Traveling around

Snow Monkeys!

I so wanted to see Japan’s famous snow monkeys.  When we arrived in Japan I did not know where the snow monkeys lived or if we could see them.  I assumed they lived on Hokkaido where it is coldest, but when I told Mayumi I wanted to see the snow monkeys during our visit there she was surprised that they might live on Hokkaido.  Oh, gomen nasai (sorry)!  Bad guess.  They actually live in Nagano Prefecture.   There are several ski resort areas in Nagano, but one of the reasons I picked Shiga Kogen over the others is so that we would be closest to the snow monkey park. On Friday, March 24 we set out after breakfast.  It turns…

Plowing Through Powder

Thursday, March 23 is a snowshoe adventure day!  Our friend Nadia doesn’t downhill ski so she’s been hanging around watching the kids and looking for things to do.  She wanted to go cross country skiing but it was difficult to find rental equipment and someone to guide us.  It seems there’s a competition going on that has sucked up all the cross country resources.  At last she was able to book a snowshoe expedition.  The snowshoe guide said she would meet us at our hotel lobby at 14:00pm.  That gave us some time to get in a few hours of skiing before lunch. The snow in Shiga Kogen has been amazing.  We’ve been so lucky with the new powder in late…

Skiing Shiga Kogen

On Monday, March 20 we set off for Nagano, the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics.  The kids are on spring break for about 2 and a half weeks.  I looked at how to get from Osaka to Nagano about a half dozen different ways.  We settled on taking the Shinkansen (bullet train) from Osaka to Nagoya, which took only 50 minutes.  We barely made it though because John and Halyard had to take the cats back to the pet hotel in the morning and then they caught a taxi to the station.  I was driving the poor Japanese ticket lady crazy because I couldn’t decide which train to buy tickets for.  I wasn’t sure if John and Halyard were…

Discovering Seoul

The boys are so lucky to have this year at Osaka International School.  The school organizes spring camps for the middle school and upper school grades.  They get to go with their classmates on field trips to fun places that would be on anyone’s tourist agenda.  This year, Kaiyo and his grade 8 classmates rode the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Hiroshima.  The trip cost 45,000 yen ($400) for 2 nights and 3 days, all inclusive except lunches.  They spent the first day at the atomic bomb museum and peace park.  In the evening they had a talk with a survivor of the atom bomb blast at their hotel.  They spent the second day on Miyajima Island, hiking, exploring and eating….

Mata Ne Sapporo!

See you again, Sapporo!  We said good-bye on Sunday, February 12.  Here are some final fun shots around town.  Avalon saw some Hello Kitty neckties at this Sanrio store and she thought they would look good on Uncle Chris.  Hello Kitty is everywhere in Japan.  Even on construction sites.  These HK barrier holders below are keeping the fence in place around a street construction project.   Above:  These bananas looked very festive and yummy.  We thought for sure they must be frozen bananas on a stick, like in America.  We’d seen them at other festivals but never got one.  The kids and John decided to buy one.  Guess what – they are not frozen bananas.  They are chocolate and sprinkle…

Skiing, Skating and Eating in Sapporo

On Saturday, February 11, we got to go skiing on Hokkaido.  This was a special treat for us.  As I’ve mentioned before, the snow coming down from Siberia is super light, fluffy and dry.  This special snow makes for some of the best snow conditions in the world.  However, either it’s been a light season or they just haven’t gotten their big snowfall yet, because the piles of powder I’ve heard about were nowhere in sight.  We met Mayumi and her family at the Sapporo station where the buses line up.  We got on a bus headed for Teine (tay-nay), a ski resort about an hour away from the city. After we arrived, we rented our ski and snowboard equipment…

Jingisukan at Sapporo Beer Garden

Friday, February 10 and Sunday, February 12 we went to arguably the two best restaurants in Sapporo.  Maybe in all of Japan!  It’s just my opinion of course, but Sapporo cuisine is very famous and there’s a good reason for that.  And anyway, I think John agrees with me.  We had been really looking forward to having some amazing food.  Mayumi warned us ahead of time that our waistlines might expand during our stay there.  Sapporo is famous for several things, among them are: BEER of course, ramen, seafood, especially snow crab, cheese and soft serve ice cream, which is called soft cream here.  A signature cooking style on Hokkaido is called Jingisukan.  You kind of have to stretch your…

Susukino Ice World

Friday, February 10 is day two in Sapporo.  First we’re stopping at the hotel breakfast room for our complimentary breakfast – which consists of all you can eat fresh bread rolls and croissants with juice, coffee and tea… not good for anyone’s waistline but it’s so hard to stop eating the bread.  Every Japanese person in the room put their bread in a toaster oven to heat it up.  We were the only ones who would dare eat cold rolls.  I toasted my croissant though and it really was so much better!  You can order a traditional Japanese breakfast in advance for an extra 400 yen (about $3.75) but it looked to be miso soup, seasonal vegetables, salmon steak portions…

Sapporo’s Famous Yukimatsuri

On Thursday, February 9 we got up very early and took the bus and train to Osaka Itami Airport.  This airport is so convenient for us!  We took the monorail straight there and it took only 20 minutes.   We are headed to Sapporo, the main city on Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island.  Sapporo is the fifth largest city in Japan and home to Sapporo Beer.  It is a hop, skip and jump from Siberia.  I bet Sarah Palin can see Russia from Sapporo, too.  We had already taken the cats to the pet hotel the night before.  Poor kitties.  I hope they like it there.  They are becoming regular guests. We had two main objectives to going to Sapporo:  to…

#Stories#Best#SorryYouHaven’tHeardFromUsKids

Avalon’s full blog post title wouldn’t fit in the title space: #Stories#Holiday#Fun#Best#ByAvalon#SorryYouHaven’tHeardFromUsKids Saturday, January 21, 2017 Hi!!!!!! This is Avalon! And previously, we were in Malaysia.  This might be a long post cause I have to say a lot! The plane flight to Malaysia was 7 hours! (From Japan) So once we got out of the airport, we had to get a cab,  I don’t know, maybe 20 minutes in to the drive to our hotel, then cab driver had internet problems! Which could also be said as… he got lost. And so in the end, it ended up taking an hour to get to the hotel!  And once we got to the hotel it was about 7:00 so we…