Tokyo Disney and the Imperial Palace

Ok, LAST Tokyo post. But really, I couldn't leave these things out.

Step Seventeen: Play the weakling.
Only on the last day did I discover that I could actually lift Mimi in the backpack.

Outside the Imperial Palace. If you go there, make sure to check the weird opening times. It was never open for us, but cool on the outside. Royalty really live there and it's in the center of Tokyo.

I still loved this child, even on the last day. Cam said today her personality is like a puppy.

And I love this angel of a child, here, 9 months.

Step Eighteen: Find their Target, or the closest approximation.

Apparently in the center of town this crazy store is their five storey version of Target and sells diapers and kid stuff.

This huge fish was in the entry way of the inexplicably named Don Quixote's.

For sale? Victory: two subway handles. I'm in love with this angel of a child.This is the entrance to their Target-like place. Got merchandising?And for all your face lifting needs, I give you whatever this air cushion on the right.

Step nineteen: Go to Disneyland, but see if you can pick a less crowded day than we did.

Actually, we went to Disney Sea, which is in the same general area as Tokyo Disney. Tokyo Disney is a carbon copy of Disneyland, but Disney Sea is completely unique and variously themed.

The Flounder ride underground in Ariel's kingdom. It was magical down there.There was an entire underground Ariel's Kingdom fully decked out with rides. Ariel is Mimi's favorite and she about died that we got to meet her. Ariel was American, which tempted me to question her resume. Is there some secret black market princess trading going on? How do I get in? Camille, there might be a future for you in this.Cute, but having kind of a hard day.Perhaps having a hard life. Seriously, what's worse than a bimbo? A himbo. What's worse than a himbo? A shimbo.This is another area in Disney Sea. You know, because the Aztecs were totally part mermaid. I don't know how this fits with the Disney Sea theme, but there it was and it was glorious.The Agrabah Marketplace. Very cool with rides and shows and snacks. Note how crowded it is. This is because we went to Disney during Golden Week, when everybody has off work. Duh.How not to lose your toddler. Do you have a better idea? Should I have put on her passport information? No leashes.

And FINALLY
Step Twenty: Buy your child the traditional costume and put it on her right before you get off the plane. Prepare to have strangers ask to take her picture. Allow them. Force her to bow and say "Arigato."

All in all, it was a wonderful trip. It was totally doable and you should do it too. Here are some sites to cheap tickets. I'm telling you, with the economy being what it is, they're practically giving tickets away. Sure it was hard and expensive and sometimes a little tricky, but these memories will last a lifetime and when you're all in, it probably costs about the same as going on a cruise or to Disneyland. I'll love my kid's baby passports forever and hope to add to their little stamps. I hope I've encouraged you to give it a try, and if you need help, I'm happy to assist you in going foreign.

Bon Voyage with your Bebes.

www.kayak.com

www.aerlingus.com

www.easyjet.com

www.travelzoo.com

Tokyo with Kids Day 4

Sorry for the break, I ran out of steam. Chugga chugga, woo woo. But I am determined to create a record of our whole trip. Posterity, you know.

Step Thirteen: Thou shalt not fear the food.

The weirder it looks, the more you should try it. People wouldn't eat it if it wasn't palatable, so give it a go. Mimi won the most adventurous prize, followed by me and then Jude and lastly Dx, the food wimp.

Octopus cupcakes, anyone?

What REAL fish sticks look like.
And so we bought one. The white flakes are salt. Mimi and I gave it a go, but found it, well, fishy.


Step Fourteen: Go in search of Fashion.

These girls are the real deal, Harajuku Girls in Harajuku, as made famous in the US by Gwen Stefani. On Sundays the Harajuku neighborhood is filled with young people participating in dress-up play. They put on full head to toe costumes and a persona and interact with each other playacting. The costumes are fabulously outrageous, and unfortunately, our camera gave up the ghost that afternoon. There were better specimen, but this is our best picture. They're dressed like outlandish lolitas.

Thank you, Harajuku girl, for the obligatory peace sign.

Step Fifteen: Go where you hear loud noise.

We were taking a lovely walk through the park on Sunday and heard this loud music in the distance, so we walked over to see what was going on. We happened upon this dance festival and it was one of the coolest things we saw in Tokyo. So You Think You Can Dance and America's Best Dance crew have nothing on these dramatic performers.

They dance in a warrior style, mixed with hip hop. I've seen a lot of types of dance, but I'd never seen something so frenetic and committed, look at the expressions on their faces, they're sneering not smiling. I don't know what the style of dance is called, but it was an intense experience. Check out the video at the bottom of the page, it is like nothing you've seen before. Kind of like hiphop capoeira.

Note the traditional red eye makeup.

Step Sixteen: Visit Holy Places.

Shinto is the most ancient religion in Japan, based largely on animal spirit worship. It's been around there longer than Buddhism and its holy places offer a different atmosphere from busy Buddhist temples. Ever seen those big red angular arches? Those are Shinto gates.

This is the courtyard of a Shinto Shrine. Look off to the right, see the red kimono? That's a bride in traditional Japanese dress. We were really lucky to happen upon their ceremony.
These are the prayer ema, plaques where worshippers write their prayers or wishes. They cost money. I just observed.

