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 trip - Day 16

On the next day we were expecting a visitor. My older sister in law had a free day from work and came over from Osaka where she lives.
For this reason we decided we should spend time together and not go out.

We woke up and she wasn't even there. I had my usual breakfast and we watched a bit of tv.
After that we went back to our room and slept some more. After a while she has arrived but was very tired so she took a nap and we missed her.

Matcha Cappuccino, my favorite.

Living room wall clock.

Mom actually had gotten a new tea and wanted me to try it. I loved the packages, they are gorgeous and the tea was also pretty good.

The tea containers

Green tea. <3

After that, my sister in law came in and after the usual hug and affection parade she actually told us that she had brough us something. Because it was the 1st and sales are in everyone was out shopping that day.

My gift. what could it be??

I opened the package carefully and started taking out the items one by one. She had gotten me a fabric tissue, a small kimono fabric pouch and a zipper bag for my makeup. How pretty!

Aren't the colors amazing? I love these.

My mother in law then asked us if we could go to the supermarket to buy a couple of things she needed for dinner. Of course we said yes and off we went!

I first went to the toy section. I wanted to buy licca doll clothes for my girls but i didn't like them much and thought they were too expensive.

After that i just walked around a bit. I saw these school bags and kinda wanted one (although i have nowhere to use this sort of thing). Usually these are ridiculously expensive but these were some that only cost around 100 euros. Pretty cheap. dunno why.

These were my favorites though.

As we headed over to the section we wanted i also saw this: I suppose moms give them to kids because they are cute? Very Akb, very easily could pass by fetish wear in the right places hahaha.


School girl uniforms for sale at the local department store.

Finally we found the supermarket and started getting the things on our list.
The first thing i grabbed was a present for my father in law so it obviously was not on the list, but 10 euro lucky packs are my thing and he does love his snacks so...

While walking around I saw some cute things:

Big diversity of wound patches. haha so cute.

Food utensil section. Onigiri boxes, shaping objects etc, just adorable.

The next thing on our shopping list was beer. Beer in Japan isvery expensive when compared to beer in my country. A six pack here costs around 4 euros, a six pack in Japan costs 12 euros. o.o

Yebisu beer. They gave a carrying case at that time.

After that we headed over to the cashier and left.
Along the way we saw something we had not seen before in a vending machine:

Kamen rider cider & Go ranger something

We got back and found out that today we were going to eat that super expensive meat. Sukiyaki!

The return of the 100 euro a kg meat.

First you heat up the pot and then you add lod.

The pan being heated for the cooking process.

As you can see its incredibly tasty sashimi.

The beer we got from the supermaket.

Then you put the meat in and let it cook.

Oh sake, tasty sake!

After it starts being cooked you add sugar and soy sauce.

And then you just eat!

Absolutely heavenly.

After eating some, one adds other things to the pot: mushrooms, tofu, shirataki(the pasta looking thing) and shungiku (the vegs).
And then you just dive in. It is fantastic.

After dinner we just hanged out and chatted a bit. My father in law also took the oportunity to open his snack lucky pack. It was awesome, so much stuff for 10 euros. I am always amazed with lps.

Snack lucky pack.

Part of my father in law's snack lucky pack. Yay nuts :D

I also got a makeup lucky pack from canmake. I was feeling odd about being in Japan and not getting at least one for myself. It was about 7 euros and this is what was inside the bag:

Canmake brownish lip gloss

Canmake blue / silver eyeshadow palette

Canmake hot pink sparkly nail polish (this is so not me haha)

Fake eyelashes

Canmake brownish cream cheek blush

 And that was it, tjhe end of day 16, another calm but enjoyable day. <3
Love,
Jo