Kyoto (day 1)

After yesterday, we were all ready for a leisurely day. We started at a temple called Ginkakuji, which has a beautiful, perfectly manicured garden. We saw many gardeners on their hands and knees carefully trimming the plants and sweeping the grass…

Giant gravel sculpture.

We then took a walk (suggested by the Kyoto tourist center) down a little canal lined by flowering trees and Japanese maples (we love Japanese maples) and with many beautiful gardens and temples along the way. The houses all had pretty little window boxes and tons of tiny flowers as well. Riley walked much of the way, often right on the edge of the canal, and pointed out all the flowers and dogs that we passed.

Japanese maple!

It was a perfect sunny day and we were all relaxed… until Riley threw her sippy cup in the water! (followed by “Uh ohhh” and finger pointing down to the canal. Luckily the banks weren’t too steep and the water was pretty shallow, so I went on a retrieval mission. (Michael called just before and said “Happy Birthday!” to which I replied, “Riley through her sippy cup in the river! Gotta call you back!)

Fresh hot chestnuts!

There isn’t much of a subway in Kyoto, so we took buses, which is more complicated with Riley and the stroller (even though the new stroller we got for the trip folds up pretty small). I always think we create a commotion, but people don’t seem to mind (there’s the ever present chorus of “Kawaiii!” and “cute-o!” for Riley). When we got off the bus this morning the driver gave Riley a present! A little green robot guy, which made a very nice addition to the little toy bag (along with the hello kitty dressed in a deer costume that we got in Nara). Riley seems to like it, especially because the arms move.

In the afternoon we split off from Brad and George (I think they needed a baby break) and just wandered around. We took the subway back to the hotel during rush hour, and Riley got another present! She was pointing at the little stuffed animals hanging off of a woman’s bag and saying, “dog! dog!” which the lady seemed to find pretty entertaining. So she dug around in her bag, and just before we got off she gave Riley a little tiny pen with a dog and string attached to it. Riley carried it by the string and swung it around the whole way home (stopping a few times to readjust her grip).

Click here for more pictures of day 1 in Kyoto and a video of the sippy cup retrieval mission.

Nara

This morning Riley woke up at 3:45–a bit on the early side, but since we went to bed around 8 we didn’t mind all that much. She was in a great mood but a bit chatty, so we took her down the hall to the room where we ate dinner the night before and fed her breakfast: banana, strawberry, and orange. Served in a (clean!) ashtray. She went back to sleep around 5:30 and we were able to catch a few more minutes of sleep before the call to prayer at 6.

The ceremony was about 45 minutes long, and consisted mainly of four monks chanting (although one of them showed up late, and seemed to get off to a slow start… kept rubbing his eyes and looked very sleepy). There were 10 or 15 other guests there sitting on a bench along the back of the room. A Japanese couple sat on the mat in front of us, and at one point were brought to the front of the room by one of the monks to do some special prayer thing (we couldn’t really see, but they came back with a bunch of paper bits). At one point the guy took a picture (and earned an elbow and look from his wife).

We made it to Nara around noon. First order of business: ATM. At the second bank ATM we tried a man rushed up and asked to see our card. Brad showed him the VISA, Star, etc. logos on it and he whipped out a hand-drawn (but laminated) map directing us around the corder to the ATM at the quick-e-mart-type place, and then another sheet showing a color picture of the store’s sign (it was about 40 feet away). Apparently we weren’t the first tourists to try to use their ATM. It turns out its kind of hard to find an ATM in Japan that is compatible with US ATM cards. Even the ones that say VISA don’t always work right.

Anyway, we got some lunch (we were all starving–including Riley)…

…then started our tour of all the temples. We quickly ran into the deer that seem to inhabit most of the city. They’re incredibly tame, and come right up to you to see if you have any of the funny flat cakes everyone sells to feed them. They’re also pretty mangey (it looks like they’ve pulled half of their coat out with their teeth itching at fleas or something nasty) so there’s no real desire to touch them (even though you could). Riley thought they were pretty exciting (“dog! dog!”), and seemed to be less afraid of them than actual dogs.

The coolest temple we saw was apparently the largest wooden structure in the world, and was built to house the largest Buddha statue. Although actually there were three huge Buddhas inside–I’m not sure how the other two measured up, but they were still pretty freakin big. Riley was in a great mood (as long as she was walking) and making lots of friends with the zillions of school children (mainly the girls) who swarmed the place. You’d hear them approaching by the flood of “kawaii!” which means “cute.” Riley is getting much better at handling the attention from strangers… she didn’t seem to mind when people touched her cheek and toward the end was doing a lot of waving back at them. Go Riley! Making lots of friends.

