Day #3 ~Train museum & Bamboo forest~

We started every day of our trip early so we could fit everything in. We started day 3 with a little bit of a drive to the train museum. On our way we stopped at another amazing rest stop. Best part of this one was the kids bathroom.

So cute! After this stop Eva asked to go to her little bathroom every time she had to go potty.

Ok, on with the trip…we made it to the train museum.

Always grateful when stuff is in English.

We got such a kick out of this picture opportunity! They did a good job of making it look like you are actually on a train with a perfect view of Mt. Fuji.

We loved this cool model of the city.

I wanted a picture of Fuji, lol!

Tokyo Tower

It had so much detail, it was amazing.

Something I genuinely appreciate and love about my kids is that even when I think they won’t enjoy something they surprise me. They are always up for just about anything and enjoy seeing and experiencing new things. We finished up our visit to the museum and headed towards Kyoto.

We drove past this bus full of cute school kids! I didn’t get a picture but we were waving to them and a couple of them got really excited and waved back. Just look at their hats!!!

Kyoto is so beautiful.

Lots of people in Kimonos around Kyoto.

A beautiful garden surrounding the temple by the bamboo forest.

Beautiful part of the garden.

Praying at the temple.

Heading towards the bamboo forest.

See the bamboo in the back? Getting closer!

I couldn’t help but feel sorry for these guys lugging people around, haha!

The kids love taking pictures. Some turn out better than others.

This was their favorite thing to do at this garden.

I happened to capture this moment…

Ouch! Crushed her finger!

Of course, Maya comes rushing to her sisters aid.

Meanwhile, mean mommy keeps taking pictures. I knew she was in good hands.

With that we headed out to get some dinner. As we were walking out these two looked too cute not to ask for a picture.

We had dinner and ended our day at the next home we would be staying for the night. It had 3 bedrooms and was a little ghetto but we do ghetto well so we didn’t mind one bit.

I did a load of laundry every place we stayed.

We could have spent a week in Kyoto but there was no time for that. One more day in Kyoto!

Day #2 ~Mt. Fuji~

I have to preface all of this by saying I have the greatest husband in the world. He made my dreams come true by getting me this beautiful little camera.

I love it so much but wish I had taken the time to learn it before out trip instead of waiting until we were in these gorgeous, scenic places to try to figure it out. Shame on me. By the end of the trip I had it all figured out but I’m bummed about these earlier pics. Thank goodness for fail-proof iphone pics, right?

Our day started with a drive from Yokota to Mt. Fuji. First difference we noticed between Mainland and Okinawa was the tunnels. Oh my gosh, Mainland has so many tunnels! The kids love to play the hold your breath game when going through tunnels…they never got tired of it.

Second difference was the rest stops. Okinawa doesn’t have any because it only takes a couple of hours to drive from the very top to the bottom of the entire island. Japan rest stops are awesome!

We also stopped for a potty break and would you check out that handicapped parking?!?! Talk about taking care of the elderly!

Ok, moving on to Mt. Fuji…We didn’t actually go to Fuji, we just went to get a nice scenic view.

There were soooo many steps to get up to the scenic view of Mt. Fuji. Rich threw Eva on his shoulders and skipped right up to the top while the rest of us huffed and puffed. I mean, I totally could have beat him to the top but somebody has to stay behind to take pictures, haha!

About halfway there.

This was as good as Fuji got for us.

Never mind that Fuji decided not to show up for us, these guys have fun no matter what.

We headed back down…

The town at the base of Fuji was just beautiful, surrounded by mountains.

When we got back to our van there was this nice Japanese man that struck up a conversation with Rich. He was excited to try out his handful of english phrases on us. As we were leaving I tried to ask him if he would take a picture for us and he very excitedly hopped in the shot with Rich and the kids, hahaha!

We didn’t have the heart to tell him we didn’t want a picture with him, we wanted him to take a picture of us. After I took his picture he offered to take one with me in it, lol!

As we headed back through the town we passed this little garden that looked so cute so we turned around and went back to check it out. After all, this was day one of sight seeing and we were full of energy and curiosity. That wore off during the last few days of our trip.

A few pics from our ‘around town’ explorations.

The garden

I told Eva to knock on the door.

We continued on to our next destination making random stops.

Not sure what this is but it looked important.

When you see a cool green mound you must stop and climb it.

Just a quick picture overload…the lighting was awesome!

We continued on to the house we would be spending the night in. We stayed in local homes throughout our entire road trip, a different one nearly every night. This was our first, in Nagoya.

I love Japanese style bathrooms! They make sense to me.

  

We ended our day with yummy food from 7/11 which btw, we also don’t have in Okinawa. This meal was seriously delish though.

On the itinerary for the next day was the train museum and then off to Kyoto to see the bamboo forest. Stay tuned…

Mainland Japan trip begins…

I had every intention of blogging at the end of every day during our 2 week adventure packed trip to the Mainland but that obviously didn’t happen. We’ve been home for 1 week and I’m excited to write about our experiences on mainland Japan.

We headed out early on Wednesday the 28th to catch our flight. Kids were all so excited!

 

 

 

In the air!

 

 

 

This is the last picture ever taken of Arabella’s beloved Pineapple Park, pineapple. She left it on the plane. It was devastating.

 

 

After arriving to the airport we needed to take a train to get us to Yokota Air Base. We had a few minutes and Aidan and Maya had 2 weeks worth of school work to keep up on so they got started. This was the first and last productive homework time they would have during our entire trip.

 

 

On the train snuggles.

 

 

 

 

 

After the train we caught a subway to take us the rest of the way. By this point the early morning traveling caught up to Eva.

 

 

We finally made it. These pictures make it look so easy but the truth is that we were hauling one large suitcase, one medium suitcase, 2 rolling carry-ons, 2 boosters, 1 massive carseat, stroller and 4 kids with backpacks on and off of planes, trains and subways. It was no easy task but we did it! We were so grateful and relieved to find that Ryan had a friend at Yokota meet us with his van to take us to pick up our rental van. I guess Ryan is an ok guy after all  

Here’s our ride for the next week and a half!

 

 

 

First stop at this lovely base?

 

 

The commissary for roadtrippin’ snacks! Btw, this commissary made me very jealous. The aisles were so wide and spacious!

 

 

 

I didn’t take any pictures of TLF, where we stayed but we were slightly jealous that their TLF is bigger than our actual housing here, hahaha! We hit the hay that night and then loaded up the van for our big roadtripping adventure!