Merry Christmas 2014

Hello everyone, Yes I know today's there's another thing being celebrated but I'm posting about our Christmas eve and day, that's right.

In my country we usually spend a lot on food that lasts for days and days until the new years eve comes and we get to do the same all over again. It seems like a waste but everyone is so happy during christmas it is worth it.

Some of the sweets are Bolo Rei, Rabanadas, Sonhos, Leite Creme, Aletria... and there's a lot of dried fruits and nuts as well.

Our Christmas tree has been standing there for a bit and on Christmas eve its always full of presents for all the family. I usually dress up for xmas eve and we like taking a family picture in front of it to remember the good times.

We always eat the same on Christmas eve, its always boiled codfish with vegetables. Everyone really likes it and it seems healthy but since we top that with a ton of desserts we end up becoming really really full.

We always watch movies and the like and just celebrate as a family. One of us always has to dress up as santa to deliver the gifts and this year that was my younger brother. Mari didn't think it was strange at all.

We opened the presents before midnight because it always takes so long we always finish after midnight. Mari's haul was of course the biggest, with kids that's what happens. She got her first box of Lego, a Car track because she loves cars, books, coloring books, fake food and kitchen wear for her Ikea kitchen, clothes, dolls food from japan, an Anpanman DVD to go with the snacks... a lot of stuff, She was a vit overwhelmed and surprised but in the end she was thrilled she had all this new stuff to play with.

The next day we all woke up and just decided it was pajama day, so everyone was in their pjs for the whole day!

Mari was excited and rushed to come down and play with her new toys.

After that it was time to go back to the kitchen. 

The Christmas day food is also the same. We cut the boiled stuff from the previous day and mix it together with garlic and olive oil and that's called Roupa Velha or Farrapo Velho. It is absolutely delicious and I adore it! Other than that because that's just the first course, we have the xmas turkey with chestnuts as a filling. It is served with rice, potatoes and some greens as well. 

And after that there's dessert again, which means we again are too full to believe. In the afernoon we just relax and watch tv. 

And this was my Christmas haul this year:

- Tutuanna sock lot + japanese candy lot (mother in law)

- Ralph lauren Home Monogram Grey/Cream Throw (a student)
- Cute Pjs
- Moi-même-Moitié incoming op (husband)
- Themic socks, home slipper style socks, xmas plate, chocolate (mom)
- Tea cup and tea (work partner)
- Christmas chocolate (students)
- Lolita themed necklaces and hair accessories (secret santa from my comm and penpal)
- Makeup from kiko
- Lady Gaga Fame fragrance
- 24H Dna Platinum cream + samples (student)
- Bio/Organic olive oil + bottle of port wine (from the xmas japan dinner)

I had a fantastic time this year, it was better than last year but I totally spent too much money (we even gave my mom a new washing machine). But everyone was super thrilled with their gifts and i like feeling like Santa, it makes me happy. 

I hope you had fun too and if you have posted about it, please link me to the post, i'd love to read about your night/day too.

Love,

Jo

Japan trip 2014 - Portuguese reunion in Nara

Monday, the 11th of August

The day after spending 3 days away was obviously one to rest/spend time with the family so that's what we did. I took this opportunity to cut my daughter's hair a bit because it was too long especially in the front. I actually kinda cut a bit shorter than I had hoped but she's so damn cute that everything looks adorable on her and it ended up looking rather cute.

After that It was time to clean the room a bit. I always put away the futon etc but once in a while it needs to be aired and the room needs to be cleaned as well. Fortunately Mari loves helping out. I hope that will continue when she'd older. :P

And here's what I got on the third day:

1. stationary, i always buy too much of it
2. masks i have not used yet
3. toothbrush for Mari
4. two chairs for my blythe dolls
5. some fake flowers for hand made projects
6. I love these... decorations in metal for my dolls, aren't they beautiful?

