Throwback Thursday. Bangkok Thailand, August 2012...

August 2012, our family took a vacation to Bangkok, Thailand. I took these few pics of our hotel room after we first checked in. Our hotel we stayed at was *so* nice. Super nice actually. And our room was so comfortable. The door to the right in this pic is our bathroom, it was nice and big with plenty of space, the blinds you could close if you wanted privacy while in the shower or if you were using the toilet. But honestly, we just kept the blinds like that the whole time. Our room was nice and spacious. You can see the couch the kids were sitting on. And the fridge area on the right of Bran.

Noboru's and my bed while we were in Bangkok. 

A nice smaller-ish flat screen TV. We were out sight seeing every single second of the day while there. So we didn't need a huge TV or anything. And space for our luggage. : )

Just relaxing. You know...that happy feeling after you arrived to your destination while on vacation. : )

Our bathroom. Again super modern. Very cool sink. Super clean. We were so happy with our hotel stay. Nice big fluffy towels. Even a mirror for putting your makeup on. You can see the round mirror towards the left. So many nice toiletries too.

A massive shower. With a seat. This is definitely a shower for 2 people. And robes on the right hand corner... of this pic. Again, our stay here was so luxurious. We definitely felt pampered while being at this hotel. : )

The kids private room. Our suite was really nice. The kids loved their private room. Which was inside our hotel room. We picked the family suite. 

It was bright and cheerful. See the remote on the table. They also had their own phone. 

I was standing in the kids bedroom taking a pic of their own TV. While Noah was on the couch and you can see our bed in the background. So we didn't book 2 separate rooms. We picked a hotel suite with a kids room and a regular adults room inside too. So our room was a suite and it was an actually... really big room.

Breakfast our first morning in Bangkok. Loved the thankful Ronald pose. So had to snap a pic of that.

There were areas like this all over Bangkok. Where you could pray and pay respects and what I loved about it was that. Young people showed respect, old people. Didn't matter rich or poor, young or old. They all had such respect. I truly dug that about Bangkok.

How was the weather? Okay imagine Japan's hottest most record breaking type of hot steamy sauna type day and multiply it by 2. That was the weather when we were there. Bran and the MBK center behind him. We shopped inside there. Wow that was so fun!

Dairy Queen. I come from the land and country of Dairy Queen, so we were very happy to see Dairy Queen. And given the exchange rate. It was so cheap. 

Vanilla twist with chocolate dip and sprinkles. About 35-40 yen each. It was like...wow. With prices like that. We have to get one. : )

We adults picked hot fudge sundaes. About 80 yen. Again, given the price, why the heck not. And given we were either walking everywhere (IE Flintstone-ing it everywhere or training it, everywhere and given the weather, why not cool down anyway ya can)

That backdrop. I had to take a pic. It's truly things you have never seen in your life...and smells you have never smelled in your life. So it's your 1 big chance. So, I took so many pics while there.

Fresh super sweet fruit was EVERYWHERE. And a bag of it cost like 30-40-50 yen. So we ate fruit every chance we got. We had fresh pineapple a few times a day and fresh mango and fresh watermelon. Whenever any of us felt hot or a tad hungry we looked for another fruit seller and there was always plenty of stands all over selling fresh fruit. 

The traffic. The crazy driving. Again it's a different culture, different rules. We must respect. And just observe. 

The night stall/stands selling stuff. There was also day time stalls and stands too. But they did multiply at night. 

This fried chicken. This smelled so good. We watched for a few minutes to see what he was giving to each person before we stood in the line. That is rice in the pot. He made rice and fried chicken. 

We ordered 3 sets of chicken and it came with little bags of rice and chicken breasts. And see the sauce on the pic up above. It was such a good sauce. 

Like 70 yen each of the meals. We were so full after that. It was so delicious. 

Noboru meanwhile was waiting for this. He loved this rice and chicken dish. About 70 yen. 

