Laos - Best Trip Ever with Kids

As we were having a beer watching the sun set over the Mekong River, I looked over to John and said,

I think this is our best vacation, ever, with kids

And it was.  Laos is an amazing country, but also on top of that, our kids are now at an age, where we are not lugging strollers or diapers or special snacks or worrying about naptime or finding food that they can eat.  And it was glorious.

We started our trip in Vientiane.

Well, actually let me back up a bit... this trip seemed like it was doomed the week before we left. Five days before we were to fly, Lola got a big case of the chicken pox.  They had just crusted over, so we were able to fly, with our polka-dotted girl:

Then, the night before we left, I realized that I didn't have my AR (Alien Registration) card which I need to get in and out of the country, and am supposed to have on hand all the time.  Luckily, 3000¥ ($27USD) later, and a dozen "Gomenasei" (sorrys), I was released from the immigration office and able to join the rest of the Lemley crew to get on our flight.

Back to Vientiane...  as soon as we arrived at the airport, time slowed down.  The airport was small and calm.  No one was yelling "taxi" or really paying any attention to us at all.  We got taxis to the Ibis Hotel  - where we luckily scored a family room which was perfect - queen for us and bunkbeds in a joining room for the kids.

Vientiane was great - we stayed right on the strip, so we could easily walk to many cafes and restaurants.  And we could walk to the night market and Mekong River within minutes.

We headed off to the Buddha Park for a morning with the kids which was great and our other highlight of Vientiane was meeting up with a friend who teaches there.  It was great to catch up and she took us to a fantastic restaurant Lao Kitchen, which we wouldn't have found on our own, and our love for LAAB began.

We ate it many times in Lao, but was always too excited
 and forgot to take pictures when it came to the table.
Image Credit: wikipedia.com

After two nights in Vientiane, we rented a van and headed up to Vang Vieng.  It was lovely!  We stayed at Riverside Boutique Resort and had a lovely view.  The hotel wasn't the most child friendly place - we felt like we had to keep the kids quiet at the pool, but it was central and nice.

They arranged two kayaking trips for us, which were fantastic.  Our friends also arranged a ziplining day with their older kids and they said it was amazing. The food was great in Vang Vieng with cheap, delicious street food and many western options as well - we had falafel and hummus (which is not always easy to find in Kobe) twice and Mexican (Amigos) to mix it up one night.

After a few days in Vang Vieng, we headed up to Luang Prabang.  We stayed out of the city at Villa Santi Resort & Spa, (they also had a hotel in the city) which was good for the kids, because we could spend the afternoon at the pool.

Luang Prabang was great - there were many excursions outside of the city (Waterfall trips, Elephant Sanctuary), but we had already done a lot of outside adventures in Vang Vieng, so we stuck to the city and did shopping, eating, and templing.  The highlights of Luang Prabang was Living Land Farm, which was an interactive experience where we went through the process of rice.

John and the guys went on a day motorcycle excursion with MotoLao and they had a fantastic time. The night market was fantastic (much better than the one in Vientiane) as well as the artisan and small boutique shops on the main street.

Laos is a beautiful country.  The Lao people we interacted with were kind and welcoming.  We always felt safe in Lao and never felt taken advantage of and bargaining was minimal.  We were rarely hassled or asked to buy anything.  The food was fantastic (although in Luang Prabang we didn't find as many gems as we did in Vang Vieng and Vientiane).

Laos is a country we definitely want to explore again!

Kop Chai Deu

Kop Chai Lai Lai

Summertime!

We are happily at Frogtown Cottage and really enjoying our new porch!

Here is the photo album we'll be posting to over the summer:

Summer 2015

or you can check out the loslemleys Instagram.

7-5-3 Ceremony

Shichi-go-san: 7-5-3

This year, we went to the Ikuta Shrine for the 7-5-3 Ceremony.  七五三 is a traditional rite of passage in Japan for three- and seven-year-old girls and three- and five-year-old boys, held annually on November 15 to celebrate the growth and well-being of young children. (Source: Wikipedia).  Read more about the history here.