Dolpal event goodies:
1. How to do faceups by volks
2. Faceup intro kit, basic tools for a first try
3. free catalogues/ event tickets/ cookies/choco

That day we also had a visit! My sister in law Yoko and her husband came over for a visit so my inlaws arrived with a ridiculous amount of food!

For those wondering, we were 6 + Mari
1. Sushi sushi and more sushi
2. salad
3. kentucky fried chicken
4. japanese stew Oden
+ Beer, always!

I loved it, and my father in law actually ordered an extra side salmon sushi because its my favorite.

After eating like a mad woman we actually decided to go to to a Karaoke place, me, my husband, his sister and her husband. It was my first time in a japanese karaoke... and it was fun and weird and unconfortable too. The place looked really super fancy. We got a box and then realised the air conditioner was not working, when we reported it they told us to use the fan (what?) so we were very unconfortable at some point haha, it was fresher in the corridors. Anyway the drink bar option made it easier to handle, i just got more and more ginger ale to get cool.

So I realised I no longer know any japanese songs by heart and since they do not offer the romaji subtitle option and I cannot read kanji i couldn't sing any.
I went for corny 80's stuff that I love like maddona, a-ha, Duran Duran.... my husband sang a couple Kamen Rider songs and that was funny (but he takes it seriously and does it so well we had so much fun!), my sister in law did some Shiina Ringo songs too which I love and is further proof that she rocks and her husband sang a bunch of songs that apparently I should know but do not which made me feel a bit embarrassed. I should research more and go back to listening to japanese music.
Now, there is a video of me singing like a virgin and it will not be posted (are you nuts? haha) but we forgot our camera home so there are no photos unfortunately.

My father in law dropped us home and we relaxed for the rest of the day. We might or not went jogging, I do not remember.

Mari at this point got addicted to listening to japanese baby songs and is now singing in her own version of japanese. She will randomly start singing the anpanman song for instance haha the guys at her kinder garden will go "what song is that?!".

Tuesday the 12th of August

We had rested one day and so we were going out again. I have a very dear friend living in Japan. He is Portuguese and we studied and lived together for a while too. I have known him for longer than that so you can imagine. We are sort of alike and get along well. I really like him and I hope we never lose touch because he really is important to us. His name is Pedro and he was living a bit far from us, you might remember him from last year's japan trip since we met in Fukuoka, but he recently moved a bit closer to us so we had to meet. 

Since it was around the time for holiday in Japan he was free to come over to Nara to meet.

Breakfasts this year were always tasty but a bit repetitive which is fine when the food is good! haha I love that ham too. The only thing I'm not a fan of here is the tomato, because i like tomato more when its hard and even green and sour haha (i know, i'm odd) and the jam because i'm not a big fan of jam in general so i probably used butter instead. I always miss american coffee when i'm home, we do expresso in Portugal, not so much american coffee but i guess i could always make an effort and get a machine to make some haha.

My breakfasts in Japan were super balanced. I should continue this here but i never seem to have time of inspiration.

These are the Jr railway machines, I really like that thing under the teddy bear, you can just drop the coins and it will automatically count the cash for you. I wish we could just drop coins in every machine here, its so much easier. haha

Mari took this bear with her, his name is Luisinho, my mother named him and she recognizes by that name so...

Almost every touristy place has a stamp thing going on which means you can just get a piece of paper stamped with something that reminds you of that place later on, i think its pretty cool so Mari did one.

Japanese people love stamps i guess..

This is a shot of the Nara train station. It's not the station used today, that would be the building appearing on the left but the old one. They wanted to take it down but apparently people were against it so now its used as an tourist and information post of some sort. I think its adorable.
The people in the blue shirts were singing or something when we arrived, apparently they are from some religious cult, there are a few in Japan, some are even very political.

Nara's former train station

I thought there was something odd about Nara being the town of the deer walking around and this store having a sort of embalmed deer at the door. I've got a dark sense of humor so it just seemed like an interesting contrast and therefore there's a photo and I am posting it.

might be a doll, same impact though.

