When we left 2-weeks ago I had every intention of posting about the places we would be going on a regular basis. My intention was not just to write a few blog posts, but to keep my family up to date with where we were going so that they wouldn’t feel completely left out of all of the fun. Not only that, but a blog can act as a sort of time capsule to look back and remember. Unfortunately, none of this has happened yet and here we are, in Chiang Mai and I haven’t written about any of the fun we’ve had so far.
As I can’t make up completely for the lack of posting, I thought I’d do a quick wrap up of the 2-weeks of vacation we had and show off a few pictures along the way.
The flight to Tokyo
This was the part that we were both the most nervous about. We flew on EVA Air and having nearly 24 hours of travel plus a 1-year old seemed like it would equal trouble. Luckily for us, our son was a rockstar and slept for nearly the whole time. Our first flight was about 18-hours and he slept for about 15 of that and when he wasn’t sleeping, he was pretty fun and playful, even if we were a bit cramped in our economy seats.
We had a 3-hour layover in Tai Pai, Taiwan where we wandered the airport a bit, learned of our son’s rockstar status with the Taiwanese people as a family lined up to have their pictures taken with him (the stereotype so far seems true, Asian people love blonde-haired, blue-eyed babies). After which we had a 3-hour flight to Tokyo, where we landed and it occurred to us that we had packed all wrong.
My wife is a secret Japanophile
Little did I know upon arriving in Japan that we would unlock a seldom seen side of Lauren, her Japanophilia. From Harajuku girls to Hello Kitty and cat cafes, all the way to the creepiest photo booth dress ups you will find, she is obsessed with all things Japan. So much so, that it seems we scheduled to spend far too little time in Tokyo than we should have. To make up for it, a promise was extracted that we would return again so she can bask once again in what she implies is the beginning and end of all culture.
Apparently, there are still a lot of things that I can learn about her.
The challenge of finding food
Of all the things we struggled with in Japan, the hardest seemed to be finding a good meal. We would walk many, many miles each day (our record was 18), with Lauren carrying Bear for most of the time. We would constantly pass by restaurants and places, but our unfamiliarity with Japanese cuisine caused us to be very gun shy. The result ended up with us eating far too little throughout the day and then desperately looking for any food we could find along the way.
In the end, it feels sad that one of the best meals we had in Japan was at a burger joint down in Shibuya. I know we could have done better if we hadn’t been so haphazard about meals and meal times.
Pro tip: If you’re traveling, don’t be picky. Either plan out your meals and where you’re going to eat ahead of time, or be okay with trying something new.
Mt. Fuji
We took a day trip to go see Mt Fuji. It was pretty awesome to see. Given the short time that we had and the fact we had a baby in tow, there was no way we were going to climb the mountain, however, that is now on the list of things to do next time.
Instead, we took the train to nearby Kawaguchiko, which is one of the 5 lake-towns surrounding Mt Fuji. It was sort of a cool little place, with a much smaller mountain / hill that you could go to the top and get a fantastic view of Fuji from. When we got there we kept remarking that the town itself looked like it could really be anywhere in the US, so that was a little strange.
Overall, this was a fantastic detour and a highlight of our trip so far.
Kyoto
For the last 2-days in Japan we took the bullet train to Kyoto, which is one of the old towns in Japan. Neither of us really knew what to expect from this part, I think we both expected something smaller, but what we got was a city with a large downtown area, surrounded by smaller communities and many, many temples.
Our favorite by far was Mt Inari, which features 10,000 orange gates surrounding a stair path that goes much, much further than we expected. Was a fantastic couple of hours climbing up and down the path and seeing all the shrines and views of Kyoto along the way.
In the end, we left Japan via Osaka’s KIX airport on a Redeye flight to Bangkok feeling very tired and very excited to one day return. There is no doubt that visiting Japan is incredibly expensive compared to many of the other places we will visit, but it was also very nice to see a slightly different version of modern society. Tokyo especially feels very much like New York City, if New York City figured out how to be twice as large, 5-times as busy, and 100 times more orderly. It was nice to get to spend time in a familiar sort of different as a sort of warm up.
Next up: Bangkok, Thailand.
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Originally published at drewbutler.me on July 12, 2016.