wandering5

Our time in China was filled with many things – crowds, good food, good friends and seeing some amazing sites.  We drove almost two hours outside Beijing to see The Great Wall of China.  To see something of such historical significance was pretty exciting.  Years ago in my first year of teaching, I taught 6th grade which focused on ancient civilizations.  My class learned about all the civilizations, but focused on China for a classroom museum.  We actually built the Great Wall of China out of cardboard across our room for this hands on experience.  So, this is something that I had learned about in school and taught as a teacher, but never dreamed I would see.  It did not disappoint.

We decided not to just take a day trip from Beijing, but to spend a couple of nights at a place that someone recommended in the town of Mutianyu.  I am so glad we did this.  Driving almost two hours to and from the wall in one day would have been too much for all of us.  Instead, we were able to walk from our cottage about 8 minutes up the road to get to the ski lifts which took us up to the Great Wall.  Amazing!  The views were phenomenal.  The wall itself, stretched for miles either direction and looked like a snake on the ridge line.  We were blown away.  To think we were only seeing a small portion of the wall – it actually stretches a little over 13,000 miles east to west over China.  The beginnings of the wall were started over 2,000 years ago!  Just think of that!!  We walked along the ancient wall for about an hour looking from tops of towers.

The highlight for the girls, of course, was the toboggan ride down from The Wall.  Yes, you read it correctly.  They have a toboggan that you ride for about 10 minutes to reach the base of the mountain.  These were just like the Alpine Slides I rode as a kid at Boreal Ridge in Tahoe.  The kids liked it so much, we walked back up to the wall early the next morning to do it again before it became crowded and we didn’t get slowed down by the others 🙂

Just an aside for those of you who might have this on a bucket list or are planning a trip in the future, head to Mutianyu and stay at the Brickyard if you want to see The Great Wall.  It is such a charming place and a nice place to get away from the craziness of Beijing.  Look it up.  The restaurant is in an old schoolhouse and the main resort used to be a old tile factory.  We stayed in Grandma’s Place up the way that was an old locals home redone in a quaint style.

All in all, it was a great experience and lived up to everything I hoped it would be for all of us.

So, we are in China.  It is definitely not Japan.  Not that that’s a bad thing, but it’s different for sure.  Part of the reason for this journey is to see how other cultures live and how different they all are.  Beijing has a lot more people just to begin with – 11.5 million!  It’s dirtier and just plain crazier.  Even Dave and I were slightly overwhelmed walking the streets.  I think the one thing we miss the most are clean bathrooms and western toilets.  Holes in the ground are not what we are accustomed to, and the bathrooms in and of themselves are just dirty.  The other thing that is hard for us westerners to understand is the lack of freedom when it comes to the internet.  As I type this, it will be saved until we get out of China.  We are not able to access many sites – you tube (which the girls are sad about), any google account, including gmail, so Dave is off the grid, blog posts, instagram, etc.  It is definitely an eye opening experience.

We have been blessed with good weather once again.  After a day of rain, nothing too bad, we have had our third day in a row of blue skies.  Our friend, Julia, told us this never happens in Beijing.  Julia, is a friend of a friend that we were lucky enough to meet.  She spent three different days with us showing us all around Beijing.  We really couldn’t have navigated the city without her – definitely not the subways.  We are staying in the Waifujong District, which has so many people.  Julia showed us one street with food vendors where we got our first glimpse of live scorpions on sticks that are cooked to order.  The girls were having none of that and Dave debabted, but didn’t pull the trigger.

We navigated a day trip to the Forbidden City without Julia one day and survived.  What an amazing thing to see!  It is incredible how old, almost 600 years, it is and how they were able to create such large, beautiful, intricate buildings back then.  We ended up getting guide to show us around.  He was so knowledgable and was able to give us historical facts and tid bits that interested the girls.  The guide was actually a professor of ancient china history and had just toured a group of 20 professors from Boston University, so we were in good hands,  The girls were tropopers as we walked a lot and then were not able to get a cab and had to walk all the way back to our hotel – needless to say, they were exhausted.

Our hotel had a pool, so I think we were able to swim all 3 days, which the girls loved.  We were able to goto the old part of Beijing called the Hutong with Julia and we really enjoyed our day there.  Lots of shopping and food, people watching and seeing how people in Beijing live.  We enjoyed a great Chinese lunch that the girls loved as well.