To get to Nara park you have to go through a shopping street and then eventually go by this station, which is for the Kintetsu line. This is the line my friend would be taking to arrive and was therefore our meeting spot.
We arrived a bit early so there was time for coffee! Yay (plus in the summer waiting outside is not a good idea, its too hot.

I remembered going to Mr. Donuts when we were there last time and its nice because the items are not very pricey and for some reason there's always seats available and there's also a smoking area and I was feeling like having a smoke which I did very little of this trip, especially since in Japan its kinda hard to smoke outdoors, you have to stand in specific smoking areas which means you have to look for one if you feel like it. If you are addicted to the substance and need to smoke then you are a slave to this. As I only enjoy an occasional cig I only do it when there's a place next to me and if i feel like it. 

I had iced coffee and a donut, not any sort of donut, a Calpis donut. It tasted just like it, it was funky!

After being reunited with our friend (and all the hugs and the "YAY portuguese people!" comments) we started walking towards the park.
We had scheduled to meet here for two reasons: deer (Mari likes them and so do I, don't you?) and the Nara Tokae festival aka lantern festival.

I don't need to add a comment, everyone remembers this sign from last year. I always laugh when i see it. 

 When you are in the area deer are basically everywhere, so the first moment you arrive there you'll see them. Mari was actually quite cozy around them and people were saying "omg cute... she's kinda fierce" (aka doesn't she know that deer are a bit scary and might attack you?). I tried to keep her away from adult deer because those are the ones who usually are more agressive but one of us were always need just in case. 

There are also a lot of huge koi fish in the ponds there. I love them , they are beautiful but i heard they can chop your finger off if they bit, is that true?

We then reached the area with the lanterns. There were two types: the first ones in bamboo ornaments hanging above the floor, very traditional looking and a lot of these plastic sort of cup looking containers.

The plastic ones apparently are placed and removed every single day at this time of day for the entire duration of the festival which is of around a week? There are a lot of volunteers that help with this process. The containers are empty and then they need to be filled with water and later a candle is placed inside. At around the festival time the candles are then lit by the volunteers as well. There's a ridiculous amount of work and effort in order for the park to look nice and the festival to take place.

Since there was still time for the lanterns to be lit we decided to go to Todaiji for a stroll.

For those of you who do not know, Toidaiji is probably one of the most famous temples in Japan. It has the biggest bronze Buddha statue in the world and it is also one of the biggest wooden structures still present today. Its pretty awesome, I have grown a bit numb to temples because of how many I have seen I guess but I never fail to be amazed with Todaiji because of it, the entrance, the deer, everything, there's something special about it somehow. 

One of the temple entrance guardians.

We could not go in because it was closed (and you also need to pay to go in and we went in last year) but we took a familly photo in front of the gate, Pedro took this one for us, thank you.

Eventually it started getting darker and the lanterns were finally lit by the volunteers, it looked like it would take forever but they did it really fast actually.

What they look like inside

How stunning is this?

We then decided we should eat something. Someone had given up the flyer for a bar nearby and we thought about checking it out but we wandered forever and did not find it so we gave up.
We had a kebab but it was not like any kebab i had before, a fake kebab, it wasn't very good to be honest.
They had stall for food everywhere, even starbucks had a stall, i kid you not!

What japanese people see as being a Kebab. Someone behind me commented on how they loved italian food. Humm,, yes.  :X

Nara famous Kofuku-ji pagoda at night, beautiful, isn't it?

All along the way back there were lanterns here and there, it was beautiful, very romantic even.

So we just walked back, had a snack (Mari was starting to get hungry so we had to feed her of course) and then hanged out for a bit before saying goodbye to Pedro. I only get to see him every other year but now that he is closer it'll be easier to see him when we go to Japan.

