Birthday Time!

Coryn got to celebrate all day long on his birthday... starting with donuts for breakfast at the cabins. Followed by a party at school where he had pizza and cupcakes, and he got to sit at the end of the table with his best friends sitting next to him.

Here are his teachers.

Presents from school were opened afterward, he's hamming it up Japanese style.

Then he got to play in the bouncy while we waited for people to show up to the non-school party. It was a perfect day for it too... rain in the morning, brief sun, rain in the afternoon, cleared up just in time for the water to mostly dry and stay partly cloudy the rest of the evening.

This was the immediate favorite for all, playschool medical helicoptor.

Halloween!

There was a slew of parties lined up... first my ACGO meeting which I didn't know was supposed to be costumed, so Coryn got to choose from a box of stuff, as you can see he went with the ever popular giant pink sequined hat. Yes, he's busting a move.

Here we all are in our costumes (Jackson is an Afghan) at a Japanese Halloween party we were invited to, which was quite different. They had games, costumes, and a haunted house of course, but different none-the-less. They handed out candy bags to everyone on the way in, including adults. They had a card to fill out signature squares for each game. We didn't know what to expect so I brought some candy to hand out, and after I gave it to the lady that invited me she ran off and brought the guy in charge over to personally thank me for our donation. :)

Japanese costumes are quite haphazard, although possibly more creative... in general they don't quite know what to do with Halloween, its not in their culture. This is one of the games they had set up, fishing for candy, and these guys dressed appropriately in octopus and turtle getup. Another game they had was really fun, they filled a small room with crumpled newspaper and had strewn candy about for people to jump in and find.

Here's Halloween night... Boba Fett and Chicago Firefighter are ready to go! (complete with popcorn buckets from Tokyo Disney for candy)

We carved a pumpkin the day before and this is Coryn's first look at it lit up. He chose the design and watched me carve it. We even baked the seeds. Needless to say, there is way too much candy in the house. Still.

Discovery Channel

Last year the discovery channel had a fun commercial with a really catchy song attached to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5BxymuiAxQ

Well, their new version was just released and we've been listen to it all weekend. I just thought I'd share them with you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0jZzBEKIMc (let this one load in it's entirety before you play it so it won't freeze part way through)... boom-de-yada, boom-de-yada!

P.S.
Make sure you watch both of them in full screen mode (HQ for #1 and HD for #2)

September still... ice skating

Thats right, subtropical Okinawa, the Hawaii of Japan, has an indoor ice skating rink. One.

So we went, and the kids had a blast. Coryn was kind of scared, who likes that slippy feeling when you're used to walking normal?

Carter had a blast, he swung between us, and purposely slid his feet every which way for the heck of it. Check out those gloves!

But they had the most fun getting pushed around in the skating rental cars!

Of course we had to warm up with some ramen and cocoa, Carter refused to have his gloves on at this point.

Coryn's getting really good at chopsticks. I think he'll miss those at the restaurants.

Carter likes getting fed like a bird.

It was a very tiring day...

September... yeah, I know

Lots of things happened in September, and now I'm getting around to telling you all about it... Carter discovered puddles

It was the last night of Obon in Okinawa which meant the last night to experience late night Eisa performances... which for the Okinawans is basically a party to wish the visiting spirits of their ancestors a safe journey back to the land of the dead.

We went to the aquarium, we'll miss it when we leave...

everyone always enjoys the touching pool...

There's always something new there too... like volunteer scuba divers cleaning the tank and posing for pictures :)

Bansai Tokyo Part 2

Our final few days in Tokyo were spent seeing a few final site before we had to go back to Okinawa. We visited the Buddhist Sensoji Temple. Built over 1000 years ago, it is the oldest oldest and one of the most significant shrines in Tokyo. The main building itself was under renovation so it had scaffoldings all over it but this one of the toriis leading up to the shrine.

Near the shrine there was a little park that the boys got to run around at. There was a Japanese preschool there at the same time and Coryn wasted no time making new friends. This girl ran up to him as soon as we arrived so She & Him had a great time exploring, all the while with Coryn trying to talk to her in English and her just looking at him like, "I have no idea what you're saying, but who cares, I'm having fun."

