sushi and the kids got a kids meal and they fell off their chairs and behaved badly and no one cared because we were in our hotel room. I could get used to this...

Tomorrow: Tokyo Disney Sea!

Tokyo Day 1 - An Afternoon City Tour

 The big thing the day before the trip was Sasha getting her nails done. She has to keep her nails super-short for fiddle playing, so the week before we left we let them grow and then on Friday we fiddled for the last time and then went and got her nails professionally done. She was in HEAVEN!

We had to get up at 4:30 am to make it to Gimhae airport in Busan by 6:30 for our 8am flight. The funniest thing was when I went to wake up the kids they were sound asleep and I expected them to be all drowsy and sluggish like they usually are when I have to wake them up. Instead when I quietly whispered "Who's ready to go on vacation?" Teddy shot to his feet on his bed and yelled "MEEEE!!" with his hand in the air. I almost fell over laughing.
We figured out the long-term parking thing and took the shuttle to the airport. Hooray!

 They had Polish food in the terminal I guess....

 We got to Tokyo at 10am, cleared customs and immigration, changed money and made our 10:50 shuttle bus to the hotel. Checked in, had time for a bathroom break, and had about a 10 minute walk to the place where our afternoon tour would pick us up. Got there with 5 minuted to spare. Hardly sporting!
The cherry blossoms were in full bloom. Here's a shot of Tokyo Tower, which is the tallest building in Tokyo and the first stop on our tour.

 Tokyo doesn't really have a lot of tall buildings. It's a massive city, but it's a horizontally massive city, not a vertically massive city. Tokyo tower isn't even all that tall but it's still the tallest building. It would be dwarfed in NY, Chicago, or even Houston. Here is a temple with flowering cherry trees all around it:

 It's Urban sprawl in all directions, as far as your eye can see. What a nightmare!

 The tower had these glass panels in the floor so you could look down to the street. The kids loved this!

Next stop. The Imperial Palace. You can only go in on 2 days of the year because the Emperor still lives there. So we got to look at the walls, moat and gates only.

Part of the palace:

A special gate used only for Shoguns or Samurai or something. Can't remember which.

Then we went to a Shinto Shrine. On the way we passed these Rickshaw guys. They have phat legs just like mine! Guess I missed my calling...

5 story Pagoda.

5 Story Pagoda with cherry blossoms:

There are these incense areas as you enter the shrine. People waft smoke all over themselves. Teddy got really close to one and he smelled awesome for the rest of the day. We kept fighting over who got to sit next to him on the bus and sniff his sweater....

A big gate:

My 9th circle of hell:

OK, seriously what do I expect in the most populated city IN THE WORLD. I am going to share something with you now that may cost me some friends but so be it. I was in Japan for 1 reason and one reason only folks: Tokyo. Disney.
The only reason we didn't stay at Disney the whole time was that the parks are a nightmare on the weekends. Since we had to do SOMETHING on the weekends we figured we might as well try to be cultured and see the sights.

OK, so anyone still with me after my shameful admission? I know Crispi's still reading so I'll continue....
We totally kicked it old-school and ate on packing crates next to open fire charcoal braziers. No one fell into a fire pot and burned alive and with Sasha at the table that's pretty miraculous. It was still insanely expensive even though we were eating in a back alley with the locals. The food was pretty bad too. One of the things we ordered was chicken meat on a stick we THOUGHT. It was chicken SKIN only all folded and then skewered. I never eat chicken skin with my chicken so I'm going to eat a skewered STICK of chicken skin? Not likely. If I want to kill myself I'll do it with beer and chocolate thank you very much....

We braved the Tokyo subway. It's like the NYC subway with 1,000 more lines. Seriously. It's crazy.

So that's it for day one. More tomorrow.

International Week!

So last week at school was "International Week" at the Hyundai Foreign School. Monday was Korea day (no pictures) and Tuesday they had off from school for a Hyundai Holiday (?). On Wednesday, parents came in and set up tables with activities, crafts, or displays from their home countries. The kids got to go around to all the tables and learn about the different countries. Sasha is in the picture above with Akie (Ryota and Mizuki's mom) doing origami at the Japan table with some of her classmates.

The Denmark table was just all LEGOs. I thought that was cheating. The kids of course loved it!

Teddy's Kindy class came over from their little building and spent the morning at the big school taking part in all the fun. Here they are having their snack.

