Saturday: sleeping

Hmm, two nights ago I got to sleep at about the right time and slept through the night, waking up with my alarm.  It's been a while since I haven't been awake before the alarm.

But then this morning happened.  I couldn't get to sleep last night until about 3am.  Then I woke up at 9:30am, significantly later than normal, because our fan timer turned off the fan.  Ten minutes later Joshua woke me up because he thought it was 11:30...the basement clock hadn't been fixed after yesterday's surprise power outage.

I talked with him a bit and had breakfast, and then laid down on the couch.  I probably fell asleep, but Ben got up soon afterwards so it wasn't for long.  As normal, we worked on our Lego sets after breakfast.  I got about half way through my first bag and laid down on the floor, by the warm fire, and fell asleep.

When everyone was done I woke up again and followed people upstairs.  I gave some instructions and laid down on the bed and ...promptly fell asleep again.  Ben woke me up for a late lunch.

Oh well.  Maybe tomorrow will be better.

vacation Monday1: Mount Fuji

Today Ben arranged a private tour to Mount Fuji.  The driver would pick us up from our hotel, drive us around, and then bring us right back to the hotel.  Reviews were mixed on how much the driver would talk and how much English they would know, but we also figured that this would be a semi-relaxing activity for our first day in Japan.

We left at 7am.  The driver said he had been there since 6:30am and we had been waiting a bit in the room, but oh well.  The pre-arranged time was 7am.  It was also still the last day of Golden Week, which we had mistakenly thought was Sunday.  However, when we looked at the streets right before 7am they were surprisingly empty - only about three people and zero cars.  The driver was a bit worried about traffic, but hoped that since we did leave by 7am it shouldn't be too bad.

And on the way there, it wasn't.  There were a few delays but only about a half hour total, the longest one due to an accident.  The driver was pretty talkative and we got some great initial glimpses of Mount Fuji.

We got to the first place: Chureito Pagoda.  There are a total of 400 steps to walk up to get to the pagoda.  After the first hundred there are some food stands and a scenic lookout.  We hit the timing perfectly!  In May at 8am the chances are only ~30% to have a clear sighting.  By 9am as we were leaving this area the clouds were starting to roll in, and by the time we left in the afternoon there were a lot of clouds.

The kids were hungry, so Joshua got a cheese hot dog (aka large mozzerella stick) and Isaac ventured out and tried some takoyaki, or fried octopus balls.  I had two of them also, and they were very good.  The octopus was well chopped up, so the whole thing just kind of melted in your mouth.

Then we climbed the rest of the steps.  I thought I was in shape, but it turns out I am not in shape for steps.  We'll pretend it's because I was carrying the backpack, but we all know that wasn't the real reason.  Luckily, there was a drinking fountain at the top and we were able to refill the water bottles.

While I rested, I made Joshua take some pictures.

Then it was a few more steps to the best scenic outlook.  However, this place was so crazy crowded.  We got our pictures but didn't really stay around long to enjoy the view.

The way down was much better and still very pretty.

Next we went to a market.  They had assorted foods to taste test and a small koi pond which had mostly grey koi.  The food testing was interesting; the koi not as much.  The tasting worked well, and we bought a few of the items.  We had a few minutes before we needed to meet up with our tour guide, so we got a bottle of juice.  First of all, vending machines are everywhere.  As in, every half block.  Ben was trying to get a different brand of peach juice but it wasn't working well and then he pushed the wrong button and ended up with this brand, Mog-good, of grape juice.

In the end, and oddly enough, this drink ended up being one of my favorite parts of the trip.  It turns out there are small coconut jellies, a.k.a. "chewies", in the drink.  They don't distract from the drink, but they are unexpected.  Isaac was laughing so hard about them.  Everyone else was laughing with him but also at the chewies in their mouths.  I think Joshua had six at one point.

What ended up being our last stop was Lake Kawaquchiko.  (We were going to go somewhere for ice cream too but traffic was terrible.  So we turned around, got some ice cream from 7eleven, and went home.)

First we had a boat ride.  You can see that the clouds were moving in quickly on Mount Fuji.

I really like how you can see cloud shadows on mountains.

After the boat ride we had lunch - we ended up at an Indian restaurant.  Oh, but the food was good.  There was great naan, the curries weren't too spicy, and even Joshua enjoyed it.  Amazingly, it only came out to about $30 for all of us.

So, like I said, we headed back home after that.  The kids and I more or less fell asleep, but Ben stayed awake and talked with the driver.  The highway traffic was terrible, so for a bit they were taking back roads, only to come across three vending machines in the middle of nowhere.  It turns out they're for a factory, and the compromise was to have them by the road for the workers.

We were all exhausted when we got back to the hotel, but since it was barely 5pm we needed to keep moving.  There was a rock climbing place about a 15 minute walk away, so we went there.  Unfortunately, by the time we got there elementary kids couldn't climb anymore.  (Although I don't think Joshua was too heart-broken.)  Ben stayed with Isaac and I went exploring with Joshua.

We'll start with Ben and Isaac.  First of all, rental shoes are always no good.  I heard "so much" about how bad they were it made me decide that if there's even a slight chance of rock climbing on vacations in the future, we should at least bring shoes for Isaac.  There were four floors of climbing!  (Although Tokyo is a city that builds up, so it makes sense.)  The last floor was outside on the roof.  Isaac spent a little time on each floor, but the most time on the third.  He mentioned that several of the walls, especially on the third floor seemed very short.  That doesn't change the difficulty, but is an interesting observation.

