Every Summer every town has some kind of Summer festivals for that town residents, it's pretty small so not too overwhelming and the kids had a lot of fun and new experiences...:-)
They used this for the kids to fish numbers and they get prizes that corresponds to that number, well after game was done it turned into a tiny lazy river and Madison and her cousins did not waste any second and jumped in! Good thing we only live a block away...
Here Madison is fishing out her Yo Yo Balloon...:-)
On Violet's Birthday we got a super special birthday cake!! Thank you Aunt Sayaka for ordering this amazing cake:-) Wish we could have taken it back home with us... It was so delicious by the way;-)
One day we got to explore Suwa area which is next town over... We took a local train and at Suwa station we got to dip our tired feet in a natural hot spring foot bath which is on a train platform... If we had a better timing you would see a train parked right behind them:-)
While walking we got to see beautiful lotus flowers...
After a long day of walking around we had to treat ourselves to some yummy desserts!
Hard to hold a squirmy baby!
I was enjoying reading some comic books and Madison started to read One Piece comic book, well not read since she can't read Japanese but look at pictures.. Still she was totally getting the storyline so weird but cool:-)
Every time we go to Japan we put on a few pounds especially Dave since he loves and eats a lot of rice and delicious meat main dishes so he decided to run while visiting and did a good job with that and one day he achieved his goal, well kind of... He attempted to run around Suwa Lake but maybe ended up completing about 80% I think... Since I'm trying catch up with posts from last year right now I can tell you currently Dave would be able to run 2 laps easy it will be fun to see how much he can run when we go back the next time...:-)
Before his run:-)
We decided to park across at a spot where he will be 80% done... Baaba is staying in the car with Violet...:-)
Madison is running to meet Dave... So cute!
She was spraying to encourage him to finish rest of the way but he was done... Good 1st try though:-) He ended up running about 7.8 miles... Later in the trip he did 10 miles easy so I'm guessing once he saw us and Madison working hard he didn't want to leave her... Sweet Daddy!
After the run we drove to the goal spot where we were meeting Sayaka and her kids for Ashiyu(Foot Bath) fun... They brought bubbles for us and it was very relaxing...:-)
They were doing some kind of construction right next to it so usually you won't see those orange fences blocking the view of the Suwa Lake...
Once a year Chino city has a BIG Summer festival that takes up a long stretch of main road called "Chino Donpan". I was really excited to be able take my family to it finally! The main part of the festival is at night and it gets quite crowded with people taking up main part of the road dancing but the road gets blocked off at around 11 O'clock and you can walk around and play games or buy food from stands. The weather forcast was calling for rain and it's more relaxing to walk around during the day so we went out to get lunch and check it out:-)
We bought matching tees at Disneyland we all got dressed up!
With the cousins!
I got my crepe!
This picture is for Aunt Holly...:-)
On our way out our girls got pets of their own...:-)
Did we tell you Violet LOVES corn on a cob!?
During the day the street is a lot quieter and peaceful...
Unfortunately it started to rain pretty hard in the late afternoon that they officially had to cancel the festival and dance... It would have been cool pictures to share with you but I guess we will have to wait until next time...:-(
And about the last half of our time here in Japan we had to spend a lot of time indoors because of very rainy weather... It was fun at first but we were very tired of it by the end...
Dave spent some time watching the US Open Golf with Dad...
Kouki spent a few nights with us and enjoyed sleeping in...
Can you see how heavy it's raining?
One day it was off and on raining and we were so tired of being cooped up plus my Mom took a day off to spend time with us we decided to get out and have fun outside anyways... but what we should have brought was change of clothes and some towels... We finally made it to a pirate themed cool playground Dave saw while doing his run around Suwa Lake which happened to be right by my high school...:-)
Just had to share this super cool shopping cart(FREE!!) you get to use in a mall called Laza Walk, so many other characters available too!
One nice day we got to visit my grand parent's farm to pick some beautiful tomatoes...
and go out for the best soft serve ever!
The same place is actually more famous for Yakiniku(Do yourself griling) and we were gonna go somewhere else but the yummy smell while enjoying the soft serve made us stay for lunch... and so glad we did!
Finally the big fire works festival day came and we had originally planned on going but the weather wasn't looking good and our kids being too young to be able to handle the much much crazier than Disneyland crowd made us stay in the comfort of a home... and so glad we did, like they called it it started to pour and coming home would have been a nightmare!
Violet enjoyed her new ride...:-)
One day before our last day here we got to try the pirate playground again in a little more dry condition...:-) We had lots of fun and we will have to come back here next time:-)
We kept ourselves super busy even on the last day, since our flight wasn't till late at night we left our car and our luggage at the airport and took a subway to go back to Ikspiari for last minute shopping spree!!! I'm not the best with Tokyo subway system but somehow we managed to make it around...:-)
Before we left home we got to take a picture with my Great Grand Ma!
Big Thanks! to my parents for letting us do whatever our hearts desired and putting up with us and our nap schedules and shopping needs!! We can't wait to come back and visit again soon and do this all over again with less nap interruptions!
Here is a song about the trip by Madison:-)
After a midnight flight out of Japan we were very tired but safely arrived in Hawaii for our 10 hour layover adventure...:-) We hopped in our rental and drove straight to the Disney Aulani and were glad to find out anyone can use the bay in front of Aulani and it was very warm and beautiful...:-) We were quickly trying to plan our vacation here...:-)
