Sunday Social

1. What is your favorite kind of surprise?

The little ones. They are sometimes the best. Like my son telling me for days on end that he as a surprise for me and it's usually something he made in art class or my husband surprising me with dinner out.

2. Flowers or chocolate?

Chocolate. It better be good stuff too! I like flowers as much as the next girl, but they just don't give me the same satisfaction as chocolate does.

3. What is your favorite summertime activity?

Since living here, it's become afternoons at the beach. I would love to have an afternoon by myself at the beach, so I could just bake and read. Sadly, that has never happened though.

4. Do you have any vacations planned for this summer?

Umm....sorta. We most likely will be moving this summer. As part of that move, we'll end of flying to the midwest, visiting family, then driving to a coast, while visiting more friends and family along the way.

5. Favorite summer holiday?

The 4th of July for sure! I always loved how patriotic one feels on that day. That feeling is just multiplied now.

6. Dream vacation?

England, Ireland, and Scotland for a few weeks. 

I Need A Vacation

It's been one of those days. 

I spent last night helping Little Man (rather, he helped me) make a landform out of clay for a school project. This morning, it was dry, but the cardboard it was on had curled up and the clay was cracked down the middle. Now it needs to be redone with a stronger base. Then, I was running late for a meeting this morning. I don't like to be later. Ever. This afternoon, someone who has been potty trained for over a year without an accident, had 2 accidents. While she was in the bathtub cleaning up from the accidents, she used a brand new bottle of shampoo to make bubbles. Lots and lots of messy bubbles. Then her brother pretty much threw a tantrum because I packed his Skylanders in his suitcase. His favorite video game, all he ever talks about, yet he got mad that I packed what he always wants to take. It was just one of those days when I wanted everyone to go away, so I could curl up and cry.

Who wants to go on vacation? 

I am starting to totally get taking a vacation by yourself. Just a few days. Anything longer and I'd start to miss my brats. I can fly a lot of places in just a couple hours. 

Miyako Island

A 50 minute flight. It's also part of the same chain of islands that Okinawa is in. They've got beaches, more beaches, and a German castle. 

Osaka/Kyoto

An hour and 45 minute flight. I really want to go to Kyoto. There are things in Kyoto on lists of the top must places to see in the world. It was the capital of Japan before Tokyo, so there is a lot of history. It's also a domestic flight. 

Hong Kong

A 7 hour flight, with one layover. Hong Kong has never been a must see for me, but I know people who have gone over a 96. But heck, it's a huge city with the world's longest escalator, a built to scale model of Noah's Ark (the more I look, the more I find!) and there's a Disneyland. Plenty to keep me occupied.

Singapore

Slightly longer flight than Hong Kong. A lot of people here go to Singapore. There's the zoo, the Singapore Flyer, beaches, boat tours, shopping, and more that I can't remember. Everyone I know that has gone has taken their kids.

Guam

No idea how long the flight is, but you can Space-A it. I don't know why you would vacation in Guam with all these other places to go, but heck, why not?

Seoul, Korea

Again, no idea how long the flight is because we could Space-A it. I've never taken a Space-A flight and like everyone else, I've heard the stories. I also know a lot of people who use it regularly, so it can't be all bad. Seoul has the shopping, the DMZ, palaces, and Lotte World (never heard of it, but now I want to go).

So, who wants to go with me?

Tokyo Part 2

Sunday morning we slept in. Yea for no kids! It was sunny when we woke up, but it was pouring by the time we left the hotel. We set out anyways. I wasn't about to waste the little time we did have. 

We navigated the train station again and headed towards Odaiba. Speaking of the train station...the one by our hotel was the Shinjuku Station. An average of 3.6 million people go through the station every day and it has 200 exits. It's huge, so don't laugh at us for getting a little confused. Anyways, back to Odaiba, it is a shopping and entertainment district located on a man-made island (can you say landfill?) in the Tokyo Bay. The train ride there took us over parts of the bay and the views were spectacular! We went to Palette Town and Diver City, both large shopping malls. I was so excited to see H&M, Forever 21, Old Navy and other stores I was familiar with. Okinawa has a lot of shopping, but no American stores. We mostly walked around and window shopped. We did see this guy though. The kids would have loved him!

Later that night, we headed to Shibuya to see the infamous Shibuya crossing. Check this site out for a 360 degree picture. The intersection could be compared to Times Square, but it really isn't. There is a large shopping district in Shibuya which accounts for the large numbers of people. I've read that 45,000 people cross there every half hour, up to 2.4 million a day. It's also been featured in several movies. 