We also made sure to visit the Imperial Gardens on the grounds of the Imperial Palace. Coryn really wanted to met the emperor and was a little sad that he wasn't able to. We did get to hear some of the Imperial Guards making a lot of noise while they were practising Kendo with their bamboo swords. I would kind of liken this area to Tokyo's version of Central Park and it is an expanse of green surrounded by extensive urban expansion.

No trip to Tokyo would be complete without a visit to the Tokyo Tower, and while we didn't take the time to go up to the top we did stop by since we were in the neighborhood. Modeled after the Eiffel Tower in Paris, this is the main broadcast tower for television and radio in the city. It is over 1,000 feet tall and visible from several points around town.

In the same neighborhood as the tower we came across the Zojoji Temple, another Buddhist shrine. I liked the juxtaposition of the traditional shrine with the modern broadcast tower in the background. In a place as old as Tokyo you find several examples of an ancient something or other that has survived into modern times and surrounded by the present.

We had a great time in Tokyo and when the time came to return back to Okinawa we made it on to the return leg of the free flight without any trouble and were back home in time for lunch just a few hours shy of a week since we first took off. This meant that I had a whole weekend to recover from our vacation before I had to head back to work.

Disney Sea

Disneyland has California Adventures, Disney World has Epcot Center, Tokyo Disney has Disney Sea, a mostly water themed park which is where we spent day two of our three days of Disney while in Tokyo. the decor of Disney Sea was very unique and very nice. While Disneyland was decorated mostly for Halloween, Disney Sea was had more of an Autumn masquerade theme to it. The entrance was done up like a Venetian waterfront. Somewhere in there, there is a hotel. It's actually inside the park itself. If Lisa and I ever make it back, and we don't have little kids we're totally going to stay there.

Just inside the entrance to the park for some reason I got the feeling like I might have been at Universal Studios instead of Disney.

Venice, a Mediterranean Port and a Volcano (Mt Vesuvius?) are all part of the water front theme here.

They also gave their take on American culture with a colonial New England town... Cape Cod maybe. It was funny, while we were in this section of the park Lisa and I both said that while we really enjoy living overseas we were looking forward to being back in the states for more than a few weeks like it has been the last few years. Don't get too excited Grandie, we're still looking at going to Europe after Virginia. Of course, Coryn had to check out the old fire department.

He was also pretty keen on going aboard the ocean liner Columbia in a turn of the century New York City like port, but was a little upset that we couldn't go up to the bridge. He really wanted to pretend the drive the boat. We settled for a snack in the Theodore Roosevelt lounge on board instead. The map said they offered "light fare" but it really should have said, "light fare with five star prices." I felt a little ripped off, oh well. You don't go to Disney to save money! :)

It wasn't all oceans, and rivers and ports and harbors though. Japan's Indiana Jones ride, based of the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull movie is in this park too.

It seemed like a lot of the rides and Sea were geared more of older kids. Most of them required that you me "this tall" to ride but there was one section that was inside a place that looked like King Triton's castle from the Little Mermaid that had an area specifically designed for little kids to play under the sea. The boys really enjoyed that area and we thought of Aunt Sarah while we were there because we saw the world's biggest nudibranch!

Tokyo Disney

The crowds were out in force during our time at the parks but we were able to find lines to rides that weren't too long and you've got to expect lines when you visit the happiest place on earth, even if it is the Far East version. The ride that surprised me the most was Star Tours, a Star Wars themed ride that always has a very long line in the States. Coryn was able to go on it twice in the space of a half hour, once with me and once with Lisa. You must be 102 cm (I'm not sure what that translates to in English) to ride it and Coryn ended up being 102.5 cm so it worked out well in his favor. He is very into Star Wars right now. I wasn't sure if he was going to enjoy the ride as it is pretty much a roller coaster but he loved it which is why he decided that he wanted to go on it a second time.