We loved Bangkok. We learn so many things while traveling. The only "problem" we had while there is....their drinks. Their drinks are so overly too sweet. Insanely sweet. When we went to Mc Donald's we ordered a soda and it was so sweet. Like twice the sweetness of Japan or America. And while walking for days. We of course went into a convenience store many times. First time we all grabbed a Lipton 500ml tea. We have these in Japan and the US. This one was so sweet. Our kids couldn't drink it. I couldn't drink it. Noboru tasted it and said...gross! It was like and no I am not exaggerating...it was like someone threw 5 gum syrups in the 500ml of Lipton tea. It was super weird. We tried various tea brands so it wasn't just Lipton Bangkok. It was at McD's. All over. We went into a supermarket. We looked for unsweetened teas and found none. We looked for jasmine tea. None. Mugicha found none either. Again we're not expats moving to Bangkok, we were just on vacation. I'm sure if we would have spent a week looking we could have found some. But we didn't have the time to look for drinks. But in a nutshell. Don't buy sodas there unless you want to go into a sugar coma. And forget all teas too... unless you also want to go into a sugar coma. So we just drank bottled water the entire trip. And yes drinking plain old water does get boring. Kids were missing their mugicha and I was missing my jasmine tea. But alas....we did drink bottle water the entire time. So that is my only tidbit of info I can share.  So thought, I would pass that along. Which is why you see us at Starbucks in this pic. We were drinking a lime drink or something. It was not sweet at all and we loved these. And actually drank these once a day as a treat while there. Just to break up... the monotony from the bottled water 24/7 our entire time so the drink at Starbucks was a nice once a day treat. If I am ever in Bangkok again...I will definitely pack jasmine tea with me or jasmine tea bags with me and stuff them into the 500ml bottles of water. 

About to catch the train. Their trains are really nice, super clean and right on time.

On a boat. 

Houses.

I can tell you are missing your 2 front teeth Noah-chan!

I can totally see you are missing your front 2 teeth!

So pretty! We got to do all sorts of touristy things. 

This chain ice cream shop comes from America. And Branden's huge hot fudge sundae with whip cream and a cherry on top was about 90 yen or 90 cents US. 

Noah's was about 30-40 cents. 

Mine was about 170 yen or about a buck seventy five $1.75 US. Again given the exchange rate. I clearly remember Noboru telling/whispering to me..can you believe all our ice creams cost about 350-400 yen total. He was so happy about how cheap things were for us. : )

We ate lots of ice cream while in Bangkok given the cost/price. And we ate tons of fresh fruit daily. And drank tons of bottled water. Hahaha. : ) We also ate many street foods. And our hotel had an excellent dinner buffet that we enjoyed one or two of our nights...while there too.

I am so glad that our kids have the gift of travel. For them to be able to say I've been to New York. California, Hawaii, Washington state, Oregon, Minnesota many times. Denver tons of times. Utah. Wyoming, Nebraska. South Korea. Bangkok Thailand, Guam, Saipan, Japan and the list goes on. To see and know... there is not 1 specific way to live, but many ways to live. And that there are many languages on this earth. And everyone matters. Everyone is important. To respect and love all people. Travel teaches those things.  Giving our kids the gift of travel. And the gift of *experiences* that they will remember for a life time...truly so important. : )

This was the boat locals rode. They had boats for tourists too. The difference? The cost. Also the tourist boats were in English too. So it helped. And the tourist boats were still like a under a dollar, so super cheap too. 

More houses.

Gorgeous.

Going back to our hotel room to freshen up. 

In Bangkok there are 2 extremes. And it's impossible to pretend and act like you don't see it. It's there. You see it every day while there. There were people begging on the street daily. A woman and her baby wearing only a diaper begging. Another was a child Noah's age and she begging and it really touched a nerve in Noah because he's so sensitive you guys. He worried for hours thinking of that little girl who was the same age as him. So while you see extreme poorness, you also see extreme wealth. In America or Japan it's sometimes harder to see the differences, do you know what I mean...I mean... even though we know there are differences there, it's harder to see but in Bangkok it was an obvious gap.  Here we were at the mall getting dinner one night. I snapped all these pics to share with you. Here we have Krispy Kreme. 

