Branden's 8th grade, overnight class trip...

Sunday, May 10th, was Branden's over night trip. They were going somewhere near Mt Fuji. Now because Hakone (you know, the place we love to onsen) anyway they have been getting many earthquakes lately and the volcano (remember Hakone is an active volcano) has been steaming and simmering lately and they evacuated actual Hakone. And although Branden's trip is/was semi near-ish there...we wondered if their class trip would be canceled. However...where they were staying wasn't even near the mountain area of Hakone. So we all breathed a huge sign of relief, that #1 our kids won't be in any danger...and #2 our kids trip won't be canceled. : ) About 10 days before all the kids brought home a list of "stuff" needed for their trip. Including what you may NOT bring. @_@ Apparently someones camera got broke last year on their...7th grade class day excursion to the zoo in Chiba last year and so there was a "no camera" rule in effect for this 8th grade trip. No colorful raincoats, only clear (they need to see the uniform). You could bring a sweatshirt for the campfire BUT...it could have now words...such as GAP or Old Navy. No words allowed on said sweatshirts. @_@ Geeze Louise. So, Branden just took his school accepted/approved school uniform sweater. @_@  The list of what to bring and what not to bring was in Japanese, so Noboru quickly typed and emailed me this list of what Branden needed pictured here. Aww, what a sweetie. That way...I could make sure Branden is/was all packed up and ready to go. : )  So this is the note/list of what Noboru wrote for me. : )  Don't forget to catch...they want the snacks *not* go to over 700 yen. @_@ My kids have never gone over the set $ amount of snacks. But, from what I heard about last years zoo excursion...some kid (a boy from the other class) brought like a huge gigantic amount and the teacher took half of it and gave it back after the trip, with a call to the parents about him having too many snacks. @_@ LOL. So, I was very mindful about the 700 yen limit. About $7 US. 

Just to make sure, I packed the receipt in Branden's ziploc bags of snacks. That way if anyone said anything...he could go.. blammo and whip out the receipt (they didn't even question it though). : ) Hahaha. : ) And for what it's worth, his total was even cheaper because 2 of the snacks, we bought for Noah, since we was with us when we bought the snacks for Bran and he was watching us put all this amount of stuff in the cart for Branden, , he didn't even ask to have anything...which is so Noah...so at the end of shopping, I said "Noah go ahead and put 2 items in this cart" and he was very excited and he wasn't even going to ask, but I know he was wanting something. : ) So even though Bran's total was 640 plus tax, it was really a tad less. : ) But...no worries, still under the 700 yen mark. I buy my snacks from the cheap old school Japanese snack shop, that sells like 5 yen candy or 10 yen this or 10 yen that. : ) 30 yen mini pack of donuts. 

I bought many doubles... because I wanted Branden to have snacks going to his destination and the day they left and were heading home too. Also, Branden's final 6th grade trip...their bus was so delayed in traffic, like almost 1 and a half hours late. The kids were so hungry on the bus, that about 80% of the kids ate their omiyage. Branden did not though. Souvenir snacks for their parents. Many and I do mean... many parents called complaining, I heard all details when I picked up the kids at the plaza, lol. We did not complain obviously, but...it made me remember that and so...this time...I made sure Branden had some snacks for the way home too. 

One Ziploc for the way there.

And one Ziploc for the way home.

All nicely packed up. 

And put into this 1 random bag. 

Hand wipes...

Earplugs, because 1 of the boys Branden was sharing a room with, is the same boy Bran shared a room with in the 6th grade and while he is a lovely kid, he is a snore-er. Big time snore boy. You can apparently hear him snoring down the corridor of the hotel. : ) Hahaha. Sweetest funniest kid...good good friend of Bran's, but snore and snores as loud as you could ever imagine. He also apparently goes #2 for the longest time. Branden came home from the trip this time and he told me..."mom, I timed it, he didn't get out of the bathroom for 42 minutes!!!" "And the sounds mom...the sounds"...I told Bran..."TMI Branden, TMI." Hahaha. : ) So, this is why Branden needs the earplugs (snore sounds.) Branden however doesn't snore at all. Noah snores but it's so quiet, it's honestly like a kitten purring, I'm not kidding hahaha. : ) 

