a month ago: Memorial Day weekend

While Japan blogging has finished, I'm still not caught up.  Lastly, we have Memorial Day weekend.  

We went camping at the Conference Grounds again with friends. The weather turned out very nice.  It wasn't super warm, but warm enough that it was comfortable outside with a sweatshirt.  (Until evening, but then we had a fire going.)  Isaac had a crazy long Algebra 2 final exam that he had to take.  He could take one page at a time, but needed to finish about 18/26 pages over the weekend.  He worked hard without complaining, but we finally started setting a time limit for each sheet and that helped to speed him up.

There was still a lot of time to have fun.  Isaac did a ton of scootering.  Both kids played with friends.  Joshua more so than Isaac, but Isaac did too.  There was a ton of sugar.  The kids weren't interested in mini-golf this year, but both did the fun run Saturday morning.

vacation Monday: cat cafe and home

We met Travis and Scarlet at a nearby train station and rode to Takeshita Street again to go visit a cat cafe.  It was a nice cafe with nice cats.  We felt a bit taken advantage of because we bought a pack of twelve tokens for cat food, but then each cat food cost two tokens.  I'm sure that it was in the fine print, but it was a bit annoying.  The drinks were good too, and we got there right at the beginning before many people were there.  We were only allowed to be there for thirty minutes, and if we were there even a minute longer we would be charged an additional fee.  Thirty minutes was plenty, but watching the clock wasn't the nicest.

Anyway.  Here are the pictures, because there were a lot of smiles.

There was a brief stop at a candy store and then we meandered back to our hotel.  We stopped for a few minutes by a random sculpture.

We ate a very fast lunch at the 7-11; we had to check out by noon but otherwise we'd have to lug all our luggage around with us.  We got to the checkout with a few minutes to spare.  And then, sadly, we taxied to the airport.  Oh, let's briefly talk about taxis...it seemed like every time we were at a red light they filled out a log.  I looked it up and that's what it was - a log.  It surprised me a little bit, because it was hand-written which means that if the information is being used for anything it needs to be input manually.  I'm sure there is more than I'm understanding though.

Somewhere at the airport we also stopped at a restroom and there was a map of the available stalls !  There were several interesting methods throughout Japan on how to tell if a stall was available, but this was by far the coolest.

We had extra time at the airport because I'm always a bit paranoid about flying, but getting our bags checked and through security was a breeze.  So we had two goals: 1) finish up the money on the swica cards and 2) find a mochi gift for the person whose luggage we borrowed.  (The swica cards are the main method of payment for the trains, but many stores also take them.  Ben had put quite a bit of money on all of them at the start of the trip, so we tried to buy a lot of souvenirs using them.  It was especially nice since Joshua and Isaac could also pay for things using them.  Anyway, by the time we got to the airport they all had about $10 or less on them.)  The only store in the airport that would take swica cards was the 7-11 and it was busy!  So Ben and Isaac selected assorted treats and purchased them...and then they went back a second time once Ben realized how much was still on each.  I could fit almost everything in my extra backpack, except for some pizza flavored chips.  Joshua wanted to eat those right away, so it worked.  At this point each card had about 150 yen on them...just enough for four drinks from the vending machines.  We ended up with <11yen on all the cards, which is about eight cents (or less, for some of the cards!)

The plane ride went well.  The flight left around 3pm and I think I slept a significant portion of the flight.  I think Joshua did too, although we had forgotten about the reading portion of his homework.  He had to read two chapters before watching Dog Man, which he zeroed in on as soon as he sat down.  He finished the chapters after Dog Man and may have watched another movie; it's a long ride and with intermittent sleep I don't really remember what happened.

And, after another short plane ride, a very fast shuttle ride, and a car ride, we were home!  (And while I am really, really glad I spent the time on these blog posts, I'm also really, really glad they're done.)

Thursday: mice and pool parties, but not together

Last night I commented to Ben that I thought my mouse was dying as it suddenly was doing a lot of double clicks instead of single clicks.  My plan had been to look for a new one in the morning, but Ben said, "oh!  I have a new one right here."  So I was able to change it out AND get the old one in the yearly electronics recycling that went out today.

We had a pool party this evening.  The group was 'guys that lived together in college', but most of the wives knew each other pretty well too.  There were fourteen kids between the five families and most of the kids stayed in the pool the whole time, with the exception of coming out for dinner and dessert.

Wednesday:

 This morning Isaac and I volunteered at Kids' Food Basket, which meant Joshua didn't get out of the house.  While I'm not a stickler for the "you need to get out of the house every weekday" rule, I do try to enforce it.  Joshua decided to combine going outside with writing a poem on the driveway.