We tried to do this our second fall here, but 3 year old Maximo would not cooperate.  We even resorted to bribery with lollipops, but he wouldn't even put the kimono on.  It was beautiful with a big dragon on the back... after about 45 minutes of begging, we finally looked at each other and figured the distress was not worth it and left to find a taxi home.  I was 7 1/2 month pregnant with Lola, so it was a fairly easy decision, as I was not really supposed to be moving around tons.

I was scarred by this event, so we stayed away from the ceremony when Maximo was 5, but figured this year would be perfect since Maximo was 7 and Lola was 3 for a few more months.

It was a beautiful fall day.  The kids were great, especially with the amount of sitting around time between the "dressing" and the actual ceremony.

Hakuba, Japan - In Review

We went to Hakuba (which is part of Nagano Prefecture where Japan has hosted the Winter Olympics twice) for about a week over break.  While I wasn't begging to go skiing for our winter holiday, the moment the kids stepped into the snow, I knew John had made the right decision.

Growing up in Connecticut, I had always been around snow.  Not big beautiful, mountainous, there-is-snow-on the ground for five months kind of snow, but still, I definitely had many experiences in the snow as a kid.

Maximo in lessons using his "idgy widgy" or "pizza maker"

Lola catching snow on her tongue

We find that beach vacations are really easy with the kids, they love to swim and play all day and all four of us are content.  But, with only a tiny annoyance of having to pull a newly potty trained kid out of all of her ski gear, this ski trip maybe was just as easy.

"This is going to be the best day ever"

We stayed at Alpine Ski Chalet which was great for our family.  We always appreciate a place that we can make simple breakfast and/or snacks and a place that the kids can go to sleep and we are not stuck in the dark at 8 pm.  The owner, Kevin, really helped us out in planning for our trip and recommended that we ski at Iimori and take lessons at Hakuba Snow Sports School.  They had MANY English instructors which was great for us.

Maximo took three mornings of lessons and was skiing semi-independently by the end of the three days, John's skiing level improved greatly over the three days.  After the first day of lessons (and my third time skiing), I decided to not put Lola into daycare again and hang out with her and sled and play in the snow.  I really don't love skiing.  It does not come naturally to me and as an (has -been) athlete, it is frustrating.  I don't love the sensation of going down the hill, although it is beautiful.  So, I'll try again some other time when Lola is older and in her own lessons.

Hakuba, to a foreigner living in Japan, is kind of Bizarroland.  There are SO MANY foreigners, especially Australians.  There are many direct flights from Australia straight to Hakuba and it's definitely a destination vacation.  There were many times we didn't even feel like we were in Japan.  There was English everywhere, even taxi drivers spoke good English, everyone around us could actually understand everything we were saying and I only saw chopsticks at one of the restaurants we went to (or they just automatically offered us forks and knives).

Dinner with the Welbes Family every night.

That being said, it was a great family holiday.  John may even convince me to go on another ski holiday while we are living in Japan.  He is taking my place on the middle school ski trip in a few weeks, and I know he's excited about being able to go skiing again soon.

30 Things You Should Know and/or Will Love about Japan Series: # 30

#30 - A quick summary of some of our favorite things we didn't write about (sorry about the all the food - we love to eat and food in Japan is good!):

Yakisoba - literally "fried noodles", it's sometimes served with a bit of pork and pickled ginger.

Image Credit: www.photoree.com
I'm just realizing I never posted about "plastic food"

It's an easy go-to meal, especially if we can't read the menu and the kids enjoy it too.
Something we haven't tried (and don't have a lot of interest in trying), but can be found in most convenience stores is the yakisoba sandwich - a massive carbo load. "Yakisobapan"

Image Credit: www.ifood.tv

Gyoza - fried dumpling (potsticker), usually with minced pork filling.  Eat these fast around Maximo.  He loves them and will try to eat more than you!

Creative Commons Image by Roger T Wong via Wikimedia

Takoyaki - a ball shaped pancake (like a fritter, but not fried) with octopus on the inside. Another thing I like "nashi" (without) mayonnaise.  It's usually covered in a sauce and bonito flakes.