See Subway at the left back and Hagaan Dazs on the right. The wealthy or middle class Bangkok folks are in here. 

Mos Burger... perfect if you are on vacation from Japan. : )

Noah had the KFC. 

I had a footlong veggie and cheese sandwich. No chips or anything else. See that large lemonade from Auntie Anne's pretzel shop. See...we didn't want any sodas or tea. Bran had a Subway sandwich too and chips and a cookie.

And Noboru had a local meal from a very nice restaurant in the food court. All our meals combined were half that of what we would have paid in Japan. 

Uniqlo. 

This mall was huge and beautiful. We had been inside quite a few malls while there. We walked back to our hotel.

At the airport before flying back to Japan. Again, I'm so thankful and grateful for this experience of going to Bangkok, Thailand. And checking it out. Seeing it with my own two eyes. And so happy the kids could see, visit and experience another country. And see the very cool people who live there. And eat and try new foods. And just...gain some new experiences. Very cool! : )

Backyard BBQ Fun...

Sunday, August 7th our family had yet another simple backyard BBQ. As you know we BBQ every week here at our house in the summer. Not just for birthdays or special occasions. We BBQ more like the American way...meaning...we BBQ for the average every day meal. It's hot... it's summer so better to cook outdoors. : )  This day we had yakiniku. Marinated chicken breast, and rosu (super lean beef) grilled marinated mushrooms. We had sauce for dipping. Lettuce to wrap our meat and rice with. Side salads because well... it's summer and we eat a whole lot of salads in the summer. Just super simple. Super low key which is so...us anyways. You know what I mean. : )

The prettiest backyard view. A true rural, life in the true countryside of Japan view... behind our home. Lush vibrant green rice fields as far as the eye can see. We absolutely love where we built our home. It's so peaceful here and gorgeous and lush and green!

Just a family of 4 enjoying a summer dinner together. Eating, talking, laughing, enjoying a good meal. I love summer and I love my family. : )  

My most recent trip to Costco and my cart pic from that trip...

August 2nd, the fam-bam and I went to Costco. We also went to 2 other grocery stores in Inzai that day too (Joyful Honda and Gyomu Supermarket). We had lunch at Costco after finishing our shopping at Costco. The kids and I had slices of pizza and Noboru had a hot dog and we ordered 2 giant soft serve ice cream cups and we shared those before the car ride back to our town. Anyways, this is what we picked up that day. I was buying my chicken breast at the cheap meat store for years, however I switched to buying it at Costco. Reason, the cost is the same but at Costco the tax is included and at the cheap meat store tax isn't included. So maybe a few yen cheaper but still...savings is still a savings. So I buy my chicken breast now at Costco. So those 2 packs are really 8 packs of chicken breast and 2 breasts per pack. So a lot of chicken breast. Enough for 1 weeks use. Cheese far back right. Shredded Mozzarella cheese and shredded colby cheese. Pace picante a 2 pack/jar of those. A rotisserie for dinner for that night. A huge honkin' cheesecake. This is so good. Love this. And tortilla chips. Oh and finally my Costco now sells the huge containers full of sour cream now. So I bought 2 of those, those are the 2 containers in front of the cheese. Reason for buying 2? Last week we were having soft rotisserie taco night, nacho night and we also had taco night with ground beef with crispy shells. So we needed the sour cream. My Costco Makuhari always carried the big containers of sour cream. Even the whole past 13 years or so. Which is wonderful. However my now closest Costco...Costco Chiba New Town has never ever sold the sour cream. Not ever! We have asked. Commented. And never! Finally we saw it. We were shocked. Pleasantly surprised to say the least. So...hoping this store will now forever carry it.  