Joshua and I just took a walk.  I googled "gift shop" and we headed that way.  The gift shop was mostly just foods, although we found some differently flavored kit kat.  I remembered then that Japan is known for lots of different kit kat flavors, so we got lemon lime.  It was in a shopping plaza, so we walked around a bit.  Joshua picked out a dragon miniature and it was the first time that we were in a bit crowd with lots of lights.  After a bit, we can only shop so much, we navigated back.  Isaac wasn't quite done, so we walked up and down the less busy street looking for Mog-good.  We didn't find any, but it was an interested exploration.  I love how Joshua is always up for walking around to explore and just seeing what we find.

We still hadn't had dinner, but Ben had spotted a Ramen place close to our hotel.  It was really good, but it was also a lot of ramen.  We filled up but didn't get close to finishing.  (And again, prices were incredibly reasonable!)

We got back to the hotel and were understandably exhausted, but this time we could go to bed for real.

Thursday: excitement

It's our anniversary!  Due to all the Japan excitement we didn't do much, although we did go out for dinner with Ben's family.

Severe thunderstorms were predicted for the evening.  Then around 10:15pm, just as I was becoming exhausted and ready for bed, a thunderstorm warning with high winds came through, suggesting a shelter in place.  Well, I learned my lesson from spring break two years ago and promptly went upstairs to get people.  Then, as we were just sitting down in the office the thunderstorm warning came through.  So we all moved to the basement bathroom.  Then Ben found a tornado tracker and the estimated cone went right over our house...so we moved to the basement storage room.  We had Tornado the cat with us, but Horizon the cat couldn't be found and we left him to fend for himself.

We settled in after reminding the kids that we don't get huge tornados and we have insurance, so even if a tornado hits us it will be just a large pain to deal with rather than a catastrophe.  At this point my adrenaline was racing while my eyes were exhausted, so I was in great shape.  It was a good thing that I've cleaned out the storage room so much so that we actually had a place to sit.

vacation Sunday1: teamlab Planet

We timed it pretty well such that we arrived fifteen minutes early for our entry at TeamLab Planets.  It is billed as an interactive art museum.  

The first room we went into was...a let down.  There were "rocks" that you could move to make the sounds change, but it was small and not really that cool.   (It turns out that this exhibit was best at sunset.)

As we moved into the next room, our worries disappeared.  This section was the athletic forest.  We were in a catch and release forest, where you caught different animals that were projected onto the walls or floor.  They were usually animals that are now extinct, and we could read a bit about them.  Isaac and I worked together and caught 23/87 animals.

The other forest area was a lot more balance games.  There were queues for most of them, but they moved pretty quickly.  

We found Travis and Scarlet and did the planet room for which the museum is named.  When a hemisphere is hit or stepped on, it changes color and pattern.  The goal was to cross the room on a single color.

Then balance beams.

This is picture was just of a floor - the swirling waves were really cool.  

Next we moved into the garden section.  This was the smallest section.  There were delicate hanging plants that would move out of your way if you stood near them, forming a pathway for you to walk.  (It was pretty busy...I think this exhibit would have been better if there were a few fewer people.)  It was, however, beautiful.

There were a bunch of mirrors as we were leaving, so we got a quick group picture.

The last, and biggest section, was water.  It was by far the most unexpected section.  We took our shoes off and the first thing we did was go up a little waterfall hill.  The kids liked this part the best.  (Photo credit TeamLabs.)

We dried our feet off and walked the path.  There were several art exhibits connected by hallways.  The fun part of this was that the hallways were differently textured: soft like a gymnastics mat, rough like a road (but no small stones), and smooth (but not slippery).  One of the rooms was big soft balls covered in a single piece of fabric - somewhat hard to walk on, but fun too.  Then we got to the infinite light room, which was amazing.  There were thousands of light ropes hung from the ceiling.

And then the second to last room was a pool full of warm water a little less than knee deep.  It had assorted light things on it that changed when you ran into them.  So, for example, there would be a fish but if you ran into the fish it would turn into a flower and then the petals would float away.

The last room, while not as technically interesting as some of the others, was possibly the one we laughed at the most.  It was a room a gigantic beach balls that could give you squishes.  We were all quite exhausted at this point too, so leaning against them felt so nice.

There was a flame art outside.

Next up was dinner, and it was so nice that Travis was with us.  We took the train one station over, found a bunch of restaurants, and ended up with some Wagyu beef.  It was delicious.  Isaac loved it, probably because it was thin and tasty.  Joshua ate his piece which both Ben and I counted as a win.

When we finished it was a bit annoying, as we needed to go back to the airport to get our luggage and then go over to our hotel.  (Annoying, but still our best option so that we didn't have to go to our hotel right after the plane ride.)  We got into the hotel room a bit after 9:00pm.  I had the pajamas in easy access locations, so we pretty much threw our luggage down, got ready for bed, and went right to sleep.

At 11pm I woke up.  It looked kind of light outside, so I figured I must have gotten a great night's sleep!  Unfortunately, that was not the case.  I did get back to sleep, but it was in and out for the rest of the night.