Niagara

Niagara was pretty awesome, lots of stuff to see, we did this in August... it was also very wet...

and then life happened...

I know, poor excuse. Here I am though, hoping to catch up on half a year of happenings... let's start with what began the extended absence... family visiting! Hand-me-downs can be the best presents!


And then we went to Niagara... awesome!

Philly

We wanted to do a longer trip up the east coast, but having just gone down to GA we decided to make it a shorter trip and just hit Philly. While finding our hotel we were greeted by the city hall (I think) at night, which is lit up reminiscent of Gotham.









Of course, the main attraction was the historic sector, which is really nice... saw the constitution center.







Inside is a collection of bronze statues of those who helped write it. One of Coryn's favorites was Ben Franklin, and now he notices Ben everywhere.








We also saw Independence Hall, where they wrote the constitution, they have the famous chair of George Washington there with the half sun motif.












And to top it off we checked out the ole' "pass and stow", otherwise known as the liberty bell.






It was a fantastically fun trip up to NY, which by the way included a pee incident which sprayed over half of the car (and in my hair I might add) as well as a throw-up incident which happened to be a whole lot less messy. All I can say is, thank goodness for car detailing!

CocaCola Museum in Georgia

The other thing we knew we wanted to do in GA was visit the coke museum. It was a big hit of course, and though we don't even drink coke for the most part, we had to go if only to see what they had to offer from other countries. I'll admit, some of it was absolutely horrid, I don't know whats wrong with Italians, but a country that supports a drink like Beverly (I think thats what it was called) needs to seriously rethink its views on beverages. It was like taking a drink of grapefruit juice where they managed to take even the natural sugars out... BLEGH!!!

On the other hand, we found our favorite drink EVER in Africa of all places... Sunfill Menthe... sigh. Perfectly flavored mint, perfectly refreshing, absolutely no aftertaste... it even beats out our favorite drinks in Japan or from anywhere else from any other company that we've tried thus far.
They had themed giant bottles around everywhere, I though you would appreciate this one dad :D













The kids enjoy doing the 'cheers' motion.








Did you know Coca Cola makes the olympic torches? Or at least has for the last several decades? Pretty cool.

Georgia Aquarium

One of the reasons we wanted to go to Atlanta was to see the aquarium and compare it with Churaumi in Okinawa. They had some pretty cool stuff, some animals we hadn't seen yet, and it was certainly 'decorated' cool; however, I like the layout of Churaumi better, and it was more of a 'day' thing in Oki than in GA. It only took us two hours to see everything here, even though it has the 'biggest' aquarium. Not to mention the dining area in Oki is waaaay cooler, can't sit and watch the fish while you're eating in GA.
































And yes, those penguins were trying to get it on but the girls were a distraction... :D

Atlanta, Georgia

we took a mini-vacay down to georgia, mostly because we're hoping VA the furthest 'south' we end up living. (we're not really heat people) This peach tower is actually in South Carolina... as is a lot of the 'peach farm' stuff we saw.


At lunch the kids were entertained by a lizard!






Some olympic torch shots....




















Of course, any big city has big buildings, but there were some with interesting architecture.

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.