Our dinner from August 2nd. I throw the rotisserie chicken into the oven for 30 minutes to recrisp the skin and heat it up. While the chickens doing it's thing in the oven. I am making the Spanish rice. And you can see my salsa is super blended. I throw 1 whole jar of Pace into my blender and press liquefy. That way no huge chunks of stuff. Noboru always pulled out the onion chunks. The kids always tossed the tomato hunks. And this way... on liquefy everything is blended and everyone eats it all. Takes me just 1 minute to blend it. And we prefer it this way. Some lettuce chopped already in a bag for 98 yen. And all on a plate. Spanish rice, rotisserie chicken, lettuce, handful of cheese and a scoop of sour cream and salsa. And a side of tortillas. This makes very delicious rotisserie chicken and Spanish rice soft tacos with tons of fresh toppings. Sort of like soft tacos or whatever you wanna call it. But it's a super fast meal. It's a delicious meal. And a cheap one. The rotisserie chickens have been on sale almost all summer here in Japan. 698 yen. And 698 most definitely stuffs and feeds a family of 4. And the sour cream we used for other meals too and same for the cheese. Same for the pace salsa. So an actually really affordable but delicious meal... made at home. Except the rotisserie was made at Costco, but you know what I mean. But so so good. This is always a good fast meal for our family here in Japan. : ) 

Eating kakigori at a Japanese traditional sweet shop (a wagashiya)

Saturday, August 6th our family went to a Wagashiya. Wagashi are traditional Japanese sweets. And so a Wagashiya is just a shop that sells traditional Japanese style treats. Besides carrying the regular ones in the display case. This place also sells kakigori which is shave ice. Japanese shave ice is the bestbestbest!!! And this place also sells homemade soft serve ice cream. This place is about a 30 minute drive from our house. So not too terribly far, but not in our town either though. 

Noah picked a lemon kakigori. Which is a lemon shave ice. There was one old woman working this shop. This is her shop, she owns it. She was mid to late 60's if I were to take a guess. She was incredibly nice and friendly. She made all our stuff for us, 1 at a time, since it was just her working here. She made Noah's first. It was huge! And the ice was so light and fluffy. 

Mine came out second. I picked white peach flavor. It was so good! And huge! Branden ordered a homemade vanilla ice cream. And she gave us a bowl so I could share my shave ice with Branden if I wanted. And I did. I shared. : ) Noboru ordered a matcha, which is a green tea, shave ice with red beans inside. He loved his. He kept saying. This is *so* good! We all agreed, her shop is so good! : ) A perfect way to spend an afternoon in the Japanese summer time! : )

Summer update...

How's everyone's summer been going so far? As for us here. It's been really nice. I do have a bigger "bits and pieces" post to put up soon. But, I did just want to touch bases with you all today real quick though.

Today's Saturday here. And today our family plan is to go to a kakigori shop that specializes in making shave ice/kakigori. We're looking forward to that. And I just just finished getting my pizza dough set and it's resting now for the day covered nicely in the kitchen. So homemade pizza and salads for supper for us here.

Tomorrow, we're going to be having a quiet little backyard BBQ. And backyard BBQ's are always nice.

This week's plan is to either hit the pool or the beach. So, I have decided to make a karaage obento when we go. Since last time we brought sandwiches with us to the beach.

We leave Japan for vacation August 21st. I think we get back to Japan on like the 31st or 1st. I'll have to double check the dates, but somewhere around those dates.

Going on vacation means. Rest and relaxation for us all. But it also means since I live in Japan. If there is any food item I need, I better have that food list written down and not forget. Also if I need any cosmetics or face wash or face moisturizer. You know what I mean. It means. I have to have things written down. So when I am walking around Target. I can stay on track and remember what it is that I'm looking for. So, I have been watching my favorite 3 American YouTube vloggers and if anything seems like it would be interesting to me. I have been writing it down. So I have been watching videos like "what's new at the drugstore" and "what's new at Sephora" Those types of videos, when I have a bit of free time.