After the peaceful Shinto shrine, we visited the Buddhist temple in Asakusa. It was a bustling market place and packed full of people. It was an interesting contrast, kind of like the Jesus before/after cleaning out the temple story, Buddhist being before, Shinto after. These pictures were taken after the camera died that day, and aren't so good.

Mimi inside the shrine. People were throwing money into the temple and kneeling saying prayers. Mimi knelt down and said a little prayer. She always prays for Ellie, I don't know why. Perhaps because she's her namesake.
This is the pagoda outside the Buddhist temple. Secretly, I have no idea what pagodas are all about, but they sure do look cool. Before I return to Tokyo, I would like to learn more about these holy places. I felt like a big tourist at these places, but we enjoyed the sights and the food.

This is a video of one of the dance troupes. Observe how aggressive the moves are.

Tokyo with Kids Day 3

Step Nine: Put your kids in their cutest outfits. Coordinating is best. You're going to look at those pictures for the rest of your life and chances are your kids are already kind of bugging you (mine weren't, but still) so you want them to be extra cute with their hair done in order to encourage the love a little bit more. On day three we found this place called The Children's Castle. (Check the opening hours, we were an hour early and it was rough). There are five floors of fun, including a live music drum room, an indoor play structure, a kitchen area, carnival games, craft rooms and a bike riding and jungle play area with balls on the roof. It was perfect for ages 0-11 and a total local hangout for kids.

My favorite of Jude's outfits. He's such a chub. It's all the noodles he slurps down.

Fabulous kitchen area where Mimi wore aprons and prepared sushi with pals.

Step Ten: Embrace all dorkiness.

I developed an I'm-in-Tokyo peace sign pose. Dx cuddled large cuddly animals (who whacked him somewhere inappropriate.)

Notice how our kids aren't interested at all.

Step Eleven: Point order. Most menus have pictures or the restaurants have that weird plastic food outside. If it looks like you might like it, you probably will love it. I point ordered this tart. I hoped they didn't cut it into smaller pieces, but alas, they did. I could have eaten the whole thing.

Shabu Shabu is different and much better in Tokyo. I don't know what we put in it, but one of the things on the plate to the right was called Jew's Ears. Is that kosher?

Step Twelve: Bring your own baby food and formula. What the heck is this stuff? He did enjoy the snacky stuff and drinks, but I have no idea what they were and it made me a little nervous.

Jude HAD to have his own handle on the subway or he would scream.

Step whatever: This is the ancient Kabuki theater, showing a million shows each day. It's a great place to see the old style theater and people wearing Kimono. We did not see a show because we had our kids, but it was within walking distance to our hotel and very cool all lit up at night. It's on our list when we go back.

Here's a video of the kids at the Children's Castle in Shibuya. It's rockin'.
This kinda ups the ante, doesn't it Kindermusick?

Tokyo Day 2, Get Out of Town

Step Five: Go on your big nap-skipping Day trip early in the vacation. We went to the village of Hakone, located about an hour and a half outside of Tokyo. The area is known for it's hot springs and has an antiquated resort type area. It was no easy task finding our way there.Navigating the subway and the commuter trains was complicated, but no more or less so than any other subway with larger trains leaving the central metropolis to further reaching towns. To get to Hakone, we took one subway train and then the bullet train! It was really really fast. Then we hopped on one or two more trains and a bus up a windy hill. Getting to the destination is part of the fun. Step Six: Breakfast is not a sit-down meal.
We ate breakfast on the run, stocking up the night before at grocery stores or 711 type shops. Guess what things are by their pictures and hope for the best. Later on I discovered that this was totally gauche and embarrassing by Japanese standards. We were the only ones eating outside buildings. Apparently, we were tacky and inappropriate Americans. Oh, and the picture above is what I thought was a ball of rice. Surprise, it had some creepy fishy thing inside. I passed it to Mimi, she devoured it. I tell you, that child will eat anything.

Step Seven: Go where the locals go for fun.
We were guided by my trusty local friend to Yunessun, a family oriented hot springs swimming extravaganza. We're a big water family. This suited us fine, except for the suits. I had to wear A ONE PIECE and Dx had to wear a shirt because of our tattoos (no, not matching.) You'll notice a lack of pictures of me in this section.

Women were given these silly suit cover-ups, men wore matching blue ones. This was the indoor section. We (ok, I) was the only white person there. The pools were all warm and there were, say, 30 of them and they were all different. Kiddie pools, cave pools, outside water slides. And then the piece de resistance: the mountain valley of outdoor fantastic (anti WofW) pools. Starting with:

The coffee pool, made, smells and tastes (what? Of course I tasted them!) just like coffee. It's a bit disconcerting swimming in a big brown warm bubbly pool, but it smelled divine. Further up the hill was this lovely typical Japanese bath, complete with cherry blossoms and floating reed thingys. Jude found them delicious.

Here's Mimi climbing into the Green Tea pool. (Also delicious).

And here is the Crvn family bathing in a bacchanalian Red Wine pool. We didn't drink this one.