Image Credit: www.mamaloli.com

Painters Outfits

Image Credit: www.flickr.com by Kelly McCormick

The shoes being equally as awesome (we've never tried them though).  I'd love to know the history behind this uniform.

Image Credit: www.news.3yen.com

Wasabi Almonds - I can't believe I don't have a picture of them.  We get them from a local sake brewery.  They are so, so good!

Momoji (cakes) - Momoji are maple leaves.  In Miyajima, they specialize in these little cakes, which have different flavored centers.  I like custard and chocolate, but bean paste is also yummy!

Image Credit: www.21food.com

Kobe Beef - It's so good.  We're going to take you to our favorite place!

Image Credit: www.keioplaza.com

Robotoyaki - translates to "fireside cooking".  Picture yourself sitting up against a display of food.  Behind that is the cook who will prepare what you order (or point to), then serve it to you on a paddle (yes, like a flattened boat paddle) as he reaches over to hand it back to you.

Image Credit: www.nationmultimedia.com

There are also many places which we haven't even begin to talk about, but we didn't really want to spoil it for our family. We want them to experience these places first hand, in real life, not through photos on our blog.  Barely off the plane, I'll whisk them off to Hiroshima and Miyajima (as long as the typhoon stays away).

We'll also go to other amazing places, which are all day trips from our house:

Kyoto - including the Golden Pavilion and Nishiki Markets (KNIVES!)

Arashiyama - we'll see the monkeys, bamboo forest and walk around town

Miyajima - oysters, deer, the beautiful torii gates, many temples, a great little island!

Nara - Todaji temple, more deer, gardens, parks.  Japan's first capital city.

I've enjoyed writing these posts, even during a hectic time of the school year, with multiple trips.

Hopefully, in the future, I will add in a few more "Living in Japan" posts to our normal posts which are smattered with pictures of our kids and our travels in Japan and throughout Asia.

Come to Japan... it's an amazing place.
No we're going to try to squeeze in all 30+ of these posts + more into 14 days.  Let's see how we do!

Hamamatsu Kite Festival - May 2013

If you are a FB friend, I already summarized this trip:  "Best Festival... Ever".

This festival is held in Hamamatsu, Japan in the Shizuoka prefecture.  Here is more information about the festival.

For us, it was an EASY two hour Shinkansen ride to reach Hamamatsu.  We stayed at Sorriso Hotel Hamamatsu - which our friend, Trish, found.  It was perfect - a block from the train station, so it was easy to get to with our luggage.  It was clean and really reasonably priced for a Japanese hotel.   Unfortunately, I didn't book a family-sized room, so we were a bit packed.  But, that was totally my fault, not the hotel's.

After we checked in on Friday, we meandered around the hotel and saw food stalls being set up, and some examples of the wooden sculpture floats set up near the mall right near the hotel.  Our friends, the Carrothers, were returning to the festival for their fourth year, so we let them tell us what we should see and do.  They did not steer us wrong.

We then caught up with them at the International Food Festival.  There was a DJ playing 70s and 80s dance rock and the kids loved running around.  We got a bit of food to eat.  When it started to get dark, we headed up to the road to find a place to watch the parade.  Hundreds?  of neighborhoods were donning matching happi coats and pulling their beautiful floats through town, while women and young girls would play music from the float.  It had such a nice community atmosphere.

After a while, we headed back to the hotel, for a not-so-restful night sleep and John and Pat headed out for a night on the town.

The next day, we headed out to the Nakatajimi Dunes.  The city provided buses for ¥500 to get out there.  As soon as we got there, we were blown away.  There were over 100 (very large - 3 meters long) kites in the air.  It was a really windy day, so there seemed to be a lot more "kite fighting" that day.  It was a little unnerving sometimes and in some areas as these large kites were coming down.  But, there were always people from the "neighborhood" who were running after the kites - to reduce damage to their kites and I think protect bystanders.

We went to the beach, but it was really windy and the sand was blowing everywhere, so it was hard to stay out there for two long.  Lola was fighting a cold and a nasty fever blister on her tongue, so she was a bit fussy.  Around lunch time, we headed back to the hotel for an afternoon rest.

