The Georges in Tokyo: Mt. Fuji and a Day of Rest

Well, let me just say, this series is going to get finished TODAY! :) I have SO much other things to blog about, but I wanted to get this trip memorialized blog-style before I post anything else. SO, here goes my attempt at brevity...

What's a trip to Tokyo without going to see Mt. Fuji? Yeah, we had to do it. Christina found a travel agency that would get us train tickets to and from Hakone and a pass to go on the cable car and pirate boat to see the sights around the area of Mt. Fuji. Cool, the boys will love that! We ended up passing on the guided tour which included a trip on the bullet train and it's a good thing we did. The bullet train would have been super cool, but it was a looong day, so I don't know if we could have dealt with the whole staying together with a group thing.

Here are the highlights:

Even though Christina and I made a "trial run" there to buy the tickets the previous day, it was still difficult to make it to the proper train station on time. We barely squeaked in on time to our "romance" train out to Hakone to see Mt. Fuji.

Elliott has his own seat on this "Romance Car" Train!

On our way to Mt. Fuji!

Once on the train, we found our seats. We hadn't realized that we were scattered all over the place, in different cars and everything so that was interesting figuring that out. That train ride was pretty uneventful, except for the fact Elliott made new Japanese girlfriends in their early twenties and I thought I might get motion sick. Once at the Hakone Station we had to switch trains to go up the mountain.

Christina and the boys on the train up the mountain.

Adam, Jennifer, Deb and Elliott

We got to ride a cable car up to a mountain that had natural sulfur hot springs. The delicacy up at the top were boiled eggs that were boiled in the sulfuric springs at the top of the mountain. We tried some! Supposedly, each one extends your life seven years. Adam's life will be nice and long now!

Hakone Ropeway Cable Car!

Sweet Ride!

Okay, the George boys are SUPER excited, the Kruse boys, eh...

Looking out

Beautiful scene of the town below

In front of the hot springs

Trying a sulfur cooked hard boiled egg

Black egg!

They make the black eggs right behind the boys
on the mountain

Yep, Hello Kitty and a black egg. A photo op NOT to be missed!

We rode the ropeway back down to Lake Ashi and rode a pirate ship around the lake to different parts of a small touristy town. Oh, and I might add, on our trip to Mt. Fuji, WE DIDN'T EVEN SEE MT. FUJI!!! Yep, it was too cloudy. Hmmm. So I'll add a stock photo for you instead.

The boys playing dress up!

Jack and Spencer in front of the pirate boat

Ooh, fake pirates aboard, too!

Cool architecture by Lake Ashi

Ice cream break!

Stock Photo of Mt. Fuji. Beautiful, huh? Too bad we didn't see it. :(


From there, we headed back to the Hakone Train Station and back to the Kruse's house where we ordered in some FANTASTIC Indian food, yum! We were really wiped out after that trip...even though it doesn't sound all that much more strenuous that our other days. Maybe it was all just catching up to us.

Waiting for the train by this beautiful river

Spencer

I thought these flowers growing out of the rock were cool.
Pink and white flowers on the same plant...

The very next day, Adam was heading home. He had to get back for work. We were all supposed to be going home that day, but because of full flights, we were forced to extend our vacation. Bummer! :)

We decided to do nothing aside from walking down to a neighborhood park. It was just what we needed!

Whee! This slide was awesome!

Elliott and Will digging in the sand

This climbing thing was awesome!

More playing!

Spencer doing some science experiments with ball rolling

The Georges in Tokyo: Sanja-sama Shrine, Girl's Night Out, and Saying Good-bye

Aright, so we have an extra day to do some touring in Tokyo. Larry and Jack actually had the day off because it was the beginning of Golden Week in Japan. (Golden Week is pretty much a big deal in Japan. There are several holidays in a row, so it's common to take the whole week off of school and work there) Here's a link with more information about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Week_(Japan)

The crowd near the Sanja-sama Shrine

We decided to head over to the Sanja-sama Shrine, or the Shrine of the 3 Gods. They had a TON of shopping surrounding the temple grounds and, man, was it CROWDED! Being the beginning of Golden Week we were packing the streets like sardines! It was quite crazy! There were a lot of interesting shops so with four adults and four kids, it was hard to stick together, so we split up for a bit and did our own shopping, Deb got a cool kimono robe and I bought the boys some souvenir shirts, Spencer picked a Dragon one and Elliott picked a shirt with the Japanese symbol for Number One (we think!) ;)

Modeling the shirts the boys bought (and the
ninja headbands from the 1000 Yen Store)

Large paper lanterns at the entrance to the temple grounds

Close up, so cool!

The boys hamming it up in front of a really
 cool building on the temple grounds

View looking out of the temple

Beautiful Gold Shrine

One of the statues of a god protecting the entrance to the grounds

These guys were a bit creepy! We only saw two,
so I wondered where the third one was?

I thought this was an interesting shot of a typical street of shops

This guy was doing a magic show. He was great!

