Our Garden Yard

The Japanese people love nature.  Yards are generally small here (Japan is small but there are a lot of people here).  My town here in Iwakuni is like the size of Eagle River, Alaska but twice the amount of people.  Basically it is countryside Japan.  Still, it is crowded compared to countryside America.  Nonetheless they take great efforts to make beautiful yards.  My landlord is the same.  She created a beautiful garden atmosphere in our yard.  During the meeting where we discussed our lease she discussed her desire that we tend to the yard, unlike the last tenant did.  I was so excited to have a yard. 

I love flowers and gardening.  It truly is a beautiful yard.  I spend much relaxing moments in its calming beauty.  I can open my shades of my computer room and feel as though I am sitting in my yard working on my computer.  In my living room I can kick my feet up and watch the view of the forest  out one sliding door.  At dinner I can look out the forest through another sliding  glass door.

The yard abounds in plants of many kinds.  There are large flowers and small flowers.  The flowers come in many colors.  These include purple, pink, white, red, and  pinkish orange.  I have many  trees in my yard (and many different varieties)  I do have some grass which grows in my yard.  It sure is a strange variety that I am not used to.  It is green and beautiful but it never needs mowing (nice feature).  There is even sometimes have bamboo growing in my yard. 

Additionally, in my yard I have a rock pathway.  A few big boulders adorn the yard as well.  One very unique part of my yard/house is that my garage is built out of the side of a hill.  We call it the bat cave!  Most Japanese homes do not have that feature.  I just lucked out with one awesome garage (my bat cave in the hillside!).

Sports Day 09

On Your Mark, Get Set, GO! (Annual Japanese Sports Day ‘09)

Sports Day was outside this year because there was no rain.  We had a lot of fun but it was rather hot.  We ran around a lot doing all sorts of relay races, dancing, and more.  I participated in a mini-basketball game with Alejandro on the opposing team (parents vs kids).  Then I also participated in a relay race with Carlos on my team.  Some parents participated in a tug of war (I think that this was for the fathers).  That was pretty fun to watch.  The boys and I participated with the parent child dance.  Most of the American parents said they were astonished that so many of the children could last a whole day of sports.  The event lasted from 9am to 3:30-4pm, with a lunch hour in the middle.  Some American families had to politely excuse themselves and leave, for their children were too exhausted for the full event.  My children fit right in with the high energy Japanese kids and lasted the whole day, no sweat.  Ever since they were born my children have been high energy kids who very rarely take naps.

Alex talks music

This Entry is from Alex

At Higashi Yochien I have been doing a lot of practicing of music.  I thought it would be awesome to tell you about my cool music.  I play and love drums.  I love drums because it is neat to hear.  When I hear drums my body shakes.  Inside my head it makes me giggle.  I wear a drum hat.  We are practicing for our marching band performance.  The music we are practicing is not long but not short.  I am sooooooo excited to play my drums in a marching band.  My friend has a flag to dance with as a part of the marching band performance.  She has a lot of fun dancing with her colorful flag.  It is red, white, and blue.  I hope we get some great pictures of the performance. 

After school recently my mommy created a really neat party for Carlos and me.  It was a Rock and Roll party.  We had lots of fun dancing.  It was a party just for fun because Mommy loves us so much.  Then we had a party the next day too.  Mommy really likes to make believe.  She had wizard/Halloween party.  She is a funny Mommy.  SIDE NOTE FROM Cruzanchor – These parties took place about two weeks ago.

Check out my Slide Show!

Days 8, 9 and 10 in Korea

Day 8:

Today there was heavy rain.  Still we being Alaskans strive to not let the weather damper plans too much.  Luckily we had plans to go to Lotte World.  This is a large amusement park.  Most of which is in doors. 

Lotte is a large company in Korea.  Lotte World is a super fun amusement park.  The park includes indoor roller coasters, balloon rides (pretend hot air balloon), other theme park attractions, plus a swimming area with wave pool and outdoor area that includes a castle resembling Disneyland’s.  We explored Lotte World up and down and left and right.  Just the indoor portion was huge!  We all really enjoyed the balloon ride.  Another ride which was fun was the  Egyptian pyramid ride.  It was little spooky and adventurous but we all had fun.  Carlos was just barely tall enough for that ride.  We ate dessert waffles and Dippin Dots ice cream.  I was not impressed with the desert waffles.  I think if bought somewhere more upscale in Korea (non-amusement park), the dessert waffles would have been more delicious.  My husband says he has had some really yummy dessert waffles here in Korea.  The boys munched on sandwiches as well.  Miguel and I were saving our appetites for dinner with our friends who live in  Korea.  The magic donkey was down right silly, nearing dumb, to me but my hubby with his island sense of humor mentioned it for the blog!  You put a coin in the donkey and he gives you a prize out his backside. 