Moisturizer (by Korres) and Korres Shea Butter lip balm, this stuff is divine, this lip balm. They come in the Delta bags when you travel like... to the US from Japan, long overseas type trips in first class. Korres is really good. I figured, if B should get chapped lips, I really doubt it, but just in case, he'd have it. : )

Travel toothbrush, Crest & Scope toothpaste and some dental floss. : ) 

Tissues. We have character tissues, but he picked these plain ones. 

The 2 antibacterial hand wipes, just in case he gets sticky hands on the bus or touches something weird. Face wash on the left...

Body wash far left, shampoo, two kinds of shampoo and some face wash. 

Ear plus, we already know why those are needed. Also, do they turn off the lights on these over night trips? In case someone in his room, needed the light on, I packed Bran an eye mask. Again it's like 6 or 8 boys per room, so different personalities, ykwim. This way...eye mask...if you need it fine..if you don't...fine too. : ) 

Many things, but small travel size things, so double checked the list and packed them up. 

In here, not an attractive bag... but it was free from Delta on one of our trips, we received these, we get these each time we travel. Every time we go back to the US, we get 4 new ones of these, different colors each time though. : ) 

I highly doubt it...but you never know if someone said.."hey this is mine" This way you can go..."nonono, see, right here, here's my name"  I highly doubt that would ever happen, kids are so honest here as a whole, but you never know...it's just best for me to write B's name down. That way he's covered either way. 

Everything got a name written on it. 

I am not sure why Branden needed 4 chisai towels? 1 or 2, yes I can understand that. But 4? @_@ Lucky for us, we get heaps of these every "town undokai" so we have stacks of these and so I just made sure to pull out 4, jot his name down real quick, and so 4 chisai towels as was requested by the note sent home. Leisure sheet, check! And clear raincoat, check check! : ) 

The Friday before his trip, Branden said, "our teacher told us that since we were meeting up *so* early, if we want to bring a breakfast and eat it on the bus, we could." The meet up time was at 6am-6:10am. Roll call, head count. Getting settled on the bus and whatnot. The bus was LEAVING and driving away at 6:30am. as in...you do not want to be the 1 lone kid... where your mom is driving 90MPH because you're late and the bus has to screech their tires and everyone swivels their head and looks at you like..."shame shame shame, everyone knows your name!!!" Hahaha. LOL Anyone remember that old saying. Cracks me up! : ) So, knowing all that. I made sure I set my alarm at 5am. However, knowing how critical this day was for Branden and how I was packing him a breakfast that morning. I woke up...naturally on my own at 4:30am. I did wake up Branden. Noah was fast asleep in his room, Noboru was fast asleep in our room. Branden got dressed. I meanwhile had his 2 bags sitting in the genkan/entryway. I had the thermos right out near the hot water pot...so when I was making my coffee, I would see it and not forget Branden's thermos. I swear I live in fear of forgetting something, lol. : ) Which is why I sat the bags in the genkan. I had the thermos in a spot that I would see it for sure. And I had my hot coffee, meanwhile I filled Branden's thermos with tons of ice and some tea. And sat said thermos in the genkan. That way I would not forget. And I sliced, open 2 croissants. Pull out 2 slices of sliced American cheese. I meanwhile, fried up 2 slices of ham in a skillet. Set it aside, then I made a 3 egg omelet. Cut that in half.... half of the omelet went in each sandwich. Branden took 2 ham, egg and cheese croissant sandwiches for the bus ride near Mt Fuji. I got Branden all packed up. I double read the list again that morning, 2 extra times. And then Branden and I left, the house while the rest of the family slept.  I made sure he brought his wallet with 4,000 yen. The limit of what they could bring. And he had everything on the list. Phew. We left the house at 5:50am. I figured, I'll drive slow and we'll get there at 6am. We arrived around 5:58am. And there were a bunch of kids outside already.  

