Bye Bye China!

Well, it has been a LONG time since I blogged last...Singapore seems like a long long time ago now. As soon as we got back from vacation, I could really see the light at the end of the China tunnel, and I guess at that point I just didn't see a reason to blog anymore. The excitment and newness was over and the end was near!

Some things HAVE happened since then of course. Our friends Sara and Eric, from Lund, came to visit us. We visited the markets in Beijing together, the Summer Palace, and all of our favorite spots in Tianjing. It was really nice to see familiar faces and to be reminded of what was waiting for us back in Sweden.

I did have a China 1st with Sara and Eric. We got in a minor car accident on the Beijing freeway!!!! I wondered when that would happen. Considering the traffic in China, it is rather impressive that there was only one of these accidents my whole 4 months in China.
We were taking a tazi to the train station and it was a really horrible time of day to drive because rush hour had just started. The 8 lane freeway (4 in each direction) was packed with cars, and we weren't going very fast. I was sitting in the front seat, and I noticed a orange van merging into our lane in front of us. I saw how close he was so I started to tap on the window to point out to the taxi driver what was about to happen. He probably just thought I was a crazy white tourist and ignored me and then...smash. The orange van ran into us. My immedeate thought was OH CRAP, now what!? No one was hurt, I mean it was super minor, the taxi was barely damaged. But in typical China fashion, the taxi driver and the driver of the van got out of the cars, leaving a road blockage in two of the lanes. Meanwhile, Sara, Eric, and I just wondered how the hell long we were going to sit there for. Then we saw our taxi driver get a traffic triangle out of the trunk of his car and that was when we knew we would probably be sitting there for awhile. The taxi driver popped his head into the car to turn off the meter and gave me the thumbs up. Ugh, NO THUMBS UP. About 15 minutes later, everyone returned to the cars, he turned on the meter, and started to drive. I was releaved that we were on our way again...but that was when he pulled off the freeway and over to the side of the road. He stopped the car, turned off the meter, and looked at me waiting for money. Oh hell no, I thought to myself. We are NOT getting out here with no cab in sight and no idea where the heck we are. I called Per and spoke to someone Chinese that worked with him. He explained to the cab driver that we would not leave the cab or pay him till he found us a new cab and told the new driver where to go. Maybe 15 minutes later, after standing out in the cold praying a cab would show up, a China miracle happned and an empty cab drove towards us. Then we were saftely on our way again!

But now China is over. I arrived back in Lund Saturday night. I was more than happy to sit on a plane for 9 hours if it meant I was heading back to the Western world. It was certainly time to go home. I had had it with China!

At the end of it all though, I'm really happy I had this experience. From the time Per got the job at Vestas till a few months AFTER I arrived in China, the China ordeal has been a huge concern of mine. But we made it, we had some really great adventures and experiences, and it was truly an opportunity a lot of people won't have. I'm lucky to have had Per to share the experience with, and it certainly solidified that he is my absolute best friend and the love of my life.

Things I WILL miss from China:

1) Negotiating at the markets (god I love this)
2) Really cheap cabs
3) Good service
4) Cheap food and alcohol
5) OUR MAID - clean towels everyday, clean sheets once a week, and never having to clean anything
6) Beijing duck
7) McDonald's delivery
8) Dumplings
9) Cheap massages
10) The adventure!

Things I WON'T miss from China:

1) Smokers! and the stink that comes with them
2) Cabs that smell of stale cigerettes and garlic breath, plus a hint of wet dog
3) People staring at me EVERYWHERE I go and taking pictures of me
4) The CF
5) Having to pantomime things to communicate
6) Worrying about getting sick from everything I put in my mouth
7) Clothes being impossibly small
8) Our ridiculous hard bed
9) Polluted air
10) Blocked Facebook and other internet sites

Spa Day!

Today Per and I went to the Ishan Malaysian Spa!

They picked us up at the hotel at 12 in the afternoon and drove us to this peaceful spa in the mountain side. On the way there, we saw wild monkeys! A major highlight of the Malaysia vacation as I was really hoping to see some.

They welcomed us with some towels and tea and then showed us to our hut.

We had the Bird of Paradise package. 3.5 hours of bliss.

First we had an aromatherapy full body massage. Heavenly.
Then we had a roasted coconut oil ayurvedic head massage. This was Per's favorite.
After that we had kaffir lime hair treatments. My hair is super silky smooth now.
Then they did a full body coffee scrub. We smelled like Starbucks.
After that they slathered some homemade yogurt on top of the coffee coating and wrapped us in banana leaves and left us to marinate.
Then we showered and took a floral bath.
Just when we thought we were done, we were reminded we had rejuvenanting facials...
followed by a heavenly foot massage!