There was also a honey pool, other types of tea, a sake pool, a charcoal pool and a number of others. The only thing missing was the chocolate pool. Yunessun was unlike anywhere I've been in America or elsewhere (the Gellert Baths in Budapest included. If you've been there, you know.)

Step Eight: Try everything.

At Yunessun they offered the legendary fish pedicure. You put your feet in a pool and fish nibble off bacteria and dead skin. Sounds horrible, yes? We totally did it. Watch:

I am the one shrieking.

Tokyo Day 1, Yes You Can

When Dx and I were first married, we traveled all the time. In the first two years of our marriage, I think we hit maybe 30-40 different major cities throughout the world (mostly in Europe). Having children altered our lifestyle significantly, but we recently decided that we would have to bite the bullet some day and try our hand at taking our kids abroad.

It was a smashing success.

Tokyo should be your next family vacation destination. It is an incredible city, more first world than America, and perfectly accessible for families. It is clean, organized, efficient while crowded, and easy to get around. There are a ton of things to do and see, most of them free.

In the next few posts, I intend to demonstrate how to take your two tiny kids (and more) to a foreign land and have the best vacation of your life.



Step one: Find someone who already knows all about your destination, preferably someone who lives there and is an expat. Ask them exactly what is worth doing. Do everything they say. This is best accomplished through Facebook and emails. Thank you, Tony C. If not for you, we'd never have found the Tsujiki Fish Market, open at 5 am.

These three pictures are in the huge working fish market. We were the only people with kids there, but nobody ran us down in their little carts. The bottom picture is Ahi Tuna, right before it was auctioned off. Big, huh? High Mercury content.

Step two: Plan every day in advance, plan two activities per day with an extreme midday nap, even if your kids are on completely different schedules. This results in basically two full days made out of one. Exhausting, but not if you're going to bed at 6:30 because your family never adjusts to the time change.


Our first morning was the Tsujiki fish market, and then we tried to go to the Imperial Palace, but it was closed. That afternoon, we went to Ginza which is the main shopping district.








This is a little Shinto Shrine we found wandering around near our hotel. Note the change in outfits, this is the same day but post naps.





This is Ginza, the shopping district. Notice how there's no garbage or debris, despite how bustling the city can be.

Step three: Make sure you have the appropriate carriers for children. We brought our single stroller and used the bottom storage section as a day pack. Dx carried the baby backpack. I felt like a big hippie the whole time, especially because everyone in Tokyo is dressed for work and we were in travel mode, but both kids were able to fall asleep on Dx's back. As for the stroller, there were elevators MOST of the time. Some times we had to two-person carry the stroller up and down stairs.

This is typical Tokyo, at least where we were staying. Completely clean, blue skies, towering sky scrapers, and something more efficient than I'd ever seen in America: ramp stairs.

Jude was happy as a clam in the carrier. You should have seen the back of Dx's neck at the end of the day. It was covered in food. Oh, and Jude Jude learned to spit on him during the trip.

Step four: The trip is about the kids. This was our first big trip as a family, so our priorities necessarily had to shift. We went places that they could enjoy and skipped places that we'd might have wanted to see. If they weren't welcome, we didn't want to go. This means, no shows, no intimate dinners, no museums. Our goal was sightseeing, eating delicious food and finding at least one kid activity a day. Everybody was happy, despite being together 24 hours a day. We found that if we just kept moving, there was so much to see that there weren't very many breakdowns. Mimi, 2, is a great traveling age because she's impressed by trains and transportation and she's easy to distract with small games and food.

Pipe cleaners. Easy to carry, fun to make into whatever you need to keep the two-year-old entertained. She often boarded trains wearing her special glasses, and the Japanese people just loved her. Especially when she would say "Arigato!"

We happened upon this rooftop play area above a shopping mall in Ginza. The kids had a ball.

Stay tuned for more tips on traveling abroad with little people. I'm no expert, but I was once intimidated by big trips and now, having had such success, I want others to go do the same.

I'll Never

My husband and I recently went on a road trip to Tahoe. On the way we had a little conversation about where we are in our lives and how we're on either side of 30. We decided to come up with a list of a few things we would probably never do in our lifetimes. The rule was you had to have considered the possibility at some point during your life, only to realize now that it is too late to do that thing.

Mine was extensive.

I'll Never:

1) Be a professional prima Ballerina.

2) Make a music video, starring me.

3) Be on Saturday Night Live

4) Marry royalty.

5) Be famous.

6) Visit Australia. I just don't want to.

7) Be in the Medical Profession.

8) Win a trophy at any sport.

9) Live alone in a trendy Parisian flat.

10) Win an Oscar/Emmy/Tony/Pulitzer

I could go on and on. It's a sobering list.

It's amazing how many doors close every year of your life.

Not so for Dx.

We chatted about this for two hours.

He could only come up with TWO THINGS

he would PROBABLY never do in his lifetime.

They were:

1) Use hardcore street drugs (heroin/coke/crack)

2) Own a Geo Metro.

That's it.

Everything else is within the realm of possibility for him. It's going to be a long eternity.