Then we headed to visit with our friends.  The wife is Korean.  The husband is American.  The wife and her sister prepared us a grand meal with Bulgogi and Kimchi, and as a watermelon dessert (the best watermelon I have ever had), and loads of other food.  All the food was great! Yummy Korean food!  The wife and her sister helped to feed and pamper our boys.  My children tried some of the Korean food and they ate a whole lot of Cheetos that night.  I guess our friends like Cheetos as a snack and had them in their snack cupboard.  My children probably ate some watermelon too. 

We ate lots of good food and talked a long time.   

Day 9

Today we  just lounged around mostly.  We needed to rest for our trip home.  We started our day with the Father’s Day buffet.  Then we did take a medium outing to see a garden area/local temples.   The boys were tired and not real happy about an outing but they endured and ended up enjoying the outing.  We took the subway which was a bit exciting with two children tagging along.  Thankfully we had a book of poems for children with us and it helped a good bit with the children being patient.  The rest of the day was just preparations for our trip home.

Day 10

Today we left for home super early.  We thought we would be going via shuttle to the airport.  Instead we decided to take a taxi.  It helped that the taxi driver was persuasive but nice about his persuasiveness.  Amara and Kim were also in the taxi with us.   We were all headed to Japan to have another adventure in Japan together.  From one adventure to the next.   

Did we mention how several people kept telling us that our children would be famous if we ever lived in Korea!  Maybe someday we will be able to have a larger Korean adventure.

Check out my Slide Show!

Day 7 in Korea

Miguel was up late doing work online on day 6, so our day 7 in Korea started lazy.  It was a restful morning for all.  We were pretty tired from all the exploration of Korea anyway it was nice to go slow for a while. 

I did take the boys to the hotel playground.  They love the playground in the hotel.  There are lots of different ways to climb and jump and play.  The most funny thing about the playground is that one of the rules is no running allowed!  HA!  A playground for children and no running allowed!  Now that rule is hilarious and doesn’t seemed to be enforced by anyone.   

We then headed out to explore some more.  Seoul Tower was where we headed.  We took a taxi to get most of the way there.  Then there was a steep climb of about 200-400 yards to get the rest of the way there.  A great way to work off a fancy dinner at the tour, climb up and walk back down.  In the area where the taxi driver dropped us off there were many visitors to include cyclists, walkers/hikers, and couples.

Near the tower there was suspended wire people sculptures.  We saw that there was teddy bear museum also.  We did not choose to go there but it looked cute.  The teddy bears on the Seoul Tower Plaza were adorable.  We could not help but get pictures with the big cute teddy bears. 

On the fences around the tower there were lots of locks on the fences with notes on them.  Apparently placing the locks is something young couples do for good luck.  There was a sign saying something about keeping your keys to your locks.  Very curious!

There was a young couple blowing bubbles in the plaza.  They ended up involving Alex and Carlos in the bubbles.  The boys really enjoyed chasing the bubbles.  This couple paid a lot of attention to our boys.  They are now part of the fan club, complete with a photo-op.  Well the couple took pictures of the boys anyway.

Going up in the tower is done by elevator.  Directly inside the tower building is ultramodern and snazzy-looking area.  Inside elevator looks like night sky above and below you.  This ambience was neat, especially for the boys.  In the observation floor we could walk in a complete circle to see north, south, east, and west.  Throughout the circle there were labels for direction/distance to cities.  Anchorage, Alaska was listed.  The boys were happy about that.  My husband and I thought it was neat too.  The boys and I also discovered there were mirrors on the ceiling.  We enjoyed taking pictures of ourselves from the below the mirrors. The view of city from the tower was magnificent.  The sunset was beautiful. 