Our last day Julia took us to a flea market.  What a cool thing to experience with a local.  Stands and stands of people selling all sorts of things, from beads, bracelets, necklaces and art work, to calligraphy brushes and ink wells, which Claire of course had to have.  Now that we are in Japan and there is no more origami paper, she has decided to take up Chinese calligraphy 🙂  Everyone loved checking out the stalls and ended up buying a few things, bracelets for $1, charms for under $1 – great deals, but we may run out of room in our carry on luggage soon!  We ended our day with a delicious dim sum lunch.

We are now on our way to The Great Wall as I type this.  It’s about 1 1/2-2 hours away.  We are staying in a great place up there called the Schoolhouse and are very excited to be in a small village amongst local people and have the ability to walk to the Great Wall.  Can you imagine that?!  I am very excited to experience this and see something so massive and historical.

I think we are realizing that big cities are just a different experience than being in small towns.  We head to the Great Wall, then onto Xi’an to see the Terracotta Warriors.  After that we hit two big cities – Shanghai and Hong Kong, but we will not be doing much site seeing – we are going to take this time to enjoy friends that live in those cities, see how locals live, eat delicious food and relax.  We knew the beginning of our trip was going to be little go, go, go, so we are ready to slow it down for all of us.

Once you read this, there may be a few posts that come up at once since we will be in China three weeks, but want to continue to blog our journey.  If you are following me on instagram, there will be many pictures that come up all at once too.  Sorry for that, just want to keep documenting our journey for our records and for all of you to see.

Thanks for following.  We miss you all and miss San Francisco 🙂

My first day in Beijing was a little crazy, but still cool.  First we woke up at 5:45 and did some things like packing and doing our hair, clothes and teeth.  We then left at 6 and got to the airport at 6:30 and found food because we were really hungry at the time.  Then we found our gate, got on the plane and got organized.  There were romotes in your arm rest.  You also had a screen in front of you and you could do games, movies and more.  I watched a movie called Back to the Future –  this movie is from the  80’s.  I also did a game, it was 3D golf.  I really did not know how to work it, so I quit the game.  I have to tell you guys this, there were these windows that had buttons – one was white one was grey.  If you preesed the grey one, the window would become darker, and if you pressed the white one it would become lighter.  It was good for sleeping.

After we got off the plane, we checked into the hotel and met a friend.  She took us to Hutong district one day and a flea market another.  The Hutong was cool with lots of shops.  We ate a delicious chinese lunch.  I really liked the pork.  At the flea market I loved the jewelry. I did not like the smoking – it gave me headaches.  I got a blue bead, an elephant charm, and a bracelet.  We had a pool at the hotel and we did synchronized swimming.  Beijing is very dirty and a lot of people smoke – I do not like that. You could not get you tube which I was devestated about.  You could not get google, gmail, or safari.  I am in the car now going to the Great Wall.  See you next time.

Today I am going to talk to you about Harry Potter World.  It was awesome! 🙂  Lots of waiting so you might want to go a hour early.  It felt like like you were at Hogwarts!!!  For those of you who haven’t read Harry Potter, you may not understand this.  It was like you were in the wizard school that Harry Potter went to – Hogwarts.

First we went to the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride.  It was about a 60 or 80 minute wait, but it was worth it.  It was a little scary because you go up and you think you are going to fall out.  You have 3-D glasses on, so it looks like you were in the movie.  I closed my eyes for the scary parts.

Next, we went to Ollivander’s Wand Shop.  We went to a secret room and Mr. Ollivander was there 🙂  He was looking for someone to come up to his counter and he picked me!!!!! It was so cool.  He kept looking for a certain wand for me because the wand chooses the wizard.  I kept trying them out and on the third wand, it chose me!!!!!  I bought that same wand!!

Then we went to a delicious lunch at Three Broomsticks.  We got butter beer just like Harry Potter.  It tastes a lot like cream soda.  They even have warm butter beer in the winter.  I got mac and cheese.  After lunch we went to check out the candy shop, Honey Dukes.  I got a chocolate frog and blue bubble gum.  Claire and Lauren got Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans.  They are like jelly beans, but they have every flavor.  When I say every flavor, I mean every flavor – ear wax, sprouts, pepper, grass and vomit.  They also have good flavors like toasted marshmallow, lemon drop and popcorn.  Soap was definitely not good!!