I parked a little away form the buses because it's just easier for my car to get out. I took one last look at my son. My first born. And I said very happily, "I love you...I want you to have fun and learn many many things. And don't forget I packed you a phone card too." : ) Phones are not allowed. : ( 

And off he went. Everything for his over night trip, toothbrush and chisai towels, extra clothes and socks, bath towels etc went into the Black Adidas bag. Only his day excursion stuff, I packed in his green backpack, "wallet with money, phone card, his name and address and phone number inside his wallet, lol, yes I worry"... his snacks, his thermos also in the green backpack. Leisure sheet also in the green backpack, because I was unsure if they were going to have lunch outside someplace, which is why I put it in the green backpack. I watched my baby...my big boy, my 13 year old...walk away and go in the crowd of kids right away. He's *very* popular. Superly popular. I knew he was going to be okay. I trust my son. He's got great judgement and has a fantastic head on his shoulders. : ) Would I miss him? Yes, of course...tons actually! : ). But it's only for an over night trip. It's not for a really long time. : ) I was feeling...more excited for him. Happy for him. : ) Remember when Branden went on his over night trip... his last year of yochien, remember that... I cried the whole night. Hahaha. Now I feel foolish. But...he's growing, I'm growing too. Learning to let go, bit by bit....as the years go by. Still hard. But getting a little easier too. : ) 

Bye 2 buses, take good care of our country kids now! : ) Come back safely all of you!!! : ) I love you Branden *so* much!

Monday at 5:30pm was the set time they would arrive. However we got an email saying they were ahead of schedule and they just made the last stop in Makuhari to all go to the restroom and now were back on the bus and the new estimated time to get home was 4:50pm. Woohoo! I was doing my happy dance. I already had Noah home with me, I picked him up earlier already. I arrived to the plaza to pick up Branden at 4:30pm. I just brought my magazine and waited. Noah used his tablet in the backseat. I was the first parent to arrive, however more cars trickled in...and soon enough we had MANY parents all waiting in parked cars. And then...1 bus pulled in. Excitement. It parked and the bus driver was pulling luggage out from the bus storage area. Then the 2nd bus pulled up. Super excitement. All the kids were now off the 2 buses. But they all had to stand in lines, have a long talk by each teacher, this took a total of about 10 minutes. I spotted 1 head from the back in particular and I just *knew*...that head belonged to my son! That was Branden's...the back of his head. Glee. I locked onto that back of his head and watched from the distance of where my car was parked. After the 10 minutes Branden came to my car and we drove home. He had so many stories to tell me. His lightning the camp fire... was great he said. He had no problems. They danced around the fire...he did a comedy skit, which is why Branden took one of my dresses, his sunglasses and the colorful rainbow wig he wore last year for..."the haunted elementary school walk through and fireworks", think along the lines of a rainbow afro. Branden danced with a bunch of kids, they had the dance already memorized....the dance group was...2 boys total and 3 girls, they were all supposed to be parody of a Japanese girl AKB type band, all comedy of course. And apparently they were so funny and the 2 classes and teachers and even the principal thought it was hilarious. : ) He said also during another part of their trip, they walked half way up Mt Fuji. I asked him....what were your best favorite parts of the trip? Branden said...the soaking in the onsen with his classmates and good friends, joking, laughing and talking in there. The over night at the hotel...Branden said their room stayed up until 2am (ghost stories, talking about girls, teasing the boy who was in the bathroom for 42 minutes, hahaha etc etc). @_@ He said the buffets were so good. He apparently ate a very large lunch Monday and was so stuffed when he got home. Branden also brought home 1000 yen. I told him, "honey you should have spent it" he said, "I didn't need anything else, and didn't want to waste it, since I didn't need anything, so I brought it back" Aww, he is a very good kid, you guys. : ) Branden brought back coconut cookies. Mt Fuji cookies. Strawberry cheesecake Kit Kats. Some charms.  