It was amazing. I'm ready to go back tomorrow (I wish) :)

Check out their website if you are super bored and wanna see pictures of the place:
http://www.ishan-spa-langkawi.com/

Singapore Slings and Malaysian Beaches

Singpore was fantastic. Per and I both really loved it. I think he is already trying to convince me we should move there for a few years to work. Psh...maybe if it wasn't so damn hot all year round. Let me know when global warming has settled and Singapore has started to cool, and I'll consider it.

We arrived late Friday night so we didn't do much but check into the hotel, have a snack, and go to bed. But our hotel, The Scarlet, was super nice.

The next morning, we decided to go to the famous shopping streed, Orchard Road, and see where the day took us. I can't understand how big cities like this, and like Hong Kong and Tokyo, can sustain so many high end shops. Who has money to shop there, and how can I get a job where they work? We did manage to find one store we could afford, The Gap. God do I love Singapore Gap sizes...what a refreshing change from trying to find anothing that fits in China. I could even wear a medium! Go figure. That's how to make fans of your brand, make them feel skinny!

From there, we ran into the tourist office and Duck and Hippo Tours. We decided it would be a good idea to take the bus and boat tour package.

Be cool, go topless! Our bus:

Per on the bus (I was too sweaty and hot to make an appearance in any photos):

We took the bus to the Singapore Flyer. It is 30m higher than the London Eye (they loved to remind us of that every chance they got). It is right next to the F1 track, and you can get a great view of the city. Unfortunately it wasn't the clearest day, otherwise we could have seen Malaysian islands.

The Singapore Flyer:

View from the Singapore Flyer (the top):

Another view from the flyer:

After the Signapore Flyer (Per was a little white afterward - he doesn't like heights), we ate some lunch. While looking for a bathroom, we happened to run into something that I had wanted to do in Singapore!! We had seen on TV a few days earlier a woman doing a piece on fish spas in Singapore. And we found one! So we paid 10 Singapore Dollars for small fish to eat dead skin off of our feet! It was really cook. It tickled and felt like your feet were vibrating. It took Per a few minutes to get used to and relax because it was so strange. But I'm so glad we found it!

Fish eating skin off my feet!:

Fish eat skin off Per's hand (not allowed but he did it anyway - what a rebel):

After our fish spa, we took the bus to Clark Quay. Here you could eat or drink just about anything, but we jumped on a boat for a tour of Singapore by water.

Singapore's famous Lion-fish:

Then we jumped back on the bus to see the rest of the city. One of the coolest parts was passing all the luxourious Singapore mansions! No pictures of these though.

We headed home, took showers, and decided to go eat Indian food in Little India. There are a lot of Indians living in Singapore. We went to Banana Leaf Apolo, and it was such delcious Indian food I can't even describe. It was sooooo yummy! Our plates were banana leafs and it was totally acceptable to eat with your fingers there, but we didn't. We also decided to pass on their most famous dish, fish head curry.

Yummy:

After dinner, we walked around Little India a little bit. Then we did the ultra touristy thing, and took a cab to the Raffles Hotel to have a Singapore Sling. They were pretty good, but I think the love is missing from the drink because they make like 100 a day (probably way more than that).

Singapore Sling:

Then it was time to head home and rest up for our flight the next morning to Langkawi, Malaysia! Lucky for us though, we will have another whole day in Singapore before heading back to China.

Malaysia is gorgeous. Exactly what the doctor ordered and just what I imagined for our tropical Asian vacation.

I'll let the pictures tell the story and update you in more detail about our vacation here later :)

View from our balcony:

The beach (careful when swimming, there might be jellyfish!):

The pool:

A Rough Start

OK! I'm skipping the blog about my family's visit to Tianjin and Beijing...until a later date.
Now, I'm on to bigger and better things!!!

Per and I just arrived in Singapore!! Tropical and nice from what I can tell, around 75 degrees F at 10 o'clock at night. But it was a ROUGH start.

I woke up at 9AM to Per's phone ringing...the taxi cab driver had called to say that we needed to leave an hour earlier than planned, 10AM instead of 11AM, because of the heavy fog. The major highways were probably closed...because its better to cause traffic chaos on smaller roads than let people drive carefully on a foggy highway....I digress

SO, fine, I can get ready in an hour no problem, at least we packed the night before.