"I am chalk.
I can't go for a walk.
It's up to you if I can talk
For I am chalk.

The sky is getting dark.
I can 't hear a dog bark.
The rain is starting.
I am fading."

Horizon always comes into the kitchen when I'm making dinner, hoping for a treat.  (He rarely gets one.)  Today he hung out on the black step stool for a surprisingly long time.  I wanted to put more dishes in the dishwasher, but also didn't want to move him.  Needless to say, dishes didn't get in the dishwasher but I did remember to put sheets on the bed.

vacation Sunday2: SkyTree

Although it was late when we got out of TeamLab - it really did take the 3-4 hours that on-line suggested - we decided to go to Sky Tower.  This was one of the things we really wanted to do and Travis wanted to see it at night.  So off we went.

The Sky Tree is the third tallest structure in the world, as of 2024, and was the tallest for a while starting in 2011.  (Wikipedia)

Getting to the tower was a bit odd; we went the the fourth floor in a shopping plaza and then outside for a bit and then back inside to the tower.

We walked all the way around (360deg) and the view looked similar from everywhere; buildings as far as the eye could see.  For several minutes I thought that the grey thing was an overhang just blocking the view to the horizon but I was completely wrong.  To be fair, the greater Tokyo area is the most populous area with 41 million residents.  (Wikipedia)

The river showed up especially well at night time.  If you look closely you can also see the Ferris Wheel that we saw at Disney.

The highest point that we could reach!

A glass floor to see how high up you really are.

Everyone was getting rather tired by this time.  We started to look for food, but had poor luck.  /they were either full (Kirby restaurant) or needed cash (street food).  We finally found a pork katzu restaurant that was good.  Not as good as the other place, but decent.  The waiter looked at us very strangely when we asked for water, but the tea that was served (Oolongcha) at all the meals was not to anyone's liking.  Travis texted us a few minutes later and noted that in some believe that water with a meal will make it harder to digest your food.  How this is different from the tea, we weren't really sure.

We found a taxi to take us back to the hotel and it was the longest taxi ride ever.  Joshua literally couldn't keep his eyes open, so after fighting to stay awake for five minutes I told him to go to sleep.  Isaac ended up falling asleep.  What should have been a thirty minute ride took about forty-five minutes because the taxi driver didn't take the toll road and hit every. single. red light.  We would go a block and then wait two minutes.  It was ridiculous.  But we made it to the right place and everyone quickly went to bed.

Tuesday: rock climbing

Today we visited the new rock climbing gym in Holland.  While we are loyal Scrapyard members, but there were some nice things about this new gym too.

*The mats weren't as cushiony.  It made me even more scared to fall...but really, I don't like falling period.

*The routes were more spread out.

*They use a circuit method instead of V scale.  It isn't really much different, but it did work well for Joshua.

*It was really empty when we arrived.  They have some morning hours, which I do like.  (It was actually almost too empty.)

*The holds and walls are new, so their texture is still rough.  This can be nice and not nice all at the same time.

*It was air conditioned.  While this can be nicer, Scrapyard opens up the garage doors for fresh air when it is nice out; rock climbing gyms tend to have very poor air quality due to all the chalk dust, so the fresh air is better.

It was a nice gym, which makes me feel a little guilty.  However, the first time at a gym can be extra nice because it's all new routes that haven't been tried before.  Scrapyard has a nice community though, and Isaac is part of the climbing team which makes all the difference.

Also, I can't believe that we have two rock climbing gyms within ten minutes of our house when most of the country doesn't have one within an hour.

We caught a bird in our garage for a minute.

We worked on decluttering the garage for an hour.  It's a bit hard to tell that we made any progress, but we definitely did.  I'm not sure whose wise idea it was to do this in the summer.

Isaac made dinner tonight!  And when I say he made dinner, he made all of the dinner.  I only found the recipe for baked oatmeal that I use and I scooped out the oatmeal at the end because I know how much everyone should have.  He even cleaned up the kitchen after himself!  Joshua added to the dinner by giving me a Lego carrot.

Monday: busy day

It was a lovely day and we had several plans.

Isaac cleaned out his treat box; Joshua and I took advantage of it and snagged several snacks that he didn't want anymore.

We went on a walk with Cheryl.  I had a great time, but the kids had bug problems.

In the afternoon we went strawberry picking.  Luckily Jonathan and Elizabeth were happy to join us; neither of us would have gone without the other.  The strawberries are delicious!  The weather was better than expected; there was a nice breeze and it was partly cloudy.

Isaac found a mutant strawberry.