The Goodacre's: June 2008

Back from Japan!

Our last week of school was last week, it was a busy week, but all went well. It was hard to say goodbye to some amazing friends, some for just the summer and others for longer. We are very sad to see Lee-Anne and Mike go.
We went to a BBQ on Friday night, came home to pack our bags and left Saturday morning for Japan.
We flew Cathay Pacific for the first time which was great, perfect seats and everyone was very nice.
We arrived at Narita airport at 9:30pm and went to our airport hotel for the night. Madi was of course a perfect traveler, loved the plane and dealt with all the travel so well.
The next morning we activated our rail passes and took a bullet train to Kyoto. We travelled almost 600km in about 3 hours! The train was really nice, we had more room than you would on a plane!
We arrived in Kyoto, took a subway to near our hotel and found our hotel without a problem. The train/subway routes are crazy in Japan, so we were very proud of ourselves for figuring it all out!We got settled and then spent the afternoon exploring a bit of Kyoto, wandering through the covered shopping arcade, quickly realizing how EXPENSIVE Japan is!!
We found the downtown area and wondered there as well before heading back around 8 to the hotel.
The next day we went to a few shrines, temples and gardens. We were able to see and experience some of Kyoto, there is so much to see that we knew we could never see it all.
That night we found ourselves at an Irish Pub and met up with some other travelers and a few others who taught in Kyoto. We had a good time swapping stories with them.
The next day we did a bit more exploring and then took a bullet train into Tokyo.
We were extremely fortunate during this part of our trip. I taught a beautiful little Japanese girl named Miki, and her mom was beyond wonderful and when she heard that we were going to Japan, she immediately booked her family vacation to make sure that they would be there when we were. She then invited us to stay with them at their hotel! Oh my! We were very excited to be able to spend time with this incredible family in their home country!
We were able to figure out how to get to the hotel very easily because Naho had it all organized and knew exactly what to do! We were SO excited to see them! We were shown to our room…which was mind blowing! We were on the 23rd floor with a view of Tokyo people would kill for, the room was huge and had a massage chair…oh my…we have decided that this is a chair that be in every room when you travel! We would come back after a long day of walking and carrying our 10kg angel and it cured all!!
That evening after getting organized we ventured out for dinner…we found a TGI Fridays….(do you expect anything less from me!?) It was delicious!
Then we came home to the massage chair and a restful night.
The next day we went on a Tour of Tokyo that Naho had figured out for us! It was perfect, the bus picked us up at the hotel and took us to some of the big sights. We saw the Tokyo Tower, the palace grounds, a shopping area with a temple, through the high end shopping district and to a pearl making demonstration.
When we got back to the hotel Madi was exhausted so she had a nap with Daddy, who was happy to oblige! I was then able to go and have a very nice visit with Naho and the girls. Miki was unfortunately not well, but this gave Naho and I time to get caught up.
That night we went down to the famous Tokyo corner at Shibuya, the one that is in all movies that show Tokyo, we watched for a couple of hours, all the people go buy, the fashion, the shoes! Just the sheer number of people was incredible!
The following day we attempted the famous fish market, arriving at 9:30am, it was already finished. So we headed to the famous Onsen (A Japanese Bath), but it was closed until May. Striking out twice, we headed for the Sony building, it was fun to see all of their products and some that are not yet released yet. Steve had a great time and there was an area for Madi to play,
So it was great!That evening we went to a place called Ropinggi hills. From what we understand it is an area that was designed to be a self sustaining development, one where you could live, work, go to school, shop, everything, in this contained area. It took 17 years to finish and is beautiful, a bit odd, but neat! We had dinner down there and explored the area.
The next day we went to TOKYO DISNEY!!!! This was the ultimate highlight of the trip! Miki was feeling better, so Naho and the girls took us to Disney for the day! Tokyo has the Magic Kingdom, virtually identical to Orlando’s, but of course everything was in Japanese!!
It was so much fun to go with Madi and the girls. For Madi everything was “Wow”. She went on several rides, Dumbo, It’s A Small World, Peter Pan, and a few others. She Loved them all!!!
We watched the parade, the kids loved it! We of course, also loved everything, we had a blast sharing Disney with Madi and experiencing it with Naho and the Kids as well as being at Tokyo Disney, which we never dreamed we would be able to do. We loved that we were reminded again of the “Magic of Disney”.

We had a really wonderful time, loved Tokyo and are so very thankful to have been treated with such kindness and generosity.
Next week we teach summer school (boo!) and then we are off to Chiang Mia for a week and a few weeks from now we fly home!!!