the LAST hurrah

Our travels in Japan are now officially complete. We spent a wet weekend in Nikko visiting the World Heritage temples and shrines and now the next long train ride we take will take us to the airport. As far as capping off our almost-year in Japan, Nikko did not disappoint. The rain was disappointing but the sites were well worth the trip. Most of my friends had recommended doing Nikko by car but we don't really have a way to rent one without an International Drivers Permit so we had to stick to the trains and buses. We didn't get to visit the lakes, waterfalls, and various hiking trails that line the outskirts of the town but not sure how fun that would have been in the rain anyhow.

The rain caused some problems on the line and we were delayed two hours!

Optimus Prime: the newest obsession (notice the wardrobe coordination)

The face Wiley makes when you ask her to smile.

The face she immediately makes when you say, "Don't smile, Wiley".

Instead, we saw the four main temples and toured the Imperial Villa and grounds. In Kyoto, the gardens really took center stage, but in Nikko, while the grounds were interesting and beautiful in their own way, it was really the built environments that were so well conceived. The sites were mostly Buddhist (as opposed to Shinto, which tends to be less ornate) and heavily carved and brightly painted. The kids do really well at outdoor cultural sites where there are interesting things to see and rocks to dig in. As soon as they get inside a museum Blue starts chanting, "let's get outta here" but as long as we are outside they can tolerate a good deal of sight seeing. The first day was a bit of a struggle as Blue did not want to wear his rain jacket, but we didn't have a problem day two ;).

Here is a link to a 360 image Graham shot on his phone of the temple in the trees: http://360.io/NmbwMm

30 Weeks!

Wiley was just as excited about the pink carpet in the Imperial Villa as anything else. One of the temples was selling these little wooden plaques with the animals from the Chinese zodiac painted on the front. They are officially for writing little prayers or what not but I thought the kids would just enjoy having them in their rooms as little souvenirs. Their animals are pretty cool. Blue is a tiger. Wiley is a dragon (a pink dragon if you ask her). And the baby will be a horse. I am a pig and Graham is a goat - decidedly less cool. 

night AND day

We took a trip to the Philippines in late April/early May, during what they call Golden Week here in Japan. Basically, it is just a series of unrelated holidays that happen to occur within a few days of each other. Depending on how they fall with weekends and what not the working folk can end up with quite a few days off. We were able to take a nine day trip with only four vacation days spent. We had originally planned to spend the week on Japan's southern most island but when it came down to it we wanted more of a change so opted for the beach instead. The Philippines were reasonably close and reasonably cheap so that is where we ended up.

We spent the first several days at Coco Grove Resort in Siquijor and it was really nice. Graham was able to snorkle right off the beach, the resort was large and spacious and not at all crowded, our room was nice, the food was decent, and we had a great time. The only negative was that the beach was not powder sand, but had lots of little pieces of broken up coral, so it was rough on your feet to walk along it. Graham took a day trip to another island to snorkle with sea turtles and then met us in Dumaguete for our transfer to Boracay the next day.


IMG 1485 from Micaelan Davis on Vimeo.

In Boracay we stayed at Baling Hai and it was ok. It was not as professionally run as Coco Grove which affected all sorts of things. Like the timliness of dinner or scheduled massages. Or even finding our reservation to check-in. And the food was pretty bad. It was edible but not tasty. BUT, the hotel had its own private little beach coves that were great for the kids and usually we had them to ourselves. And a couple times we took a "trike" or taxi into town to spend the morning at White Beach which is a really nice beach that has been made very touristy over the years.

Graham and I have travelled quite a bit in the developing world, both together and separately, but this was our first experience solo with kids and our first experience coming from Tokyo. You don't get much more "developed" than Tokyo and we found we have grown accustomed to the punctual transportation, the delicious food, the ordered processes, etc. that being here offers. We were a little culture shocked and were happy to come "home" when our nine days were up. The developing world requires a lot of flexibility and sometimes it is hard to keep it flexible and fun with toddlers in tow.