The New Zealanders taught the older kids a really cool Maori game where you chant something and then bump your sticks on the ground and then have to try to toss one of yours to your partner while they toss you one of theirs and you both have to catch them. It was fun to watch.

I was supposed to run the US table in the morning but I ended up being there all day. Zoe took this picture of me explaining the same thing for the millionth time that day. We had an American Girl timeline activity and a map of the US with famous landmarks (Disney world, Golden Gate Bridge, ect) and you had to try to put all 10 in the right places on the map.

Teddy and Ryota scored big time because Akie and I both had to run our tables in the afternoon, and Japan and the US were right next to each other so the boys just got to hang out.

Thursday (no pictures), some of the moms went into school to help make flag banners. The kids had colored in tons of flags and we strung them all together. Then the kids put together tables from items they had been making or collecting at school. We came in and helped our kids make their table since we had no one older than 2nd grade on team USA.

Friday was the big day. Everyone had to wear their national dress. This is where it's tough to be from the US. We don't have "traditional food" "traditional clothing" or "traditional crafts" ect. We can't even channel our personal heritage. I mean Sasha and Teddy are English, Scottish, Swedish, French, Polish, and Italian - what a pair of Mutts! So we decided to rock the Red, White and Blue!

Now I didn't bring any USA paraphernalia to Korea, not even flag T-Shirts because I figured no one over here wants to see a bunch of Americans sporting their flag all around so international day kind of caught me unawares. This ended up being our table. PS: I did NOT contribute the Magic Johnson poster OR the Hannah Montana sheet. It was a group effort and my policy is to try not to make young kids cry whenever possible so I just went with it:

There was no way I was going to make chocolate chip cookies for 300 people with no cookie sheets and no vanilla either so we ended up having Oreo's, Jello, Goldfish, Hershey's Kisses, pasta salad, dried cranberries and Brownies for our "American" foods to try. I know, I know, next year I will do SO much better. It's ON baby! (Anyone know where I can get a "Statue of Liberty" or an "Uncle Sam" costume?)

The French people had like 2 huge tables and all the Mom's baked. Their food was scrumptious!

So we all set up our tables on Thursday, put the food and the final touches together Friday morning. I got to do a walk-thru of the whole upstairs before all the kids hit which was great because there was 300 people at the main event - much too crowded for filming!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6GbMThrikg

We then went out to muster for the International Day Parade. This was the coolest thing ever! The kids had to gather at the cone with their flag on it and then when everyone was ready each country in turn got to parade around and then over a little stage while everyone cheered. So glad there are other Americans here now! My friend Aurora is a Korean American that ended up back in Korea as an expat! Her daughter Maddie is in year 2 at HFS. Here's Sasha and Maddie all ready to march:

 A few other families that could claim multiple nationalities decided to throw in their lot with us (who wouldn't?) Here's our whole USA gang:

Ingrid and Øyvind were the lone representatives from Norway. They looked adorable!

Same thing with Mizuki and Ryota representing Japan!

Crew from India - again I am jealous that we don't dress like them. Comfortable clothes all covered in Bling, FANTASTIC!

The crew from Croatia:

Here is the Aussies. Is it me or do they always look like they're having more fun than anyone else? Funniest thing, on the parade video clip listen closely as the parade begins. You'll hear the principal of the school, Mr. Dyson say "The Australians are going to go first so they're gonna set the standard. All's you have to do is watch them and copy what they do. This is for TODAY ONLY - not for general life things...." Hysterical! And no, it was NOT warm out. They're just hard-core....

Here is the group representing South Korea. The deal with the school is you can go there if you are a foreigner or if you are Korean but speak English. There are many Koreans in the area who traveled and worked in the US and who have children who were either born in the US or who have attended US schools. Some of them have elected to continue to educate their kids in English so that's why there are many Korean families at the school.

I made a video of the parade. Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Mk5h0FH7A4

After the parade we tried to get a group shot. Easier said than done with a million kids, flags, and parents all trying to get a picture too. I used my mad spidey skills and stood on the school fence to get this one:

Once the parade was finished everyone went to their tables and then we took turns being at the table or walking around to see/taste what everyone else brought in. Here's the US kids in front of their table:

Sasha is getting ready to dish out some goldfish to a friend from Nigeria:

All in all it was truly an amazing day. So many cultures coming together to celebrate the school and the kids and each other! I almost wish my kids were a little older so they could begin to appreciate what an amazing experience days like this are! I know they're absorbing it all though...