They had a train that looked like the Hogwart’s Express that Harry takes to school.  We went to a place where we could take a picture like we were on the train with a scarf and a wand.  I wore the Hufflepuff Scarf.  I was going to wear the Gryffindor one, but Lauren took that one, what a bummer! 😦  We also went to Dervish and Bangs, another store you read about in Harry Potter.  They sold capes that I liked, I wanted the Gryffindor one.  There was also a bracelet that had the Hogwarts crest on it that I liked.

It was a wonderful day!  We loved it!!!

Bye bye!  See you later!

Grace

For those of you who don’t know or are wondering, the girls will be homeschooled while we are away.  Who will be their teacher?  That would be me.  In my previous life, I was an elementary school teacher for 10 years, so hopefully this will go well. Will we have school every day?  How many hours?  Did I bring books?  These are all good questions that people have asked.  I’m not sure how it will go, we will probably not have school every day, and no we didn’t bring books.  I am blazing a new trail each day.  We are working with the internet – thank god for the internet!!  We have a schedule that we are attempting to implement beginning this week, but part of the fun of this year is to learn as we go and use what we have at our disposal.  For instance, the train/subway schedules are in 24 hour time, so the twins have been learning how to figure out what time 13:30 is.  We pay for our train and subway tickets each day with them counting out the money and how to buy the ticket from the machine that is in Japanese.  Not an easy task as it took Dave and I awhile our first few times.  We talk about how many yen is worth a dollar – currently 120.  Thank goodness for apps – we have a great conversion app that the girls use to find out what something costs.  Claire was to read the book Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr for school this summer and it was the perfect complement to our trip to Japan, so I read it to the twins as well.  It is about a girl who was a baby at the time when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.  They are all very interested in the story and can’t wait to visit the memorial to Sadako when we arrive in Hiroshima later this week.  History is a constant lesson on this trip.  And as a complement to that book as well as the culture of Japan, they have been learning origami as their art lesson.  They are all getting really good at making paper cranes, see pictures below.  And seeing how a whole culture lives, eats, dresses, behaves, etc. is a daily lesson we all learn from.

The girls have also learned how to write haikus, traditional Japanese poetry.  A haiku consists on 3 lines with 5 syllables in the 1st line, 7 syllables in the 2nd and 5 in the 3rd.  While haikus are historically supposed to be about things in nature,  you can veer off that path.  Below we have shared some of the girls haikus.   I will start you off with my attempt.  For those of you who know me, I love sushi.  Unfortunately, it is not as common as one would think here in Japan.  The food has been amazing, but deep fried tempura and ton katsu, or bowls of warm udon noodles – while delicious – is not what I envisioned every day.  Sushi is what I envisioned.  So, this was my attempt last night at a haiku when of course we didn’t have sushi for dinner.

I want sushi

Why is there no sushi here?

We are in Japan

By: Kelly

This view is pretty

With trees and mountains and more

I could gaze and gaze

By: Claire

Taylor Swift sings songs

Taylor Swift has good music

Went to her concert

By: Grace

Beautiful Japan

See Mt. Fuji through the mist

Cherry blossoms bloom

By: Grace

The Eiffel Tower

Croissants, hot cocoa so good

Beautiful Paris

By: Lauren

Beautiful peaches

Ripe and ready peaches good

Delicious peaches

By: Lauren

Ginza at Night. Or a scene from Blade Runner.

Still trying to figure out our groove between getting the kids out the door (biggest challenge to date), sightseeing, and planning for the cities later in the trip. It hasn’t been all rainbows and unicorns. Just when we think we are not doing too much, the kids want to do less. I get it. There is a lot going on and they want to chill. Our friends, the Polas, did a year long trip a few years back and they reminded us that we will be coming from a completely structured life to a completely unstructured one- so we need do decide how much structure we should add.  Still a work in progress.

Tokyo-the last couple days in Tokyo were pretty cool-we seemed to be getting into the swing of things, navigating the subways, figuring out where to go, etc. On day 4 we hired a guide named Tomoko from toursbylocals.com (thanks for the heads up Chris Glubka) and she was great. It was nice to not have to worry about where to go and have someone translate things for us, especially the food with the girl’s allergies. The best part was just chillin with her at a tiny, local restaurant and asking her questions. We learned a lot from her – meals in bento boxes are generally more expensive, different styles of Japanese food, Tokyo taxis are 30% more expensive after 10:00pm, etc.