Eventually we were able to coax her to sleep (she was long past her naptime, but there were so many noisy children and deer/dogs to distract her) and covered her up in her stroller for the last few places. We found soft-serve ice cream (green tea! I liked it, Elise thought it tasted like soap) and just after the last temple wandered into a parking lot full of buses, one of which was leaving for the JR train station in ten minutes. We’re not quite sure if our rail passes covered the bus fare, but the guy waved us on (without really even looking at them). Which was great: we’d walked a long way, it was drizzling again, and our feet were pretty tired.

By the time we got to Kyoto we were all pretty tired. We checked into the Kyoto Century Hotel (which is conveniently right next to the train station), then went on a mission to find food for Riley at the supermarket. We found little pull-top cans of peas, corn and beans, as well as bananas (in individual bags, the japanese sure love their packaging) and strawberries and sun-dried tomato bread (at least that’s what we think it was, it had a really strong flavor, but Riley really liked it) and some other stuff. We also bought a little birthday cake, that was packaged in a box with a little dry ice compartment, pretty cool.

There are also tons more Nara pictures.

Mt Koya

From Osaka, we took the train to Mount Koya. Ate breakfast on the train again (random little bento boxes bought in the station, delicious though). We’ve been buying cartons of milk with little straws attached for Riley, it’s really handy, but this time we made a mistake and got some yucka liquid yogurt stuff (it had a cow on it! We thought that meant milk). Guess we should be more careful.

To get to Mount Koya we took the subway to a train to a cable car up the mountain, then a bus. But it was worth it. Mount Koya is a little mountain town with many Buddhist temples. We spent a few hours walking down a long path through a beautiful cemetery to a temple.

Inside it smelled strongly of incense and there were monks chanting and various rituals being performed. Riley slept through this whole experience, despite being strolled on a pretty bumpy path. She’s such a champ.

We stopped for lunch, where the waitress bright Riley her own little cup of tea. She mostly ate noodles (only soba, she doesn’t seem to like udon) and rice.

We then went to another beautiful temple. There were many Japanese tourists outside, and as Brad and Sage walked through with Riley they left “a wake of cooing women” behind them (in Brad’s words). Riley’s pretty popular here – everyone wants to touch her. We learned how to say “shy” (hazukashigaria no) because sometimes she gets really freaked out when old ladies come up close to her. But she’s actually getting used to it, and doesn’t seem to mind too much. The tourists seemed to magically disappear when we arrived and we had the place mostly to ourselves…

We left our shoes at the front (even Riley’s, she’s a human being too after all) and put on the the slippers (which look pretty funny on the boys) and wandered around. There were beautiful, serene gardens (think combed gravel with big rocks randomly placed throughout and pretty manicured trees and cherry blossoms) surrounded by railings that were exactly the right height for Riley.

She pretty much cruised through the whole place herself checking it out. At one point she decided to carry the camera bag around, which is pretty big with a long strap, so she spent a lot of time adjusting her grip and trying to swing the bag over her shoulder (or just dragging it along the ground).

At the end there was a big room where they served us hot tea and a cookie. We sat and relaxed while Riley walked around us, back and forth, in a half circle (still with the bag). We bought some fresh fruit on the way home… which Riley must have really been craving (she hasn’t had any in a couple days and usually at home eats fruit at every meal), she ate 2 whole bananas and a bunch of delicious strawberries. wowza. Also turns out she likes red bean sticky buns…

We stayed at a beautiful Buddhist temple called Shojoshin-in…

…which has rooms with tatami mats on the floor, a heater (it was freezing!), a tv (who would watch tv in a place like that??) and sliding doors for all the walls. Our room was right next to Brad and George’s (so we could open the sliding doors and make it connect), but other then that there didn’t seem to be anyone else on our hallway. You can tell because when you first enter the building you take off your shoes and put on a pair of slippers, which you then leave outside your room. Makes for a very clean building, it’s nice. While we were eating dinner in a different room (all vegetarian, but i don’t think we would have noticed since there was such variety, yum) they put out beds for us on the floor, including buckwheat pillows which are SO comfortable.

Riley was in performance mode during dinner and put on quite a show for Brad and George, making funny noises and faces and just generally being goofy.

After sitting in the hot bath for a little bit (supposed to be unisex, but we snuck in one together since we didn’t feel like sharing with strangers… we got caught coming out, but they didn’t seem to mind!), Sage and I fell right to sleep, even though it was barely 8pm.