When we met at the temple it was quite impressive. We threw some coins into the offering box and observed the massive amounts of gold they had on display. Impressive. We then looked around the impressive grounds, had some lunch did a bit more window shopping and traveled back to the Kruse's house.

The boys found a photo op!

That night Christina and I decided to check out a few things on our own. We decided to start our evening in Shibuya and see the famous Shibuya Crossing. There were some interesting shops around there too. Then we headed to Yoyogi Park, where Harajuku Street is with a ton of fun shopping. We stopped at the 1000 Yen store (which is a like a Dollar Tree on crack) and checked out four floors of cheap novelty and necessary items. Yep, we bought stuff there!

Shibuya Crossing from an overpass

A shot from inside Shibuya Crossing

Getting ready to cross!

Crowded shopping on Harajuku Street

Moving on, we stopped at clothing stores, shoe stores, saw some familiar names like Gap and H&M, and saw some rather odd stores as well. Christina was explaining that some people over in Tokyo have a sort of obsession with baby doll dresses. I would describe the look as trampy colonial. I took a couple of pictures before I was told that I couldn't. What do you think?

Interesting outfits

I don't get it...

Would you wear this stuff?

Along our way, we found a cute Italian café overlooking the shoppers for dinner. Great people watching there. We finished off our night by having a drink and dessert at the corner coffee shop on the way home from the subway. What a great way to end our fantastic girls' night!

Good-bye hugs!

The next day was spent packing, saying good-byes and heading back to the airport by car. The flight went super smooth and the boys slept almost a good night's sleep (although Momma could not, for the life of me, get to sleep) and were ready and raring to go when we landed at 2:30 p.m. in Houston. We even made it to Spencer's baseball game that evening!

Back at the airport

Grandma Deb suggested I take a photo of the bidet,
and she was right. These ultra cool toilets were a
highlight of the trip. Cars 2's description of
them was pretty accurate!

And who doesn't love this sign? :)

What a WONDERFUL trip! What great memories! Thanks again, Kruses and Grandma Deb for coming along with us!

The Georges in Tokyo: Tsukiji Fish Market and Chinese Hot Pot

Hmm...Did I forget about the rest of our trip? No, no I didn't. May just took our family and held it for ransom. I didn't seem to have the time to pay the ransom until now. Hello, June! So nice to see you, I love that you have brought along your friend, Summer. Ahhh, time to breathe.

Sorry for the side-note, but let's go back to the other side of the world for a bit. On Friday of our visit, we decided to check out the Tsukiji Fish Market. Elliott was feeling better, but Christina offered to let the little ones stay and play, because it was suggested that small children do not go. It was a dreary, drizzly day, so we grabbed our rain gear and headed out on our 15 minute walk to the subway.

Once we got to the subway station, we had a bit of trouble knowing where to go. We went in the general direction of the Fish Market and stumbled upon a bunch of side streets selling all kinds of wares. (Most of them had seafood of some sort.) I think we missed the enclosed part of the Fish Market, because what we encountered was all outside and rather interesting. We did some souvenir shopping and decided we were hungry.

Buying and selling seafood

We think there's fish under there...

Picture menu and small little shops and restaurants

Larry, Adam and I are sushi eaters. Spencer is the "American sushi eater" and Jack and Deb preferred not to indulge. So we split up for lunch. There were a bunch of these tiny, narrow eateries that displayed their menus (most had pictures) outside their doors. Adam, Spencer and I went in one that had some good looking sushi and Larry took Deb and Jack to a noodle place. We took Spencer because he really does like some types of sushi, but he was really not thrilled about the type that was on the menu that day. Adam and I, however, were in heaven! We ordered the chef's special (with a little help from a Japanese American who happened to be sitting next to us). Seriously, the chef was cutting and chopping and plopping down amazing sushi piece by piece. Spencer was sulking. It looked as though this sushi still might move.

Outside the SMALL sushi restaurant

After a bit of a communication error we tried exiting through the front where we came in and found a huge line forming to get in! We were lead out the back way and then went and joined the others. Luckily, Jack couldn't eat all of his noodles, so Spencer gladly helped him out. And in a feat of miracles, Larry got Deb to try some of his sashimi and cuttlefish. Apparently, she liked it! We did a bit more browsing around, found some really interesting things and headed back to join Christina and the littles.

LOTS of stuff to see!

I think this is a real stuffed panda.
I was a bit sad.

Spencer at the Tsukiji Fish Market

That evening, we had another double date planned. Reservations at a restaurant named Little Lamb, a Chinese Hot Pot. For those of you who don't know (I didn't) what a hot pot restaurant is, I guess you could say it's a "family style" place where you order all together and cook right at your table. You order different broths and meats and they bring a big pot, pour in the broths (we picked a couple of spicy ones and a mild one)  We added the veggies and meats ourselves and it was delicious! Yum! We also opted for the all you could eat and drink. Yep, true Americans, here!

Hailing a taxi!

Cooking at the Chinese Hot Pot!

After a wonderful dinner, we found a little pub where we had an after-dinner drink and then decided to call it a night. So much fun was had by all!