These were the best cookies. : ) 

Branden, also made this all by himself. Each kid got to choose/pick an activity to do. They had glass blowing, wood work. Making something from clay. All sorts of choices. Branden wanted to make something with clay. He was given just a lump of clay and he made everything on his own. He also put his initials on here. B...C...and then our last name initial... which I blacked out the initial of our last name. But the B...C, is for Branden Christopher. : ) Anway, that is the long and short of Branden's 8th grade over night trip. In 7th grade (last year) they just went to the zoo. In 8th grade (this year) it's this 1 over night trip. And we hear the 9th grade trip for next year will be a 2 night trip to Kyoto. : )  

Anyway it's Friday, have a lovely weekend you guys. TGIF. So glad the weekend will be here as soon as the boys get home from school today. Almost time now. They both get out at 3:45pm today, so both will get a ride home, Bran rode his bike yesterday. Tonight's supper will be buffalo wings baked in the oven, with a side of ranch for dipping the wings in. I bought some really big potatoes yesterday, so we will each have a big baked potato with melted colby jack cheese and butter, salt and pepper, and some steamed broccoli. And we will have some garlic bread to go with as well. And, I have a Fanta orange 1.5 liter in the freezer getting super cold right now : ) Noboru just got home from work, he's about to go pick up the boys for me, since I am here watching the oven and stove with our dinner stuff cooking and whatnot right now. Have a lovely weekend everyone. : )  Our weekend plan for this weekend? Not much, just staying close to home. : ) 

National Foundation Day...a holiday in Japan, day off school. So, mini getaway! Palm Terrace Hotel, Kua’Aina Burger at Ikspiari and Blue Water Shrimp at Aeon Makuhari Shintoshin

Tuesday, February 11th was a holiday here in Japan. School would be closed, so the perfect time to have a little getaway/overnight stay. Last month, we decided to book a hotel stay at that hotel near Tokyo Disney. We have 4 free hotel stays to use up, before the end of March, don't think we can use up all 4, but we at least used up 1, for this little trip. Plus it gave us something to look forward to, this little mini over night get away. : ) Then, the snow storm happened and we wondered if we would indeed be able to make it? But it turns out we did. : ) So, Monday as soon as the boys got out of school, they came home, dropped off their randoseru/backpacks. Noah did his homework since he got off school at 3pm and we waited for Branden to get off at 3:45pm. Branden came home dropped off his stuff and we hit the road immediately. Everyone had an overnight bag packed beforehand. Just jammies/PJs, next days clothes, not too much. : ) Also I know different areas of Japan, got hit with different amounts of snow, here are the pics of the snow in Izai/Chiba New Town. Where we live.... we also got slammed with snow! And Chiba New Town/Inzai was also slammed, with a ton of snow. This pic was taken in Chiba New Town. Lots of snow on the side of the road. This was taken Monday evening, so a couple days since the snow came (Saturday), it still had not melted at all. In fact it snowed a bit more even. 

Chiba New Town, a bit more city-ish but again tons of snow, snow in the middle of the road/median, huge amounts of snow the the right. Again not melted at all. And the roads start to freeze as it turns to night, the streets become black ice. Driving on a sheet of ice. Same for our area as well. 

Still Chiba New Town, look at the level of snow. 

Chiba New Town, 1 car abandoned pictured here. Snow all over the road and again once the sun sets the roads will become a sheet of ice. Usually snow melts in a day. Not this time....let's see, it snowed last Saturday and Monday it will still here. It even started lightly snowing on Tuesday as we were driving back to home. @.@

Look at the street on our side of the road, where's our driving lane? Under snow, that's where. Hahaha. : ) Shovels were sold out everywhere. It just....never snows like this here... really. So sorta really weird. 

Sun is indeed setting... there is ice patches on the road already. 

There was still the same amount of snow there Tuesday when we came back home. And I was just at Costco Chiba New Town yesterday and yes still snow on Wednesday. And snow is supposed to hit us yet again this coming Friday/tomorrow. Anyway....we made it to Urayasu just fine, where the hotel is and Ikspiari is. : )  Checked into the hotel, dropped our stuff in the room and headed to the mall for dinner. 