Monday morning we were up extra early since we flew out that afternoon. We headed out for the last time, luggage in hand. We only went 2 stops down on the train to the Harajuku station. I was really hoping to look around at some shops, but I had already pressed my luck with shopping. Instead, we walked to the Meiji Shrine. It's pretty much in a forest, so it's a quiet, peaceful walk within the city. The biggest Torii Gate I've ever seen marked the entrance. From that point, I saw 4 more huge Torii Gates. I won't bore you with the historical aspect, but you can read about it here. 

From there, we headed towards the airport. I wish we would have had another day or 5. I really want to climb Mt. Fuji, but I just don't think it's going to happen.

Tokyo

The husband and I spent the past weekend in Tokyo. Since his mom is in town, we took advantage of the free and very willing babysitter. We haven't had any time away by ourselves since our honeymoon. Sad, I know. This was long overdue! Tokyo is a 3 hour flight and it's a domestic flight, so it was almost to easy. 

I made a list of a few places I wanted to go and for the most part, we stuck to my plans. I tried to think of places hubby would enjoy too. Shopping was not in my plans.

We got in Friday night and by the time we got on the train, took the hour plus ride to the station by our hotel, then actually found the hotel, it was after 1 in the morning. We stayed in Shinjuku which is a pretty popular area and in a central location.

Saturday, we met Jes for lunch. Jes and I have been internet/blogger buddies for close to 2 years now, so it was a must for us to meet. She was nice enough to come to us (we may have gotten lost otherwise). 

First order of business was to figure out the train station, which Jes was nice enough to help us with. We figured it out and headed towards the Tokyo Skytree. 

It's the tallest building in Japan and the second tallest in the world at 634 meters (2080.5 feet). The line was horrendous, so we walked around the shops and went to the Sumida Aquarium while we waited. We went up 350 meters to the observation deck. The views were awesome! We could have gone higher, but we were sick of waiting in line by then. 

Next, we headed to the Senso-ji Temple.

It was completed in 645, making it Tokyo's oldest temple. It also had a good market area.

It was getting late by this point, so we headed to Roppongi to find a sports bar. They were playing the Notre Dame game, why else? I was also hoping they had some good, fried, American food. You better believe I had potato skins and fried calamari. We ran into a ton of Americans there. It's always interesting talking to people and hearing their stories. We actually left before the game started because I was tired, but hubby watched it on his laptop, so nothing will be held against me! The bar was also close to the Tokyo Tower. It was on my to see list, but we never managed to see it up close. We saw it tons of times from a distance though!

To be continued...

Vacation Recap - Day 12 - 22

Day 12 - Hubby has a cousin who is a Chargers coach, so he drove back to San Diego to go to their off season training camp. He is the Chargers biggest fan, so he was thrilled. I did laundry and got packed up.

Day 13 - More driving. We headed to North California. We stopped in Monterey to have dinner with more friends. I wish we would have had more time to look around, the town is gorgeous! After dinner, we drove 2 more hours to hubby's parents place.

Day 14 - We surprised hubby's mom at work, so she could show off baby girl. She took us to lunch and we just hung out the rest of the day.

Day 15 - We went and saw my brother-in-law at work, went to the beach at Bodega Bay, and drove through Sepastopol where hubby grew up.

Day 16 - Hubby has a friend who is a California Highway Patrolmen, so he did a ride along with him. My mother-in-law and I went shopping! She took me to a great material store. I could have easily spent a few hundred dollars in there, but I only spent $17 :). She also took me to the outlet mall in Petaluma where we did some serious damage. Mostly for the kids though.

Day 17 - Hubby and I went to the movies and saw the A-Team. The guys spent the afternoon at a Cigar BBQ, got cigars and free beer and wine. Us girls went to hubby's nieces graduation party. I met tons of family members.

Day 18 & 19 - San Francisco! See post for all the details.

Day 20 - Hubby's niece spent the previous night and the day with us. She is almost 5 and super cute. Baby girl thought she was great! For dinner, her and her dad, and hubby's friend the patrolman (and former Marine) and his family came over.

Day 21 - Hubby left.

Day 22 - We left!

Vacation Recap - Days 6 - 11

Day 6 - We drove to Oceanside so hubby could drop his uniforms off and drove around Camp Pendelton. Later, the friends we were staying with had a BBQ with more friends over to watch the Lakers game.

Day 7 - Hubby and his friend left early to play golf, so I watched baby girl and their 2 year old daughter. Nothing exciting.