Two of Noboru's coworkers family's are in Oahu right now. 1 of Noboru's coworkers family is in Guam right now. One of Noboru's coworkers family could not get on the flight to Honolulu. yes a 3rd family and so they ended up going to USJ and visiting the Osaka area. Which is disappointing for them because they had their heart set on Honolulu. : (  1 of Noboru's coworkers is leaving 1 day before we leave, but they're heading to Florida to go to Disney World. And 1 of Noboru's coworkers is leaving the day AFTER we fly out of Japan, but they're going to New York, he and his family.  We have our room already booked and the car rental booked too. So we're just trying to quietly chill here in Japan enjoy the summer and BBQ, swim and eat plenty of shave ice. And just quietly get ourselves ready for our trip. : )

Throwback Thursday. August 2010 day at the pool with the fam-bam...

August for us usually means hitting the pools in Japan. Today's throwback takes us to 1 day back in August 2010 when our family went to spend the day at the pool! Yep 1 cooler and 1 Costco bag, clearly nothings changed there! : ) Hahaha. 

I always pack a very filling picnic lunch. And also bring plenty of snackie stuff for the kids throughout the entire day and enough drinks to last the entire day as well. : ) This day, I brought my homemade ginger karaage and rice balls. I didn't have plastic wrap this morning when I was wrapping up the rice balls. But you know...wasn't worth cancelling a day at the pools. So never fear. Just used tin foil instead. Not the greatest but ehhh it worked in a pinch! : ) 

The kids wanted to be buried a bit! We were like...yeah we can do that! : )  Hi gorgeous happy kids!

Hanging in the normal pools. 

I see something is squirreled away in your cheek Noah! I know that's a piece of chicken! : ) And yep, lemonade. I always bring 2 of these. : ) 

Plenty of snackies!!! Chocolate pudding cups. Dried mango, Marie cookies, trail mix bars, like granola bars. So anytime throughout the day. If you feel like a snack just go back to our tent and grab whatever you feel like munching. : ) 

Having a great day gorgeous! : ) 

And yes, even if I packed everything but the kitchen sink...snack-wise. If my kids still would like a soft serve ice-cream or a churro, Okay. You can get one too. Heck why not... it's summer! Summer should be enjoyed! Love you BrannyB. : ) 

Summer Festival Fun...

Our housing community throws a beautiful and fun Summer festival every year! It's really nice for us who live here because we don't have to worry about parking or finding a parking space. We live right here. And so we can just walk up and enjoy the festival when we want and if we need to use the restroom or anything in 1 minute we can be home. It's so nice having a summer festival in our actual housing community every summer. Here was Branden walking up through our center park in our housing community. Our housing community has about 7 different park like areas throughout our housing community. This is the centeral and main one though. There is a tennis courts in this center one too. Notice the lights around the edging of the lawn too it is so gorgeous at night to have such a nice walking path where we live, especially with all the nice trees. 

Noah enjoying the summer festival. It's just a local festival. Mostly everyone who comes here is just residents of our housing community. However handfuls of folks from other parts of our town will come down and enjoy too. Basically just town people though. So it's really nice. Everyone knows everyone else here at this festival. : ) No real strangers to speak of here. : )  And as for our town other areas...also have festivals too. The older side of town has a festival earlier than ours every summer and the 1 other housing community will be having one too. But this one is nicest for us and I only say that... because we can literally just walk 1 minute from home and be here. : ) 

Branden enjoying the festival. He hung out with his best friend Genki and Noah. And talked to a ton of his friends and classmates from the local JHS/middle school. Noah also talked with his classmates but mainly he hung with his older brother Bran. : ) Noboru and I stood for a bit off and on. The kids stayed the entire time. It was just from 4pm-9pm. So not too long. And they did walk home for dinner. I made buffalo chicken wings, potato salad from the batch I made the day before and we had a side of rice with that and salads and watermelon. And then they went right back to the festival. They ate dinner in less than 30 minutes and went right back. : ) 