Walking around Urayasu ready to grab a bite to eat! : )

Yumm, Kua'Aina Burger! We have been thinking about you, for the past couple weeks, almost month, we were so ready. : ) 

Noah picked the chicken strips and he shared fries with Noboru. Last time we ordered Noah his own fries and it was just, way too many fries, we didn't eat them all, so this time, we didn't make the same mistake. 

 Noboru and Branden both had picked the cheeseburger and fries. We all had sodas. 

I had the teriyaki chicken sandwich and half onion rings, half fries. It was a delicious dinner, we were relaxed and happy. We walked around the mall a bit, the boys each got a fish pen at Sony Plaza and we headed back to the hotel. 

We went to Lawson's in the hotel, we each picked a drink and a snack, went back to our room. We had eclairs, Noboru picked instant ramen or udon. We each showered and we again...just relaxed in the room. Went to sleep after an hour or two. And I woke up first, brushed my teeth, did my hair and makeup, got dressed, woke up everyone else. And we went downstairs to the breakfast buffet. 

The buffet here is always pretty cheap, I think the kids are 500 yen each. Adults are 1000 yen. So not a bad price for Japan. And we really filled up. It was a nice leisurely breakfast, because we had planned heading to the new Aeon Makuhari mall, omg, is it huge! So since the mall didn't open until 10am, we just slowly enjoyed breakfast. It was nice. 

I had pancakes, croissants, cheese bread, and the omelets, I made sandwiches out of omelets. : )

There was a stamp rally at the hotel for kids. 

I sliced my croissant in half and put the omelet in there. lol. : ) 

A pretty good selection. 

We stayed at the Palm Terrace Hotel (for free) and had a very affordable breakfast the next morning. It was an excellent way to spend the day off school we thought. : )  

This is the Lawson in the hotel. And behind that is a Disney store. 

This may be one of the biggest Aeon malls (I think this is #3 biggest of the Aeons, but don't quote me on that, lol), and they do have some pretty awesome stores in there, but, it's a pain walking around there. Imo. I much prefer a regular Aeon. :  ) The mall is broken up in pieces and put together by these walkways pictured here. There is 1 kid cluster, so if you want to check out kids clothes for example, you have to walk to the kids cluster part of the mall. We were looking for shoes for Branden, so we had to walk the entire length of the mall to look for sports shoes in the sports cluster part of the mall, long long walk ways between each cluster. We parked at the Grand mall cluster, where the Blue Water Shrimp was. And main food court, however the sports shoe cluster was the opposite end of the entire mall, so we walked through many a clusters, pet store cluster that had a pet shop and pet pool @.@ All and everything for your pets needs inside the pet cluster, then walked through the kids cluster all the way to sports cluster at the opposite end of the mall. Then walked passed every cluster taking the walk ways back, there are windows and also parts where there are no windows and since the weather is freezing, we would walk through overly heated mall temps, then freezing outside temps, cluster,cluster, cluster walk way... freezing walkway to another cluster of the mall. And the corridors to the walkways were quite narrow and since everyone was stopped and blocking walking traffic, it was hard to walk around the hoards of people and folks. Just the whole cluster cluster, narrow corridor, walkway was weird. Maybe in Spring or in warmer weather, I'd feel differently. The positive and bright side is...you will definitely get your daily exercise coming here! : )

A walkway, we walked this to get to the sports area. See Costco in the back, sorta smack dab between all the clusters of Aeon Makuhari. Hahaha. : ) 

This is the grand mall part, whatever that means. But the main food court is in there, though there is a smaller food court in the kids section, at least I think it was in the kids section, we got Noah's KFC from there though. Put it this way...if you went with a friend, take your phone, you will more then likely get lost if you guys separate and go and look at different stuff. : )

I had heard of this store, from Denmark. we walked around, didn't buy anything. There was however, a Hawaiian shop and it knocked my socks off, the prices were fair/comparable. Meaning a big and cute picture frame for 1200 yen/ 1400 yen. Just all sorts of cool stuff in the stuff from the Hawaii store. 