For more Mt Koya pictures and videos, click here.

Footsie!

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Fun with Brad’s feet!

Osaka

We spent a day in Osaka yesterday, with the highlights being an incredible lunch, a rooftop garden, and an amazing aquarium.

We had a little trouble finding our hotel (wrong train station, then wrong hotel) so by the time we got there we were starving. We ended up wandering semi-randomly into a restaurant because the food displayed outside looked delicious. Turned out to be a pretty fancy place (didn’t look it from the noisy, bustling exterior). We sat on pillows on the tatami mat covered floor in our own private room. The table was just perfect height for Riley to stand at. The waitress gave her a little windup ladybug that flips over, but unfortunately it kinda freaked her out… she was happy playing with her little bag of toys though (there were little dogs, cats and horses all over the table by the end of the meal).

We asked the waitress to bring us the house specialty (“osusume onegaishimasu?”) and a shabu shabu (kind of like a meat and noodle soup that they cook on the table in front of you.) We ended up with lots of delicious little things, and the soup was yummy too. Riley just ate noodles. We tried giving her some layered tofu, but she was not impressed and started crying because she couldn’t figure out how to get it out of her mouth… she settled down again as soon as it was out though!

The most fun part was when George and I made octopus balls. The waitress brought out a little metal plate with 3 ping-pong-ball sized openings in it and a flame underneath. Then she told us to stir up the egg batter and pour it into the plate (filling the openings and the rest of the plate) then drop pieces of octopus in each opening. Then she said, “don’t touch” and disappeared for a while.

When she returned, she instructed us to cut between the openings (think mercedes benz sign) with a toothpick, then fold in the edges over the openings to make a ball, then spear the ball and flip it over. We just looked at her like that would never work, but it did!

They cooked a little longer, then we transfered them to a bowl, poured sauce on top (tasted like barbeque sauce) and sprinkled some stuff on top (I forget what it’s called, George knows), then served it to our husbands (like the good wives we are). Sage liked it, I didn’t really, but it was fun making it anyway! Since making them, we’ve seen little octopus ball stands on the street everywhere we go. I guess they’re pretty popular!

Later while reading their guidebooks, George and Brad realized the restaurant we went to is actually very highly recommended. Good fortune that we stumbled upon it! The restaurant was 8 stories and we just randomly picked a story. Turns out as you go higher it gets fancier and more expensive… we were on floor 6.

After lunch we checked out a roof garden…

…then went to the aquarium, which was pretty amazing. Unfortunately, Riley napped in her stroller the whole way through the aquarium, which is too bad because there were otters and penguins and all kinds of cool fish that I think she would have really liked…

Whale shark! Pretty awesome. He’s huge!!

Freaky giant crabs…

Jellyfish!

I think that about sums up Osaka. Oh! The amazing thing is, we put Riley to bed around 9:30pm (after dinner) and she slept all the way through the night until 6! Apparently she’s not affected by jet lag… (it’s 8 hours earlier here) She’s such a star!

For more pictures and videos from Osaka, click here.

Very Safe

While standing in the security line at the SF airport we were joking with Riley about her shoes (which have soft leather soles, and are barely shoes at all) while taking ours off to be x-rayed. But when I tried to walk through the metal detector with her, the woman stopped me and pointed to Riley’s feet. “Those need to come off.” I just looked at her incredulously, so she said: “She’s a human being too, isn’t she?”

We love Japan!

(Since we didn’t have internet access very often in Japan, we wrote these entries on the laptop and are postdating them to when they were written… in the next few days we’ll add the rest of them as we match up the pictures, so stay tuned for more Japan news!)

We arrived in Tokyo yesterday afternoon after a ~12 hour flight from Los Angeles. Riley was not only good on the flight, she was delightful. She took 2 naps, ate a lot of food (although the United kids meals were not much to speak of), and played played played. She made friends with all our neighbors, including a little boy who cracked her up by pretending to fall down over and over again (making all kinds of crazy noises), an old woman sitting behind us who played peak-a-boo (in Japanese) through the seats, and a young guy sitting next to us who picked up her pink bunny rabbit and smiled every time she dropped it over the seat (which, of course, quickly became a game for her). Just in time for our trip, Riley has become obsessed with airplanes. We see them flying overhead a lot from our balcony, and as soon as she hears one she starts looking, then points and says excitedly, “airpay airpay!” She was pretty thrilled at the airport, and stood at the big window looking out at all the airplanes parked at the gate very happy.