Mari likes Pedro very much and he's quite good with children, not sure if because he teaches or has taught little kids or because he is a natural but either way he is good. I am impressed. 

It was kinda hard to say farewell but it cannot be helped. He was going on vacation alone after that and I know he had a blast. I miss you Pedro and I love you, thank you for being there for us all the time. <3

Then we just walked back to the station and went back home. It was late and everyone was a bit tired.
I also bought something, my nails had to be shortened and therefore i needed to remove the nail polish and re-do it so i got this shade at a convenience store.

ParaDo nail polish, its a tiny bottle but its enough for what i needed, i should have taken some with me but didn't. They are affordable so it was ok. I think they are around 360 yen or something which is 2.60 euro. 

And that was it. I hoped you enjoyed yet another post about my trip to Japan, please comment if you read it, I appreciate it.

I shall post very soon because I need to take my mind off some things.
Love,
Jo

Japan trip 2014 - Kids

Friday, the 8th of August

This day's breakfast was yummy again: salad and two tiny little sandwiches in sweet bread. And of course the coffee to wake myself up.

There will not be a lot of text in this day's post because it was basically a day for amusement that does not require subtitles.

After soom research online on where to spend a day with my daughter I discovered a place my inlaws and husband had not heard of, Kids Plaza Osaka. It is supposed to be the first ever museum in Japan that was created only for kids to develop their skills and learning in diferente subjects and levels. It ranges from learning about diferente animals, to climbing, painting, cooking and shopping, as well as other more complex academic subjects like physics for instance. Of cours some of these things were too complex for a 2 year old to understand but I knew she'd still find something appealing.

For those of you who do not have kids, one of the hard parts of being a parent is to keep your child happy while trying to not drive everyone around mad, that seems to be particularly challenging in a country where everyone is supposed to be quiet and still as to not affect others around you. So we try to sit or stand in places closer to the corners of rooms and transportation vehicles.

Inside the train it is often problematic, first there are trains where you just will not find a seat so if your child is cranky and bortherline wanting to burst in a loud cry you cannot or should not pick them up because you might lose balance and fall and even when you have a seat kids get upset of being in the same place for more than a few minutes without having anything to do.

So basically you try your best to keep them occupied as I am doing there.

Of course when we got to the second train ride that didn't work and she started standing trying to walk everywhere and even sat as you can see with her feet on the seat and we caught her bad behavior on photo. haha

She looks like a little angel though, doesn't she?

We eventually arrived to out destination and it seemed wonderful. Mari did not want to leave the entrance where they had balls going through paths all over the place. Even I stared at it for at least 5minutes. That was fun!

After that we had to go by elevator to the other floors. It seemed like it wasn't super full so we were happy about that. I love how they have dark lamps in that hallway, makes mari shine as if she was rocking out at the local club.

When we got to the 4th floor we realised however that it was madly crowded much to our surprise aftr coming from the lobby and that made this day a ridiculously tiring day. I had never seen so many kids in the same place ever in my entire life.

The first place we went to was the central element, a sort of climbing structure.

 and a lot of fish and bugs to get to know

 Finally we found a more quiet corner with toys and things directly aiming at my daughter's age and we took our shoes off and just sat there and relaxed, we were dead tired by then.

 she spent a lot of time gathering blocks from the floor and putting them back into their proper storage space. I hope she keeps enjoying that so she will help mom clean the house when she's older haha. she also loves playing with cars!

 We did not have lunch and it was close to 5pm already so we went to the nearby Mos Burger which I already talked about. As we were ordering we noticed that Mari had just fell asleep.... we got her so tired she slept without even wanting to eat. She was beat!

Mos Burger, yummy but kind of small I suppose. I had a ginger ale that day, love the stuff, almost never have it.