We were on our way, and despite the fog, things seemed to be moving well.

That is when my intense migraine set in. Its been awhile since I had a full blown one like this. I got a little shiny blind spot and my face went tingly...all signs that a mega headache are on the way.
So, I laid down on Per's lap and tried to sleep it off. When I woke up, not much later, we are stuck in a ginormous traffic jam. Barely moving. Great. So, I remain postive, while Per gets irritated with the traffic. "We are gonna make it Per, don't worry." Our flight was at 3:30 and we were SUPPOSED to get to the airport at 1:30, but the clock was approaching 1 o'clock and it didn't look like we were too close to Beijing airport. Don't panic yet...

To be on the safe side, I decided to call the airline to see what time we had to check in by. I thought they closed check in maybe half an hour before departure...wrong. You must check in an hour before departure...oh and by the way, our tickets were non refundable and non changeable...so if we missed it, we were giantly screwed.

At around 1:40, Per and I really started to panic. So, Per called the receptionist at Vestas, Sarah, to see if she could ask the taxi driver about how long he thought it would be. AN HOUR!!!! WHAT! So...at this point, I could have started crying, Per too, but we didn't. Next thing we know, our taxi driver is pulling over on the side of the road, getting out of the cab, and talking to some Beijing cab driver. Then before I could even say "what the heck", we were being escorted to the Beijing taxi.....OK?

So we called Sarah again to see what the heck was going on, and she assured us that our lady Beijing taxi cab driver could get us there by 2:30 no problem. Time on the clock at this point is 2:00 and it is rare you can get ANYWHERE in Beijing in 30 minutes.

All Per and I could do was hold on for the ride! This lady taxi cab driver was DETERMINED to get us there on time...even if it meant running red lights, speeding, passing like a mad woman, and taking crazy secret backroads.

At 2:20 we were pulling up to Terminal 3 at Beijing airport. I SPRINTED out of the cab and into the airport frantically searching for our check in area. "Where do I check in for the Singapore flight!!!" I interuppted some guy in the middle of checking someone in. Meanwhile, Per wobbled into the airport as quickly as he could with both of our suitcases in tow.

BUT WE MADE IT! With maybe 5 minutes to spare.

A crazy start to what will hopefully be a GREAT vacation. Singpore till Monday, then off to Malaysia :)

Shanghai Shenanigans

The Henderson/Bocskai family, including a Lundqvist this time, had a great long weekend in Shanghai! Here is a long blog because I was too lazy to blog while in Shanghai! For those of you who don’t enjoy reading my long blogs (Diana is one of those), I’ll give you a short list of major events and you can just look at the pictures :)

Sichuan dinner (times two)
Per’s Birthday! 29 years old!
People’s Park and People’s Square
The disappointing Bund and the really weird Bund Sightseeing Tunnel
Oriental Pearl Tower, 350 meters up
New camera for me!
Yu Yuan Gardens and bazaar
Jade Buddha Temple
Jinmao Tower and cocktails on the 87th floor
Shanghai Museum

We arrived on Wednesday night and took a taxi to the hotel. Oy, the traffic! Once we made it, we checked in and headed to a Sichuan restaurant to eat. It was yummy! Very spicy and the most similar thing I have eaten to the Chinese food you get in America. Per arrived a few hours after us, so he said hello to the family and then it was time for bed to rest up for a day of sightseeing.

Thursday was Per’s birthday! He turned 29 (what an old fart!)

The birthday boy eating his birthday lunch at Blue Flog:

In the morning we woke up, ate another yummy hotel breakfast, and headed out. Our hotel was right next to Nanjing Road, the very famous shopping street in Shanghai. They had just about everything there…except an H&M (don’t worry, I found TWO later on). We visited People’s Park and Renmin (People’s) Square.

People's park:

Then we decided to head down to The Bund, which was the heart of colonial Shanghai. They were doing a lot of construction, so I think we probably missed the impressiveness of it all. Just looked like some old buildings with a view of Pudong blocked by construction walls on the promenade. Lame.

From here we took the “Bund Sightseeing Tunnel” over to the Pudong side of Shanghai, under the river. This was by far one of the weirder things I’ve encountered in China. Apparently someone thought it would be interesting to make a psychedelic tunnel/train ride. It was totally random: space swirls, meteor showers, and blow up people. Who on earth came up with that??