Here is the fabulous yakisoba stand. There was yakisoba. Hot dogs. Oden (not into that at all, I am so sorry...but lovely folks who make it every year though), kakigori (shave ice), homemade sembei, yakiniku rice balls, classmates of both my kids mom's make these yearly, lots of  really good food made by very good neighbors and friends. And the kids always have pocket money from Noboru to buy whatever they'd like. I also bought some Coolish and had it in the freezer a few days ahead of time and the kids walked it back after supper so they could enjoy that at the festival too. Yes, I totally plan ahead on stuff like this sorrynotsorry. But to make sure dinner-wise, I usually will always make a complete fairly-easy to make meal for us all at home. At night there is always a raffle. We won one year! We won 2 pasta/curry dishes. Hopefully we can win another time too. We always enter once a year and are hopeful each year. : ) All in all, it was a fantastic and fun summer festival. : )

Beach Family Fun!

Tuesday, July 26th was the day our family was heading to the beach. We're lucky in that we have near-ish Ibaraki beaches to go to and near-ish "Country parts" of Chiba to go to too. Anyways the day before we went to Costco and bought a rotisserie chicken, dinners rolls, sliced cheese etc. I like using the Costco dinner rolls for picnic sammys in Japan because if we used regular bread they'd be soggy by lunch time and these keep our sandwiches perfect by lunch time. I made Bran and Noah 11 of these sandwiches. 5 each, plus 1 extra. A perfect amount for the boys. Noboru and I had 4 each of these packed up. The ones in this picture had Swiss cheese on them.

These ones had cheddar. A sprinkling of salt and black pepper. Miracle Whip and some crispy lettuce. We also brought two 2 liters of lemonade with us. Chips. I definitely pack a great picnic lunch. Extra sunscreen. Napkins, cups, you name it, I brought it. : ) 

This was a short 40 minute ride from our house and we decided to hit the one of the many beaches in Ibaraki. Our first time hitting a beach in Ibaraki by the way. This beaches waters are rated on some scale in Japan and it's rated as AA for having very clear water. Sand still looks dark gray to me but the water was quite clear. How was the weather? Hot! Humid melting sauna like hot. But the grayest colored day you'd ever see! So gray. The gray didn't bother us at all. It was a weekday, the beach was pretty much deader than a doornail. And that suited us just fine! Perhaps the gray kept everyone away? Awesome! The boys always have a play partner in each other. Good thing they are brothers. I was an only child growing up and so I can see the difference. 

Hotter than heck. Grayer than heck. There were a few scattered people here and there. 

The current was naturally moving the kids one certain direction. So, Noboru was talking to Noah about that. Something to look out for.

With boogie boards in hand.

The waves were really good sized here. Not huge but not weak waves either. The kids had so much fun riding in and back out again and again. 

Noah is so ready to catch the next wave in this pic!

We brought chairs, we had our cooler with drinks and our sandwiches and fresh peaches. We had our chips in the Costco bag, cups, napkins, trash bag for collecting wrappers or trash after lunch, sunscreen. There's my towel right there, I had just come from the water and snapped this pic. So, I dried myself off a bit.

A pretty dead beach! And very few people. There was however, 3 lifeguards on duty 2 girls and 1 guy very friendly and nice.

And zero people on this side.

After a few hours of boogie boarding, it was time for lunch.

Having tons of  good food is so nice, because as you know swimming makes people so hungry. Hahaha. : ) We had Ruffles, sour cream and onion and taco chips, we had all sorts of chips. We had the sweetest fresh peaches. 

And the world's worst cupcakes ever ever EVER. Oh well, live and learn. These were a complete dud! We did however reapply some sunscreen regardless of the gray day right after lunch.

Noboru bringing the boys their boards.

Such a good daddy. Tying Noah's shorts. These Gap swim shorts you don't even need to tie them because they're like glued on there, but Noah likes them tied anyways and Noboru always ties them for him. : )

Noboru in his swim trunks. Yep he swam too. For a long long time actually. And I swam as much as the kids did. 

Summer is so nice. No stress. Just family fun time. Gray day? Who cares really. It was such an awesome day!

Happy Noah. Beach family fun...totally! : )