After that, we ventured out again for some (more!) street food for dinner and to watch the parades.  First the parades started out as more traditional parades with bands and baton twirlers and then the floats came back out.  It was great to see little kids walking by their town elders and just thinking that these kids will be participating in these events for the next 70 years or so.

On the last day, we went back out to the dunes.  It wasn't as windy, so there wasn't as much fighting, but there were still many, many kites in the air.  We spent a lot more time at the beach and the kids had fun playing in the sand.  When we went back up to the field, we just hung out on a tarp with the Carrothers and let the kids play while we picnicked.

Soon we were back on the Shinkansen heading home.  It was an amazing trip.  We will definitely return next year!

Here are more pictures of our trip.

Another Trip to Oji Zoo

We are on Spring Break this week.  It's about ten degrees too cold for us me to really enjoy being outside.  But for the children... of course we'd do anything ^_^

We went back to Oji Zoo with some friends.  It's super close and cheap, and a great place where I can manage both kids by myself.

A really great thing about Oji Zoo is that it has hundreds (don't quote me on that number) of cherry blossom (sakura) trees.  Even though it's still not peak time in Kobe for cherry blossoms (as many of you know, there is a published cherry blossom forecast), there are still many trees that are in bloom right now.  There are many different varieties, so they all bloom differently.  In many places, including Rokko Island, the sakura trees were planted in a very well thought out way, so different areas have different things blooming for maximum nature enjoyment/viewing.

We had our first picnic of the season under the warm sun and cherry blossoms.

The kids were great and had a fantastic time.  Maximo fell asleep sitting up on the train ride home:

And here's the start of the Spring 2013 photo album.

Living in Japan - the Ying & the Yang

Living overseas is most of the time wonderful, but there are, of course, challenges.  Normal everyday events are a lot more "exciting", especially when living in Japan, where we are illiterate, can only speak very basic Japanese and where still after 5 years, don't understand all the cultural nuances.   After living here for four and a half years, it is definitely easier to get around, but there are often occurrences where I want to throw my hands in the air in defeat.


A couple of weeks ago I went to the hospital for a routine check up.  This was definitely one of those defeated times.  I don't know how to explain Japanese health care.  I often am negative about it, but it's only because I can't communicate and the medical options on our island are not the best for foreigners.  Otherwise, Japan has a much better system than the US, they have a national health care system and even for us paying out of pocket to be reimbursed by our international health insurance, it is super reasonably priced.  One of the other difficult things I have trouble grasping is that many people don't have their own "practitioner" - whether it be an ob-gyn, pediatrician, optometrist, etc.  Most people will visit the same clinics, hospitals or doctor's offices, but whoever is working there will be the one they see and many doctors change locations throughout their careers.  When I find a doctor I like, I stick with them, so that's been hard here.  Even finding a doctor with decent English and a bit of western bedside manner (a little more personable) is difficult.

On to my story...  I went to the hospital which has the ob-gyn offices that I visited when I was pregnant with Lola.  There were two great women ob-gyn doctors there who both spoke English and were lovely.  Not anymore.   The reason I went was to have my IUD removed (I leave it up to you to google this if you're interested or just realize this has to do with my girl parts).  This was where I had my IUD implanted.  I felt fairly comfortable using the hospital because I had been there before many times.   I could get by with my iTranslate app on my phone and they had my records, so I was confident.

It is hard to explain this crazy event (I should have had a hidden camera installed), but let's just say it was not so easy.  I was there for about 2 hours with a very nice man from the administrative offices with very bad English trying to translate...  about a very personal matter.  At one point in the waiting room, with about twenty other patients in the lobby (one of which being my colleague's husband with their sick son), they were discussing my matter in a semi-circle of nods, Japanese and gestures.  And all about my girl parts.

I finally got back to see the doctor, who spoke basic enough English, but she was clearly nervous to see me.  A long story short: I left the hospital 2 hours later, with a $50 bill and the IUD still in my body.  The whole time, I was on the verge of laughing or crying as I texted back and forth with John for my sanity and possibly to get a Japanese female colleague to get on the phone to help me out.