 On the way to the station we figured it'd be smart to get some food for Mari in case she'd wake up and so we looked for a place that had some. We eventually went in this supermarket which I thought was a pachinko parlor. It looked just like it, loud and super corny. And when i said that my husband smiled and said that it is actually a supermarket chain in Osaka famous for being exactly like that on purpose: Super Tamade. It is damn cheap... and corny, had I meantioned corny? Yeah... c o r n y.

Then it was back to the mountain land, Sango, home sweet home. I like Sango, I can totally picture me living there, I don't know why that is. Weather was starting to change. Uhh

 Dinner that day was interesting, that eggplant was amazing, i love eggplant and Mari ate chicken like there was no tomorrow! I swear she eats like an adult, unbelievable.

 And I got a treat! When there's icecream it always feels like a special occasion, like my birthday or something hehe. :D

After icecream and relaxation we might or not have gone jogging, we've been running a lot but I can't really guess when and I am too lazy to cross check with my runkeeper account haha. <3

Next day would be something a bit special so I was lookinh forward to waking up in a couple of hours.

Love,

Jo

Japan 2013 (Days 15/16 - 26/27th of July)

Hello again,

So we are finally arriving to the part of the trip where the times I spend stuck at home doing nothing are more common than those that I actually do something that I am doing something that others might consider to be fun.

Again, my husband has a lot of work to do until he gets back to work and its my job to support him by taking care of Mari and not demanding to go here and there and do this and that.

I honestly have no memory of what I did these two days. I spend them at home, watched an occasional weird japanese tv show, usually containing food... or travels to another cities... or better yet, a csi sort of series with muder and criminal investigations. I am really ashamed of our national channels everytime i come here. Every single tv show as ridiculous as it is has a very strong pedagogical component as to ours.. lets just say mostly do not. The ones that have content are just made in a very traditional way which is fine for me but might not be fine for some of the population making them want to watch something without substance but that is approachable. Of course this is just my opinion and of course its not something that applies to everything, there are exceptions.

26th of August

Apparently my breakfast on the 26th was a cup of corn soup, a salad, a toast with marguerine and cafe au lait.

I had fried udon for lunch (yummy)

And for dinner we had ebi fry with a pasta salad... beer and kinpira gobo.

27th of August

I woke up a bit late that day. To be honest I haven't been feeling super these days, I have some pain in my abdominal area which I have no idea where it cames from. It started after I gave birth to Mari and after reading a bit about the same complaints on a maternity forum I learned that its not that uncommon for people to suffer from different things after giving birth via c-section. It makes me mad because i never wanted a c-section at all but was forced to follow that path to (according to the doctor) insure that nothing went wrong.
I don't regret it but the scar tissue is still itchy and swolen and i could do without the occasional pain.
So I basically woke up in time for lunch which always tastes great on hot days such as these. <3

Mari also started doing something new around that day which is to put her feet in her mouth. I haven't seen her do that lately so she might have stopped in the meanwhile.

There's always snacks and sweets... chocolate/cake whatever in this house. I am sure that if i wasn't running from time to time i'd have increased my weight from all the calories. hehe but it all is so yummy and there's nothing much else i have to do here other than eating so i'm taking most of the pleasure of this trip from food. 

My usual coffee cup with milk and sugar and a pound cake, half regular sponge cake, half matcha sponge cake. I love everything matcha if you did not know already. 

After that my husband and my mother in law came in the living room carrying one or two photo albums. In these there were photos of my husband when he was a kid. We found somethings a bit similar between him and Mari and i love seeing old photos!

My husband when he was a little baby.

Mari was having fun, she is starting to like books a lot, she finds the pictures interesting. You can see a shot of my husband when he was an older kid too, he looks exactly the same now.

And dinner was something I love, its probably my favorite, another barbecue. It's just the closest to what we eat in Portugal i guess because barbecue is a bit of the same everywhere and my mother in law is always a sweetheart and gets all sorts of tasty ingredients. I always eat too much and she says "it's ok because the food is being grilled without any oil so it's "healthy". haha yes, healthy. :P

Kimchi, Egg plant (I love egg plant), japanese ridiculously expensive and tasty meat, pepper, cabbage, konnyaku, mushrooms...