Random blow up dolls in the tunnel:

Once on the other side we headed to the Oriental Pearl Tower, which I believe is a TV/radio tower. We took the elevator up to around 350 meters and had a great view of all of Shanghai. Holy cow it is huge. At a slightly lower level they had this CRAZY glass floor you could walk on with a view straight down to the street. Pretty much everyone had a hard time gaining enough guts to walk on it. The body has an immediate reaction to something like that, I suppose because it’s really unnatural to walk 250 meters above the ground with a view straight to the bottom.

The Oriental Pearl Tower:

Me on the glass floor, eek!:

After the tower, we walked across the street to the Super Brand Mall to have lunch and do some shopping…at H&M! Yay!
My dad and Per snuck off to Best Buy to see if they had the camera my dad and mom were going to buy me for my birthday. I called to see if they were ready to meet up, and Per said they were on their way and that they didn’t find the camera. Poo!! 15 minutes later, they still hadn’t showed up! I called again and Per got “held up” because he found a shirt he liked. Yea right. 5 minutes later they showed up…with my camera!!! Yay! I love it :)

My new camera (in Per's sunglasses):

By this time we were tired, so we went back to the other side of the river and went back to the hotel. After much discussion and efforts toward finding Per a delicious birthday dinner that wasn’t Chinese food, we gave up and went to the same Sichuan restaurant as the night before. Sometimes it is VERY hard to find places to eat when on vacation!!! But the dinner was good, and I think Per enjoyed it even though it wasn’t his ideal birthday meal.

Friday we visited the Yu Yuan Gardens. Unlike most travelers in Asia (I would say anyway) we decided to walk there instead of take a taxi. The huge amount of construction going on in Shanghai because of the 2010 World Expo made it difficult to navigate the streets, but we finally got there. It was a very pretty garden in the middle of a C.F. bazaar. We spent some time exploring the gardens, got ripped off on some stuff in the bazaar, and then took a cab to the other side of town to see the Jade Buddha Temple.

Mom and dad in Yu Gardens: More of Yu Gardens:

The temple was rather nice, like most that I’ve seen in China/Asia. The special features in this temple were two jade Buddha’s, one sitting, and one lying down. Not as impressive as I thought they would be, and you couldn’t take pictures! Oh well.

The Jade Buddha Temple:

After sightseeing, we ate some McDonald’s and Diana and I spent some time shopping on the shopping street :)

That night, we decided to head back to Pudong to find the Jinmao tower. Our plan was to have a drink in the Cloud 9 bar on the 87th floor (belongs to The Hyatt), and then find some food. The bellboys at the hotel informed us that it would be very hard to find a taxi and suggested we take the subway to Pudong. Well, that would be a genius idea, EXCEPT for the construction, which made it nearly impossible to get to the tower. After exciting the subway, we were SO close to the tower, but the path there was blocked. We tried to walk around, but it was a mess! We walked for like 45 minutes to get there, and it probably should have taken 10. But the bar was nice, the view was cool, and we ended up eating a yummy buffet at The Hyatt.

The Shanghai Financial Building (left) and Jinmao Tower (right):

Saturday mom, dad, and Diana were mega poops. They had had it with sightseeing and wanted to do nothing all day. So Per and I decided to go to the Shanghai museum alone. It was a good idea because not only was it free but they had a lot of neat stuff to see. We did pay for some audio guides, which was a good idea because it kept us interested in the things longer than we usually would have been!

Per and I at the museum:

That night we ate a tapas restaurant in the French Concession. It was very yummy, and a great last meal in Shanghai.

Diana and I enjoying cocktails at the tapas restaurant:

Sunday morning we flew from Shanghai to Beijing, and took a car to Tianjin. Now we are at our apartment doing nothing but relaxing :)

Sushi, Buddhas, and Japanese School Girls

Our last two days in Tokyo FLEW by...but they were great!

On Monday morning we woke up early, ate a delicious American/European breakfast at our hotel (pretty relieved to not eat a Japanese breakfast again), and prepared for a day of sightseeing.

The first place we visited was Asakusa, where the Senso-Ji temple is. After the first gate of the temple is a long street with vendors selling all kinds of Japanese tourist souvenirs! Of course, Diana and I loved this street and we took our time looking at all the adorable things you could buy. We purchased some items of course! Dad waited for us in front of the temple while we shopped.

The tourist street on the way to the temple:


In normal Allen style, he made some new friends while waiting for us, four Japanese school girls who wanted to practice some of their English. They were there on a school trip, "traveling school".