Day 8 - We went to Mirimar to see a friend of hubby's. Then the truck broke down. I already blogged about that. We made it back in time to see the final quarter of the Laker's game though!
Day 9 - Hubby got a new tattoo! A former Marine he knew did it and I must say it looks good. We headed back to Oceanside to pick up his uniforms and then to San Diego to see some of his family. Baby girl and I hadn't met most of them, so it was a good trip.

Day 10 - Nothing exciting again. We hung out with some friends, swam, and went out to dinner.
Day 11 - Dodger game! We went with a friend of his that he had recruited when he was on recruiting duty. His parents, brother, sister, and sister in law went as well. Hubby has been friends with all of them for years. They were Angels fans, but we got along for the day. Baby girl and I had never been to Dodger Stadium before.

Vacation Recap - Days 1 - 5

We drove over 4,000 miles through 7 states. We saw tons of family and friends (many that I had never met), baby girl and I had a lot of firsts, and it was a great way for us to spend time together before he left for Okinawa.

Day 1 - We had planned to leave at 3 a.m., but we left at midnight. So we drove. We made it to Denver, spent a couple hours with hubby's cousin Shelli and made it to our friend's house in time for dinner.
Day 2 - The next morning, we headed to Golden, Colorado to do the Coors Brewery Tour. Hubby only drinks Coors, so he was in heaven. Afterwards, we took the kids to the Denver Aquarium and headed home for dinner and naps!

Day 3 - The neighborhood our friends lived in had a pool, so we all went swimming. Baby girl didn't like the cold water though. We put her down for a nap then and went to see Iron Man 2. Hubby and I then did a little shopping, had some ice cream, and drove around looking at houses! We found a couple model homes open, so we planned our future dream house.

Day 4 - We all went to church. I have never been to a church like this, but I really liked it! Our friends had things to do, so we drove to Ft. Collins, walked around their downtown, and looked at more houses!

Day 5 - We left their house at 4:00 a.m. to head west. We drove all day, but baby girl is a trooper. The rest of Colorado and the first half of Utah were gorgeous. After that was boring desert. We made it to Southern California before dark though.

San Francisco Trip

We (hubby, his parents, and baby girl and I) went to San Francisco Sunday and stayed the night. We drove in, it's about an hour south of his parent's house, crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, and found our hotel. We stayed at the Marine Memorial Hotel. The Marine Memorial Association is open to any veteran of any service. I had never heard of it before our trip, but we are now members. The hotel was gorgeous. I'll post all the detail and pics in another post, it was that much stuff. We walked down to Union Square after ditching our luggage. His mom and I mostly drooled and window shopped. The guys weren't impressed by the stores. We walked through the mall at Union Square and the drooling just increased. Happy hour started at 4:00, so we headed back to the hotel. Happy hour was free if you were an association member, so we took advantage.
The guys had a few drinks, we checked out the view, and talked a bit with the table of young Marines next to us. Afterwards, we stopped on the different floors to check the hotel out. We looked at the library, the ballrooms (gorgeous! I want to get remarried at this place), and found the Memorial Wall. We weren't expecting what we found. It was three good size walls, covered with small black tiles. Each tile had the name of a Soldier/Marine/Airman/Sailor who died in Iraq or Afghanistan since 2001. Not everyone was there, a person's name had to specifically be put there by a person, but there was a lot of names. They were listed by date of death. We found numerous guys my husband knew. I don't know what we were expecting, but it wasn't that. We finally left after hubby said he could be there all night finding names. He and his dad went back to the bar and his mom, baby girl and I walked back to Union Square. We hit a couple more stores, Walgreens for essentials, and headed back to put baby girl to bed.
Monday morning we got up for breakfast at the hotel (great buffet and free for association members). Hubby recognized the vet who was the guest speaker at our ball last November. He introduced himself and they talked a bit. Small world. We then checked out and went to catch a cable car. The line was long and they kept taking breaks, but we finally got on. We rode it down to Fisherman's Wharf and spent the rest of the day walking around and taking in all the sites. Instead of doing an Alcatraz tour, we took a boat tour around the bay. It took us down the San Francisco side, under the Golden Gate Bridge, and back on the other side, past Alcatraz.
It was a great tour, but super windy and cold. Baby girl loved the boat, it put her right to sleep. We then walked down to Pier 39 and did more window shopping. The sea lions were sunbathing.
We caught the cable car back and headed back towards the house. It is a gorgeous city. I loved walking around and looking at everything and people watching, but there is no way I would want to live there.