That was what i did these two days. Not very exciting right? Well it gets a lot less interesting afterwards... i wonder if i should still post anyway, oh well.

Love,

Jo

Japan 2013 (Day 14 - 25th of July)

Hello! I'm back!
I forgot to post photos of our room, i took these on the 24th but am posting them before i complete the 25th post. I would love to see these if it was one some other blog so i hope you appreciate it too. <3

This is the room's door. It had a key of course, even though it gives the impression you can slide the door open.

This is the view from the entrance once you step in. There's a small table with a decoration element on the right, a corner with a floor lamp on the left. Of course there's a step and then there's that wooden floor. You have to leave your shoes near the step as usual. 

The doors on the right are storage, on the right there's a corridor that leads to the bathroom and toilet. The big doors in front lead to the main room.

This is the room, the right side. The doors are not the ones you use to get in, those are behind my back (i'm taking the photo obviously). The white sliding doors are where the futon is kept with extra blankets etc. 

There's only decorative elements as you can see, the table with the "chairs" and those boxes have tea and snacks. The sliding doors in front lead to the balcony area. 

This is the balcony, the length is the same as the room, its pretty big. The windows are huge and there's two seats and a table with a ashtray. On the end of the balcony there's a fridge.  The doors of course slide and shut... and if you notice there's a sort of difference in the level of the sliding doors in the bottom, those tiny doors also slide and there's clear glass so you can just kind of peek without sliding the actual door but just a piece of it. 

After dinner someone had already set our futon space up.. this is the other side of the room, you can see a bit of the table there. There's a tv in front of the futon beds and i'm obviously doing my makeup in a makeup station set up there. There's also another pair of sliding doors which reveal the closet space. 

We woke up in that amazing but foreign place and I felt like that could be some sort of dream... it just seemed very odd.

I sometimes wonder what'll be like to go back home and sleep in my tall but not so wide bed again. My mattress is also very soft which is the complete opposite from sleeping like this. I bet my back will hurt like they did when i fist slept on that mattress. Strangely enough, my older brother picked it, we went to Ikea and he loved it so much when he tried it i just got it anyway haha. Strange huh?

I got ready and we went to the breakfast room and had something to eat. It was, of course, a typical japanese ryokan breakfast which means a tray filled with odd looking things that again, most of my friends would not eat willingly.

I'm still very foreigner so my favorites were the potato salad, the veggies, the sea weed, the non cooked tofu, the fish and the yogurt. 

We then left to get our luggage ready. When leaving we realised someone had taken our slippers by mistake which in the end confirms my theory that is "leaving your shoes out and having slippers, does not really mean that your feet will be safer" haha. I didn't care anyway, i figure the chance of getting some skin disease was not high and i like living dangerously (just joking, it was either that or leave with nothing on).

I got ready really fast with our luggage so we decided to wait in the lobby where i took some photos for you guys to check out everything.

Remember this? Now you can see it in the daylight, still pretty nice huh? I thought so.

And of course all lobbies have seating spaces... this is where we watched the jazz performance.

Since I am getting even more addicted to coffee here i asked if i could order some since it was an extra. My husband said yes and got some for himself too. It came with a small local snack, it was tasty and i was happy. <3

This is the kid's corner, there are books, toys and even a small desk and seat. Isn't it adorable?

And there was a collection of old hollywood movies etc... the room also works as a small projector room and during the days when there's no live, they play them for guests. What a nice idea? Black and white movies go specially well with the environment, don't you think? 

After everyone got together we said goodbye to the staff, bowed a lot etc and got in the car. I thought we were going to ride for a while but after a few minutes we arrived to our next location.

Yep, that's the famous Meoto Iwa I talked about on the other post. We only saw it from afar though.