But then I balance something like that with many more experiences like this...

Two days after we arrived back from Bali, we were having friends over for dinner to catch up, when our doorbell rang.  It was our neighbors two flights upstairs from us with HUGE presents for the kids.  They said they had come by the 24th and 25th to try and bring the presents.  I wasn't sure whether I should have invited them in, but we have people here and the house was a mess from the kids.  We bowed and thanked them profusely and wished them a happy new year.

Immediately we knew we had to bring them gifts as gift-giving is very big in Japan.  You gift new neighbors, you gift colleagues after trips and for many thank yous in between.  It took us a few days to figure out what to get, so we settled on a potted orchid.  The orchid sat in our house for about 4 days until I found the time and gathered enough courage to bring the kids upstairs with our gift.

The Tanakas graciously invited us into their lovely apartment, where they served us cake, coffee, and apples.  We spoke in broken English & Japanese about the basics of our lives.  They turned on Japanese cartoons for the kids and doted on them.  It should have been a lot more awkward with our lack of a common language, but it wasn't at all and we stayed there for about an hour.

They are a lovely older couple with grown kids who are enjoying their retirement.  We think they just enjoy seeing our kids in the elevator and may have thought we were all alone in a foreign country celebrating our holidays, not gallivanting on the beaches of Bali.  As we left they loaded up a bag full of more goodies - produce from a farm on Rokko Mountain and other regional snacks and waved good-bye until the elevator doors closed.

Project 365

I am going to try to post a picture a day in this photo album.  This means that probably 95% of them will be from my iPhone, but I think it'll be a good challenge nonetheless.   Even though I think they are oh-so-cute, I am also going to try to not have pictures of just the kids.

There are so many great things we see every day.

A Photo A Day 2013

I really hope it doesn't turn into project 15.

Singapore (Changi) Airport - A way to spend a day... really!

On the way back home from our trip to Bali, we had a 10 hour layover at Changi Airport.  This was not ideal.  John tried to change our tickets or even change it to a 34 hour layover, so we could explore Singapore a bit, but it didn't work out.

John felt confident that we had plenty to do at the airport, so we wouldn't even try to venture out into the city, as that could have been more trouble than it was worth since: 1. we're traveling with a two year old (and five year old), 2. we were semi-dressed in Winter attire 3. we didn't really know where would be best to spend our time in the city.

(Note: Our friends, also traveling with small children, did venture out of the airport, and found it easy to hop in a taxi and head to the zoo for the day.  Win-Win!)

John Lemley is usually right, and after hearing about how great the Singapore airport was, I decided that this was the way to go.

We quickly realized that our stroller was checked all the way through Osaka, so we grabbed a cart and headed on our way.  There are strollers you can borrow, but between the cart and the Ergo, we were fine.

We had lunch at O'Leary's Sports Bar and Grill.  The food was good and the kids were great.

Free Angry Bird with purchase!

We then went to a play area (there is one on each terminal) and the kids ran around for a half hour.  We lost Maximo twice to find him with another boy, shoeless in the scoping out the legos in the toy store across the hallway.

We found the sunflower garden.

We did art shadings.

And checked out the fish at the koi pond:

We watched part of a movie (Open Season 2).

We had Subway for dinner and watched the airplanes.

We then went to the butterfly garden, but it was already dark and we only saw one butterfly.

The shopping in the airport was AMAZING - anything from Designer duds to toys to books (IN ENGLISH) and everything in between.  We didn't do much shopping.

Lola with the Harrod's Bear

We packed swim suits for the kids to go swimming in the pool at the airport, but we never made it there.

It was easy to get between terminals.  The airport also offers free city tours that pick-up and drop off at the terminals.  I'm not sure how that works with immigration/customs, but it's available.

I'm kind of hoping we get stuck there again another day.  It was the easiest 24-hour travel day we've ever had.  Changi Airport was great, and then our flight back to Osaka was less than half full, so we all got to sprawl out on the four-across rows to sleep.