More of the temple:

It is always interesting to me how there are these temples and old historic places in the middle of a huge city, hidden by sky scrapers, malls, and restaurants. If you didn't know to look for them, they would be hard to just run into.

After the temple, we decided to do something a little more modern and check out The Ginza, the major shopping area in Tokyo. From Prada to H&M, they had just about everything expensive, stylish, hip, and classic you could imagine when it comes to fashion and accessories.

Mom and dad at the major cross streets of The Ginza:

Mom and Dad headed home, and Diana and spent an hour or so more looking around...we didn't buy anything though. As mom would say, we had a successful shopping trip...more like a bad shopping trip in my mind!

That night we decided it was time to eat some REAL Japanese sushi. We went to a small sushi restaurant in the building across from our hotel. It was really yummy, and now we can say we ate at a sushi bar in Japan!

Sushi bar:

On our last day in Japan, we checked with our trusty concierge Ben to be sure we had seen the no brainer sights in Japan, and decided to head out of the city to Kamakura (the name of the sushi restaurant in Los Gatos). It's a small beach town with a lot of history...aka lots of temples and old stuff.

Our first stop was to see the Kotokuin Daibutsu (Great Buddha).

The Great Buddha with the Henderson/Bocskai family:

We were not the only toursits there! There were a number of younger children there with their schools. Three little girls came up and asked me to sign a piece of paper for them. I think that maybe it was a school assignment of some type - Find a white person, introduce yourself, and have them sign your book. Haha. I felt special :) One of the girls was even named Sara!

My fan club (hehe):

After the big Buddha we found another temple, the Hase-dera temple. They had lots of Buddhas on display at this temple and a pretty garden. They also had a creepy cave you could walk through. In one part of the cave, you could buy a little Buddha figure, and it looked like you were supposed to leave it in the cave because there were hundreds of little Buddhas in the cave. Im not buying a cute little Buddha and LEAVING it somewhere. That's silly ;)

Diana and I at the entrance of the temple:

Koi fishies in the garden:

We were tired, so it was time to go back to our hotel....but we were not the only ones tired!

Four sleepy boys on the train:

These boys provided me with a lot of entertainment on the ride home, so much that I went into one of my famous laugh fits. I was giggling, crying, and laughing uncontrollably for a really long time. The boy with the blue baseball hat could not stay awake for the life of him. He was holding his pencil and his homework in his hand but he kept dropping them and falling over on his friends next to him. The one of the far left kept falling asleep on stragers and watching their recction to him was a crack up. It was pretty darn hilarious, especially because the boy in between the two of them was SO irritated at both them sleeping and undoubtedly my histeric laughter at his friends. But it was a cleansing laugh, I love laughing like that!

After some rest we went to the hotel bar for free cocktails!

Me!

Then it was time for our last dinner in Japan....Italian food!! It was rather yummy.

At the restaurant:

Tomorrow morning we head off to Shanghai, China where Per will meet us for a weekend there!

I Think I'm Going Japanese-a

Greetings from Japan!!!!

I arrived at Narita Airport in Japan on Thursday night at 6PM. My parents had landed a few hours before me, from their flight from SFO, and were waiting for me in the arrival area. After talking to my sister on Wednesday morning, I had this feeling she would be there also. Unfortunatly she recently got laid off from her job, but I thought that might mean she would be able to tag along when my parents came to visit. She had said some fishy things when I talked to her....like mentioning a vacation she was going on and then seemingly covering up quickly with a clever story and also asking if "we" would eat at the restaurants in Tianjin that Per and I frequent. But alas, when I walked out of the arrival gate it was only Allen and Lena. I was of course SO excited to see them, but how could I have been so wrong about my feeling Diana would also be coming? I began to tell my mom about my feeling that Diana would come and all the reasons why...when...TADA! Diana appeared behind me!!!! What a wonderful surprise!!!!! And what a GREAT start to our wonderful Japan/China trip!

We headed to our hotel in Shinigawa, I LOVE traveling with the parents because we are staying in an AMAZING place, and decided that despite their serious desire to sleep, the desire to eat was greater. We went ot a Japanese "pub" in our building. They had an interstingly translated English menu, and to your delight (?) a very interesting appetizer which only my dad ate.

Dad eating some sea snails:

Mom, Diana and I:

With our first meal complete, and very successful, we headed home for some rest in our gorgeous hotel room.