I like taking photos of my husband taking photos. :X

So what were we doing here? Well there's a local attraction called Futami Sea Life Paradise which is an aquarium. And my inlaws thought Mari would like it.

At the entrance. Mari seems to be wondering what kind of a place that would be.

The first animals we saw were fish, different sort of fish and Mari was in love! They were big and swam around the tanks so she followed them with her eyes and laughed. 

People could line up and touch some of the animals. Mari seems happy then but after a few seconds she started crying haha the poor thing.

There were also penguins which she liked as well.

There were two huge walrus... you could touch them too so I did. Mari didn't, we did not want ti scare her.

And of course dolphins.

 Well I've got to be honest, i was glad to be there and Mari had a blast but i have honestly never seen any other place with such terrible conditions for animals. I saw huge turtles in a ridiculously tiny aquarium, etc... and also really bad taste sort of themes and decorations such as:

The sushi store tank. There's a plastif fish on the right there on top of a cutting board, the sushi banner and some sushi photos in the glass. I understand wanting to teach kids where their food comes from but... 

I saw a miniature chair (wish i had taken it for my dolls because it did not belong there!), other random stuff, this shoe!

This has got to be my favorite so i'm keeping it to the min because the post will be too long. It's some sort of word pun probably but yes, that's a dead man's plastic hand inside the tank. Lets just hope the paint is not toxic.

After this Mari eventually fell asleep so we left the aquarium. As like everywhere else in Japan, there was a small shopping area for gifts and stuff  (there's hello kitty everything here. it so strange!) and had some icecream.

My first choice is always matcha (green tea). It's my favorite and there's none in Portugal!

 And then I saw the weirdest souvenir tshirt ever that i will forever regret not getting to give to my older brother as a gift. You must open the photo and read it carefully. I was all like "what now?". Very strange.

After that we got in the car and rejoiced because of the cooler. It was really hot that day. 

I did say we got Mari a bathing suit did I not? Well it was finally time to put it to use.

We stopped at this hotel and my father in law told me we'd have to pay to go to the beach. You heard me, one has to pay to go to the beach in Japan. It's shocking to me. But anyway we did and went to the beach. Mari got in her bathing suit and off we went!

The hotel in the back looked like this, the whole area was a bit sad looking really. 

And this is the general view of the beach, not many people were there. The sand wasn't white and thin like the one we have in Portugal but a bit darker. But there was a lot of sand so even if a lot of people were there, there was plenty of room for everyone.

Aww she's just so cute and look at her, she's getting tanned too! With all this care... she's still gotten tanned. Geez.

I approached the sea carrying her and just placed her tiny feet in the went sand and wanted for the water to gently touch her feet. When she was confortable i kept advancing and advancing until she sat in the water and eventually wanted to play and splash. After that we could finally get it in the water.

She loved water so much, she had a blast!

I decided to go japanese style and wear my tshirt in the sea. They do that all the time here. The sea was so warm, its so odd for me. It's really cold where I live. It also want's deep at all so i'd have to go very far away if i wanted to swim. 

So that was it, Mari's first time in the sea and my first time in the sea in a looong time too.

We all took a small shower, got in the car and finally started the trip back home. We did not have lunch so we stoped at a convinience store and got some munchies. I had this:

Super expensive, about 3 euros or more but it was amazing, i'd eat one right now!

And this is us getting back home! Everyone was happy but tired.

After a while we had dinner (instant curry!)

Watching tv as a familly is one of my favorite actities as a whole and it is also so in Japan. My inlaws like shows about food, culture and love crime investigation series as well. <3

Mari was really happy and we always play with her a lot. 

And I had gotten some pants and running shoes so we started doing just that, running from time to time. It's another of my favorite activies in Japan.

I know, pink! I now oen 3 pairs of running shoes. I do not look like it but i exercise.... -_-;

And that's all for today, i hope you liked the post and i'll see you next time. <3

Jo