I think one of the reasons the parks were so busy this time of year is that the parks were all done up for Halloween. There was a parade three or four times a day that while mostly in Japanese had some English lyrics to it with a theme of Disney villains taking over Halloween. We watched one of the parades but tried to hit rides the rest of time. The lines were a little bit shorter during those times. I just have to say that for all the walking that the boys, especially Coryn did while we were at Disneyland, they were great. They seemed to really enjoy themselves and were real troopers.

When we've asked Coryn what his favorite ride at Disneyland was we've received several different answers. The ones we've heard the most though are probably Pirates (of the Caribbean), Star Tours or Shootin' Lasers (Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters), all of which we went on multiple times. Carter seemed to really like the Go-Carts, Astro Blasters but his favorite seemed to be the Jungle Cruise, one of my all time favorites. He really liked seeing all the animals on that one.

Popcorn is a popular snack in Tokyo. You can buy a big collector tub that you can have refilled at a reduced price any time you come to the park. Normally you are able to select from several tubs with any one of a number of popular Disney characters (Lisa got a Pooh one in July) but this time of year they carry a special edition Halloween tub. We saw (and tried) three flavors while we were there, chocolate popcorn, caramel popcorn and of course, the ever popular, soy sauce and butter popcorn.

The most harrowing thing that happened during our time there was around dusk the first night. Let's just say that we had to buy Carter some new pants... sometimes that happens with full diapers.

Disney Characters

We decided to start our Disney adventure on my birthday so we found the trains that would take us there and headed out. When we arrived the line for tickets was crazy long and we waited between and hour and an hour and a half. When our turn came to buy tickets we decided to go crazy and got three day passes. Day one would be spent at Tokyo Disney, day two would be spent at DisneySea, an ocean themed Disney park unique to Japan and then day three could be spent and either or both parks. Tokyo Disney has most of the rides that Disneyland has, the most noticeable attraction missing is the Matterhorn, but the park itself is much smaller.

The Japanese love their photo ops and several of the lines just inside the park entrance to get a picture taken with a character were as long on longer than lines to some of the more popular rides at the park. This was not quite the case further inside the park so they boys were able to meet some. Coryn was quite excited anytime he saw someone. He likes the generic animals that are at some of the events here so seeing characters he actually knew seem to go over really well. One of his favorite movies right now is Peter Pan so he jumped at the chance to meet Mr. Smee.

There were some characters that didn't wear faces and actually spoke English such as the Mad Hatter who kept crossing Coryn's arms and shaking both of his hands at the same time, commenting on how he obviously remembered to bring his manners with him and while I'm not sure how in to the characters Carter really was, he certainly wasn't freaked out by them like my little sister would have been (Oh snap, Caitlin).

Prior to this trip Coryn had never heard the name Captain Jack Sparrow but now he is one of his favorites of all time. He talks about him a lot now and seems to emphasize the fact that he has jewelery in his hair. He saw Captain Jack on day 3 and the Mad Hatter on day 1. Lisa is pretty sure they he's played by the same guy.

At DisneySea Coryn saw another of his favorites, Mr. Incredible who was accompanied by his wife who Coryn didn't want to get a picture with, because "only girls go see Elasta Girl"

What I found funny was that princess characters had their own security escorts. You can't see them in the picture but Cinderella was accompanied by an large entourage to keep any would be mobbers back. We saw them when they ran to the castle (I assume for a photo op session) and when they returned.

Banzai Tokyo Part 1

After completing 33 of our 36 month stint in Japan we were finally able to get to Tokyo for something more than A.) a layover on our way to Okinawa or the States and B.) Lisa's solo climb up Fuji-san. We're also counting this as our first official "family vacation."


On Friday 9 October we went to the Pax (Passenger) Terminal here at Kadena to try and get four free seats onto the military transport that was flying up to Yakota Air Base (just outside of Tokyo). This was a bit of a gamble as there are no guarantees that there will be seats available and just about anyone can try to get a "space available" seat but we did what we could to hedge our bets (we went in October, a relatively off month when it comes to traveling and we did some paperwork so that we moved into the number 2 of 5 priority travel category) and were fortunate enough to get on the flight and saved ourselves roughly $3,000 on tickets (the current going rate for round trip tickets for a family of four on Travelocity.com).