In the morning we had a few hours to do some tourist-ing before my dad's collegue and his wife, who live and work in Japan, were going to pick us up to travel to another city. We decided that visting a shrine and the near by Harajuku shopping district would be a great afternoon trip.

We headed by train north-west to the Meiji Jingu shrine. We were very lucky here because not only was it a gorgeous place, but they were also having an ikebana (Japanese flower arrangement) display, some traditional weddings, and an adorable family taking pictures in traditional clothing.

The two cutest little kids!

After the shrine, we headed into a really cool part of Harajuku called Takeshita Street. If you have heard of Gwen Stefani, you know that she is really into "Harajuku girls". For the most party, these girls dress really extreme. Think tutus and knee highs and crazy hair.

Some school girls shopping on Takeshita Street:

In addition to the extreme shopping was some more ordinary stores, including H&M which I will have to go back and visit before I leave Japan! :)

We headed back to the hotel to meet with Raiko and Koichi (sorry if I miss-spelled their names) and drove to Hakone for the next two nights.

The place we stayed at in Hakone was a traditional Japanese style home with a hot bath area as well. When we arrived we took a look at our rooms and then went to have our first really traditional Japanese dinner. Really traditional Japanese food is SO far from anything we eat in the United States. The people that find sushi otlandish would be SHOCKED to see what you can be served at a traditional meal in Japan. They eat A LOT of fish, all parts of it and in all forms. They eat them whole, they eat their livers, they eat their bones...I don't think they waste anything. They also love tofu in all its shapes and forms, sweet potatos in every way imaginable, and miso soup in different ways.

The first thing we were served (clockwise and starting with the seperate bowl): cream cheese with a sweet sauce and gold flakes, mackerel sushi (very fishy taste), a ball of sweet potato (I do not love sweet potato), pickeled ginger stick, and eggplant.

The meal was REALLY long, with tons fo food, and more and more strange things to eat. I can totally understand how if you grew up eating that food you would love it, but for a westerner like me (and my family) it was difficult to eat two nights in a row and for two breakfasts (which I will discuss later). But it was a GREAT experience, and I'm really happy we had the chance to eat foods like this. It was a true Japanese experience that most poeple don't get to have when they visit Japan as tourists.

The room we stayed in was like a traditional Japanese house, a roukan. We slept on tatami mats on the floor! Because the place was near a hot spring, they also had a public bath, which Diana and I went to the first night there. They gave us traditional looking robes to wear in our room and up to the baths!

Diana and I in our robes (probably doing something "sacrilegious"):


Mom and Dad in their robes:


The following morning we wole up and prepared for a day of sightseeing with a traditional Japanese breakfast....a lot like dinner.

Breakfast: tofu with onions and soy sauce, white rice, pickeled re-hydrated radish, fish, sweet potato with something else in it, seaweed paper, egg and tofu block, miso soup, other pickeled type veggies, tea, salty/sweet plums, candied mini fish, and wasabi/soy milk paste.

No bacon and eggs at this place! Egg McMuffin please?!

We headed up the mountain in a gondola to see the hot springs and the amazing view. We had a slight glimpse of Mt. Fuji this day also, but it was hard to see.
At the hot springs, you could buy an egg boiled in hot spring water which turned the egg black. Eating one of these eggs adds seven days to your life, I opted to NOT eat the egg, forgo the extra seven days, and instead take a picture of the "Black Egg Hello Kitty":

We also visited a Japanese art museum, which mostly had some old ceramics. It also had a really pretty garden.
Me being a nerd in the garden:

After the museum, we ate pork sandies and headed home, rested a few hours, and ate our second traditional Japanese meal...it was the same types of foods as the day before...strange.
That night we decided to have some fun in our room. After being inspired by my bug like shape underneath the covers the night before, the family took individual photos being insects/turtle people.

My personal fav, mama turtle:

The next morning we woke up early, had a final Japanese breakfast, and headed back to Tokyo. On the way we stopped at a French glass museum with glass pieces from Lalique. Nice but...French glass in Japan?
We also saw Mt. Fuji. The snow probably ended up there the night before. The mountain was huge and very ominous, but a great sight to see!
We settled back into our hotel in Tokyo where we will stay for another three nights. Diana and I skipped adult dinner with my parents and Raiko and Koichi to eat some interesting Japanese/Asian delights from a deli nearby. Really yummy!

Family Henderson/Bocskai in Japan!!!!

Really looking forward to some bacon and toast and cheese and potatos for breakfast tomorrow!!!!!