Having traveled quite bit with Riley, we’ve learned to have plenty of (non-messy) snacks at hand, including freeze dried fruits (which she eats by the handful) and lots of crackers. We also made a point of bringing lots of little toys in bags (half the fun is getting the toy out of the bag). We brought little magnets (just big enough that she can’t choke on them) that stick to the tin they come in, little stuffed dog and horse (emphasis on little), crayons (she likes to draw, but she also likes to take the crayons out of the box and into the bag, then into the box, then into the bag…) and cheap cards with pictures of animals on them (for playing Memory, but we just look at them). There is also a little cloth drawstring bag (that I bought years ago in Peru, knowing I’d someday find a good use for it 🙂 ) with little mini animals (her favorites: dogs, cats, horses) and cars. She sticks her hand deep into the bag and comes out with a handful, then plays for a while before putting them back in and getting a new handful. Or sometimes she takes them all out one by one and lines them up, then puts them back in, one by one.

Anyway, the flight was really uneventful, thankfully. We arrived in Tokyo in the afternoon (midnight our time), skipped the whole customs line (because of Riley, they took us in the special family room), and had our first experience with Japanese bathrooms (which are clean and beautiful and have large, soft changing tables and seem to be completely electronic).

Our hotel was fantastic. We went straight to sleep, but Riley of course woke up at 1:45am. I spent the next couple hours hanging out in the lobby with Riley, which was actually pretty entertaining. She ate her oatmeal, then we went exploring. The super nice guys working at the front desk (have I mentioned how everyone in Japan is so nice?) brought out a little toy projector that plays music (not annoying music, thankfully) and displays a rotating disney scene which kept her amused for quite a while (not so much watching the scene, but playing with the projector).

Now we’re on the train with Brad and George on our way to Osaka. We bought onigiri to eat on the train (rice balls with fish in the middle, wrapped in seaweed) and turns out Riley loves them! Even the fish part! Amazing. Brad has developed a new game for Riley (which he will probably soon regret): We’re sitting in facing seats and he puts his feet up to hers then dances them around. Then he hides them under the seat, and she leans way over to look for them. She keeps slumping herself down farther in the seat to stick her feet out closer and saying “more?”

So yeah, we’ve been here one day, but so far we love Japan. Everyone is nice and friendly and helpful and doesn’t laugh at our pitiful Japanese (actually, most people seem to speak at least a little English). The train station is madness with hundred of people running around, but most smile at Riley, and somehow (as George pointed out) no one even bumped into us.

More travel news to come!

Walk Walk, We Like to Walk

It’s official: Riley can walk! For reals. She’s been taking a few steps here and there for the last week or two, but last night she was walking all over the place, all on her own. After these videos were taken, she was followin us around the house, going after the cat, and so on. Hooray! A new age is upon us.

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There are some more videos, too!

Dog? Cat? Bird!!

Riley’s going crazy with the signs. She does bird, dog, book, banana, cracker, where is?, daddy (the last 2 come from me signing “where is daddy?” everytime Riley and I come home and go find Sage working at his computer).

Over the weekend we decided to visit Dallas and Vida and their dog Charlotte in SF. Riiley had recently become really excited about dogs, saying “daah daah daah!” and slapping her leg, which is the sign for dog, whenever a dog walks by. or a cat. or a squirrel. it’s confusing. But anyway, we thought she would enjoy Charlotte and the dog park. Charlotte was REALLY excited to see Riley and ran up and licked her face, prompting Riley to scream at the top of her lungs and poor Charlotte to hide in the kitchen. so sad. Apparently dogs are scary when they come flying at you with their big teeth bared. and babies are scary to dogs when they cry and holler. Riley mostly got over it, and had a great time at the dog park as long as the dogs didn’t come too close.

Bird is also a favorite sign. Anything that flies qualifies at this point, and it seem too complicated to explain the difference between pigeons and butterflies. At the dog park she was very busy trying to keep up with pointing and signing about all the dogs and birds/butterflies.

I should note that my brother Michael has recently become a good friend of Riley’s. In fact he’s going to be her babysitter on Thursday night! One of the perks of having family nearby…

Riley likes the tire swing

Especially when she crashes into you with the swing and you go flying! We were a little nervous at first putting her on there, but she’s pretty good about holding on. As long as the other kids in the park aren’t doing anything too exciting, in which case she’ll crane her neck to see what she’s missing…

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Here she is with her Grandpa David and Grandma Brigitte.

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