OMG! A free standing Kiehl's! I love Kiehl's! If I didn't restock in Denver, I would have bought something in there. I know Kiehl's delivers in Japan, but shoot, I'd go back to this mall just for the Kiehl's and the Hawaiian store. They also had a big H&M store in there too. Yay!

Blue Water Shrimp. They've had one in Yokohama for a while now. But now they have one in Makuhari now too. Very cool. We've been to the original one in Honolulu many times. 

Prices were comparable to the prices in Hawaii. Not double the cost at all. Same price/cost. 

Next to the Blue Water Shrimp is Honolulu Coffee. 

We checked out Blue Water, but we walked the entire length of the mall, corridors, walkways and clusters and all, to get to the sports section. We wanted the blue ones in this pic to the right, behind the pink shoes. The blue with pink laces. Price is reasonable for Branden's shoe size. However, same as last week, they had 25.5cm. But Branden needs a 26cm size. His shoes he's been wearing since last June are 25cm and he needs a 26cm. We tried the 25.5 and there's almost no room to grow at all. So we left this mall with no shoes and we checked every shoe store in the whole mall and nothing. : ( Gah!!!! 

We thought this was cool! Here at this pizza place you can bake your own pizza that you make. : ) We make ours at home from scratch, so we don't need this place personally.... but this is very cool for folks who might not get the opportunity to make one at home. 2 thumbs way up for this place! : ) 

We did pick up Noah some lunch at KFC in the smaller food court along the way. In another cluster/section/area. 

We 3 picked spicy garlic shrimp. We picked the 10 pieces of shrimp., came with a scoop of rice and a salad.  

The three of us loved it! It tasted the same. Price was the same. It was really nice. Good thing, Noboru checked online last week, all the restaurants this mall had, we had been waiting to try this shrimp since last week. : )  We did walk around the mall for about an hour after eating our lunch. So, it would be fair to say we walked ourselves silly Tuesday. Hahaha. 10,000 steps easy! We walked from one end of the mall and back again, we also like I said walked around this grand part of the mall all levels for a good hour on top of that too. We then headed to the car and headed home via Chiba New Town.  About 2 and a half hours later after lunch, we had dinner.....

We went to the Ohsho in Chiba New Town/Inzai for supper. Noah had ramen and karaage.

We all had plenty to eat. It was a lovely 24 hours. It was just a nice little get away. We didn't even get away very far. Hahaha. : ) Still in Chiba. But...it did us all, a world of good. : ) 

Snow on Tuesday, in Chiba New Town. Did it melt away? Nope, as you can see, it is still here. And still there yesterday, as I went to Costco yesterday. And like I said, snow is expected to hit us tomorrow all over again. @.@ Holy goodness! : ) 

Snow still here on the way home....though we were making 1 last pit stop to Narita in hopes to find Branden his shoes in 26cm. 

Snow level is pretty high. Again not Hokkaido type high, but totally high levels for here. 

Now we were in Narita, this is a rice field right near the Aeon mall in Narita. 

The fish pen, both Branden and Noah each got a fish pen like this. 

Sometimes, it seems we have lady luck on our side, which is sorta nice considering it took us ages to track down Branden's shoes anyway. You will not believe this but...the same exact shoes we were looking for, were on sale for 2980 yen. Under $30 US. @.@ And the reason was, they just happened to be the last pair..the other shoes had actual reasons/notes jotted and written on the tag that said defective or something...these were fine and the reason was blank so, we tracked down and kindly asked the person working at Sports Authority and they said these were the last pair so that's why they were marked down! At Aeon Makuhari, they were nearly 6000 yen! $60US. @.@ And yes size 26cm. Last pair, so marked down? We'll take em'! And we did check these shoes out... with a fine tooth comb so to speak and they are perfect. 

Nice color with room to grow.

Adidas on the toe. Just really nice and the price was awesome. 

Also, Branden got a sweatshirt from Uniqlo, from the men's department. Very cute. :  ) Anyway that was our over night trip in a nut shell. : )