Later when we were back outside, Alex’s made another new little Korean admirer.  It was a cute little Korea toddler girl.  The mom kept trying to not have her toddler bother Alex.  The toddler was persistent, but the mother won in the end. 

We bought popcorn.  I spilled the most!  GRACIOUS ME!  Alex cleaned it up patiently at first.  Then I spilled again.  Alex ran out of patience.  It was funny.  Then I stopped spilling or maybe I just stopped eating the popcorn.  I do not remember.  We did not let popcorn get in the way of our fun and family bonding though. 

Once the sunset was close to gone there was an “Electronic Fire” laser / light / sound display.  Everyone gathered around to watch this.  It  looked and sounded cool.  Carlos and Alejandro danced and played around near the lights and to the music.  The young couple from before spotted Carlos dancing from across the plaza and his fan club (the young couple) cheered him on and joined in the fun.  It was cute.

Instead of walking down  the hill in the dark we took the tram.  It was nice seeing the night cityscape come alive as we went down in the tram.  The boys always love trams.  It reminds them of snowboarding.  They like to pretend to snowboard.  We still have not been able to take them snowboarding, sadly.  Once we tried and the weather was too cold so the facility was closed.  Then anther time we had all the equipment rented but my husband injured himself before we left for the slopes.  Maybe some day the boys will be able to go snowboarding.  Some places in Japan offer indoor snowboarding.  Maybe we can find one of those.      

All in all the Seoul Tower experience would be a really good date night for a young couple in love.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE:  Now here is something astonishing to us.   Since when are there so many Russians in Korea (my husband noticed that there seem to be a few here and there just about wherever we went).  It was strange!

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Day 6 in Korea

On our sixth day in Korea we were worn out from all our adventuring and so we rested a good bit in the morning.  This lead to us basically missing the breakfast buffet.  As we got there they were just about to clean up the breakfast buffet.  They allowed us to quickly pile up a couple plates for the children.  That was nice of them.  Then my husband and I were able to order some breakfast food off of the menu.  My husband did scope out the lunch buffet and decided it was not what he was in the mood for.   

Today my Amethyst bracelet was delivered to me just before our first tour began (fun fun fun!).

On our touring for today was swung past monument to Admiral Yi Sun-shin.  He was in the middle of a bunch of construction near that area.  We were not able to go up to the monument. 

Palaces, palaces, palaces everywhere, quite magnificent!  Today we toured through ChangDeok palace.  This tour had a good deal of  walking (about 2.5km).  This included garden area as well.   The whole palace complex was splendid with a high degree of ornamentation.  There was the  king’s large reception room, king’s study, trees hundreds of years old - to include one reportedly over 1,000 years old. 

On this tour there was some more modern touring we  got to wander down a market street until we reached the 7-11.  While we were exploring this market street our camera batter died.  We were able to get a few pictures.  We bought some snacks in the 7-11 for us all to share.   

Also on this tour  we went to a Ginseng store. My husband and the boys traded stories (including the story of Hansel & Gretel) in the bus while I looked and learned about Korean Ginseng.  Exploring the Ginseng was intriguing.  Seems there are many people convinced of the power of Ginseng to keep in good health.  It probably is good stuff but they were not able to convince me to spend tons of money on ginseng.  I am pretty pro-exercise and eating lots of fresh fruits and veggies to stay fit.    

Next we went on  to Namdaemun market – more belts, purses, and other random stuff than you ever imagined seeing in one place; I got enough juice out of the battery to take a couple more pictures.  My husband saw some of his favorite Korean roadside foods (“dumplings,” pineapple on a stick, dukbogi, stuffed pancakes).  Unfortunately, we were unable to try any of it because we were on a tour and being rushed.  Carlos was treated like royalty at this market.  It was so cute.  Everyone wanted to say hi to him and some asked him to give them five.   He eventually just waved and smiled at everyone he passed.  Though crowded with people and shops, still there were motorcycles winding through the market.

Our tour guide called herself Cathy.  That is her (literally) Christian name (she was baptized a Catholic while in high school).  She thought the boys were really adorable too.  The boys kept her smiling and chuckling, especially when she began introducing some Korean words to the tour group and Alex began repeating them many times in his usual energetic, happy-go-lucky, zeal-for-life fashion.  Touring is great stuff and I am glad the boys were so great about tagging along.