We got to Yakota and after waiting around for about a hour so they could find one of our bags (the one with the kids clothing in it) and getting set up to Space A ourselves back to Okinawa we left the air base with luggage in hand en route to the nearest train station to begin our journey to the hotel via the Japanese public transit system. By this time it was approaching and passing the kids' bedtime (we made it to the hotel a little after 10 PM) so they took advantage of the fact that they are kids and therefore not expected to haul around luggage and fell asleep. It was about this time, when we were dragging our luggage and two sleeping kids that Lisa and I were really proud of our conservative packing. We had a light weight stroller, a suitcase with wheels, two back packs (one I was wearing and one that was packed for Coryn to wear [and he normally did]) a small duffel bag that Coryn was also able to pull ( and had the kids' clothes in it) and a big purse that Lisa held. All told it was less than 100 pounds of additional weight. We took a train and a couple of subways cars to get to the station near the hotel and since everyone was out by that time we took a cab the rest of the way. After checking in we were taken up to our room and the boys transferred from our arms to their bed without any issues.

Our first hotel was quite on the fancy side which means it wasn't very kid friendly. We didn't spend too much time in the hotel itself (the one time we tried to we discovered, much to our frustration and Coryn's lament, that the pool was located in the gym and only open to those 18 and older). Coryn ended up swimming in the tub that night (complete with swim suit and goggles... "becuse I'm swimming, not taking a bath"). Our room was on the 24th floor of the building and did offer a nice view of the Tokyo Tower (that would be the orange and white Eiffel Tower looking thing in the background) and that side of town both at night and during the day.















Our first day in Tokyo we walked from the hotel in search of a place to have breakfast. I was expecting to eat at a McDonald's (being under the impression that you would find one on every street corner here) but after walking for about 63 miles without seeing one we stopped in to a bakery that had some nice breakfast breads and a delicious "American" (as they dubbed it)cinnamon roll, which it actually was, not some sort of Japanese knock off. Carter ate a round piece of bread with ham and potato in the middle of it but since it was round he refused to hear it called anything but what it obviously was a "no-nut." I mean come on, it's round, I'm eating it for breakfast, or course it's a donut people, sheesh!


Following breakfast we went to a sword museum that had several swords made by samurai in the 13th century. They had some clear up to the WWII era and the oldest on on display was from the late 12th century. The method that they came up with left nearly 800 year old swords looking as sharp as the day they were presented (which is what they were after since authentic Samurai swords never need to be resharpened). Coryn has been on a big sword kick lately and this did manage to hold his attention for a few minutes but they lack of a hands on exhibit (I think he was disappointed that he didn't get to hack off anyone's appendages) he soon lost interest so we took the boys to a small community park that we had passed on the way. We also went up to the observation deck on the 45th floor of one of the buildings in the municipal government office complex. The elevator that we rode in took 55 seconds to get to the 45th floor and Lisa kept saying that the rapid climb in elevation was making her ears pop. We were able to see quite a bit of the city from way up there but there were clouds over the mountains so I couldn't really see Mt. Fuji. My favorite part of the building was actually the banner that was displayed on the side of it out front. Oh well Tokyo, better luck next time!


Our final stop of the day was at the controversial Yasakuni shrine and Yushukan museum where the spirits of those warriors who are killed in battle are said to rest. The current Symbolic Registry of Divinities lists the names of 2, 466, 532 individuals, including 1082 individuals executed or imprisoned as war criminals at the end of WWII. The museum has been criticized for presenting a revisionist history of WWII. It highlights historic war stories and pictures of thousands of kamikaze pilots but does not mention atrocities (such as the "Rape of Nanking" in the 1930's). The museum depicts Japan as a liberator of Asia and that they were forced into attacking Pearl Harbor by the American oil and raw materials embargo against them Some say that the shrine promotes the nationalist militant past in a country that now strives for peace. Regardless, it is the only location where the Emperor of Japan himself has bowed. Currently any public official who visits the shrine is blasted in the press. There are several statues outside the museum that pay homage to kamikaze pilots, war widows, war dog, war horses and even carrier pigeons.