Friday, May 31, 2013

Mike's April TDY

Mike went to Indonesia for a couple weeks in April. We had NeNe come out and visit for a week during that time. We mainly just kept our same routine with preschool, swimming and dance. But we did have some fun.

Annabelle packing Eedie away.

Pigtails!

We had Pepper Lunch before going to our favorite indoor playland.

Bourneland

They kept saying... "push me!" "Push me!"

While dad was away, Vivian turned 6 months and started on solid foods. Can't believe she is already 6 months!

It was a family affair.

Annabelle's first time feeding Vivian herself.

Annabelle set up her princesses for "lunch" one day.

On her actual 6 month birthday:

We missed Dad a lot while he was gone. Look for his post about Indonesia and all the fun he had while he was there!

Brazilian Restaurant

Mike and I went downtown to Tokyo a few weeks ago for a farewell for one of the dentists. It was at a Brazilian restaurant called Barbacoa.

We saw this bike on the way to the train station. You can't tell from the angle, but there are two wheels in the front.

This picture doesn't even do it justice, but it was Golden Week (a super crazy busy holiday). But there was a delay because of an accident on the railway which made it even crazier!

We made friends with this guy on the train. His mom helped us figure out where we were going.

They would come around to the table with meats and cut you a slice.

Sausage

Vivian had some rice.

We found this restaurant in the building. Yes, it says "So Tired".

Vivian with Mitsy, Mike's new assistant.

Tokyo Train Station

Closer up.

As we were leaving the building, there was a restaurant with a window where you could see them fixing the fish. They were one of the craziest things I've seen in Japan so far!

My Birthday

Birthday 28 was pretty great. Got to eat at my favorite ramen restaurant and go to the temple. This restaurant is super small but oh so good. And only about a 5 minute walk from the temple.

Yakiniku ramen

We got to go to temple night with the ward.

It was a great birthday!

Nikko - Tobu World Square and Toshogu Shrine

We had been wanting to go to Nikko for a while. Mike had to take a few days off in March so we decided to take them and head to Nikko. There is a lot to do in Nikko. We did about half of the stuff we wanted to do and wanted to save the rest for another time. We stayed at Woodsman's Village, a collection of log cabins out in the middle of nowhere. It was about a 30 minute drive to Nikko. We definitely want to go stay there again.

Daddy with all his girls.

The living room

1st set of bunk beds

2nd set of bunk beds

Kitchen

Bathroom

Stairs up to the loft

You could fit another 15-20 people up here if you wanted.

After getting our stuff settled inside, we went out to dinner where we had ramen.

Lucky cat

The two ramen bowls

We also had some really good dumpling things and gyoza. Eedie had some curry. She loves curry.

She is getting good with the chopsticks.

Back at the cabin, we played with glow sticks and the new camera. We bought these fun glow stick glasses at the 100 yen store.

The next day we went to Tobu World Square. Everything here is a 25th of the original size.

Tokyo train station

The shinkansen

On a plane in front of Tokyo SkyTree

This guy was doing a plank on the plane.

They had the same vehicles at each place. But I'm not sure I've seen any of these vehicles in Japan. =)

New York City - pre 9/11.

The White House... and yes... those are the Obama's!

I guess everything except this camel and the plane were to scale.

Mike in Egypt.

In front of St. Basil's Cathedral in Russia and St. Peter's Basilica in the background.

Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany.

Leaning tower of Pisa

Arc de Triomphe in France.

Ringing the bell above Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, China.

Dragon and Tiger Pagodas in Taiwan

Part of the Great Wall of China

We had been wanting to try Mos Burger, a burger chain.

Waiting for our food.

We got onion rings, fries, two burgers and chicken for the kiddies.

Mike's was an original burger, with some kind of weird ketchup sauce. It wasn't that great.

I got the tempura burger with rice buns. It was super yummy!

We saw this sign for a glasses store.

We went to a grocery store before heading back to the cabin. This cart was a little too small for both of them. Annabelle wasn't too happy about this.

One of our new favorite snacks. Mike describes it as "all the good Japanese flavors in one."

Saw this

Our yakisoba we made at the cabin.

They were hungry waiting for food.

They love their sister.

Before we left the cabin, we wrote a short note in the journal the owner had in the cabins. We let Annabelle draw a picture.

We took the back way to the shrines this day. These "roads" were super narrow.

We barely made it through the side of this truck.

Pretty view on our way to the shrines.

We visited the Toshogu Shrine in Nikko. Here is a little information on the shrine:

The Toshogu is the mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Tokugawa shogunate, which ruled Japan for over 250 years until 1868. The shrine is dedicated to the spirits of Ieyasu and two other of Japan's most influential historical personalities, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Minamoto Yoritomo.

This pagoda was at the entrance of the shrine area.

One of the famous carvings at the shrine.

Annabelle being silly.

The elephants are another famous carving.

I really like this carving. It is peacock feathers.

Sake barrels.

Going up to the The tomb of Ieyasu. Ieyasu was the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, The Tokugawa shogunate was a feudal Japanese military government which existed between 1600 and 1868. It was a bit of a hike to the tomb and we probably could have skipped this part.