The Girls with our guide Tomoko

I’m getting more comfortable speaking some basic Japanese, enough to at least show some effort. For full disclosure I did take a quarter of basic Japanese my first quarter freshman year in college, which was my worst academic experience by far. I basically almost flunked out. What was I thinking taking that class my first 3 months in college? I was hungover half the time. But I digress. Since I did take the class and I look the most Japanese in the the group, I’m the guy that asks for directions (doko des ka? Where is —?), asks for the bill at dinner (Okanjo o kudasai?), finds the bathroom (Toy-re wa doko des ka? The old lady sitting next to me on the subway had a good chuckle when I was practicing that out loud), and excuse me (sumimasen). I’m cool with it. Every once in a while, though, someone busts out in full on machine gun Japanese to me and I just listen and say wakaremasen- which means I almost flunked out of Japanese and I have no clue what your are saying (roughly).

Regarding Japanese food-let’s just say I am working on my dad bod. I am also basically screwed. Japan has ruined me. I’ve had this feeling before. The summer after I graduated from high school I had my first Guinness beer. At a bar in Dublin. Every Guinness I’ve had since hasn’t come close. I still remember it. It was flat, un-carbonated. It was pitch black with a creamy head. For a kid from southern Cal that drank wine coolers (Don’t judge me, Bartles and Jaymes was big back then) and weak light beer, it was a revelation. I thought – give me 10 of these immediately.

The funny thing is we haven’t had that much sushi. The girls really aren’t into raw fish, so it’s been other types of Japanese food. Tonkatsu is one- a real thick piece of high quality pork with a light crunchy outer layer served with rice and julienned cabbage with an insanely good sauce. Another Guinness moment. Yakitori is another. We found an 80 year old yakitori place in Ginza. And I mean found- it took about 30 minutes to find the place. Good luck with addresses in Japan-you might as well be on Mars. The place was actually THE oldest yakatori place in Ginza- Ginza Torishige. I mean, its just barbecued chicken parts, why was it so damned good? It’s the simple stuff that has been so good.  “I wish I could export chicken to the U.S.,” said the owner. “It’s better than Tyson.” That night it was kinda tough to argue. And that wasn’t the 3 shots of 17 year old Japanese whisky talking.

Now that’s Tonkatsu.

Yakitori. Mushrooms wrapped with Duck, Chicken Skin, Chicken with green onions.

Japanese strangeness (con’t):

Instead of a coat check, an umbrella check.

Buy some cheese, get a little frozen packet to keep it cool on the way home.

Ear wax removal service. I guess that’s a thing.

Anti bacterial escalator handrail. Am I being punked?

Public smoking room.

The amount of times I hear Arigato Gozaimas (Thank You) when we leave a restaurant or store. The over/under is 10.

We are currently in Kyoto. Next stop is Osaka.

Wandering5

Well we are on Day 12 of our round the world journey and so far so good.  Japan has been an amazing place to start our trip!  I can’t say enough about our experience.  The food has been incredible – sushi, ton katsu, teriyaki, Japanese pancakes called okonomiyaki, and yakitori at a place that has been serving the dish for 80 years!!  We navigated the subways and walked for miles to explore Tokyo – Harajuku neighborhood, Ghibli Museum, Tokyo Tower, an anime exhibit, giant pandas at the zoo and the Edo Museum.  The girls did great, although we all had to get over the jet lag, which would hit at all times of the day.  Thankfully we were staying the the Tokyo American Club which was a nice place to have some down time with a pool, a bowling alley and a library.  We have also lucked out on the weather – it has been slightly overcast with some breeze most of our time here.

We left Tokyo yesterday to head out of the big city to the area around Mt. Fuki, Hakone.  What an experience this has been!  After taking a train trip up the mountain in a funicular, we were transported to the beautiful, scenic small town of Gora.  We were taken to our Ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn.  The girls were ecstatic to get kimonos to wear all during our stay. They also slept on traditional Japanese futons atop tatami mats to add to the experience!

This area is known for hot springs, so needless to say, we soaked as much as we could in our own “onsen” on our deck.  After all of our walking and touring, I could have soaked all day and night!!  The highlight of our time at the ryokan were the meals.  We were served a traditional 12 course Japanese meal that words cannot even begin to explain – see pictures below.  The breakfast was just as amazing.  None of us were sure how we would feel about starting off our morning with fish and miso soup, but we were all pleasantly surprised.  And the girls were adventurous in trying all new things.  Lauren loved the rice porridge for breakfast, Claire now likes raw fish, and Grace ate up the clams in the miso soup this morning!  We are so proud of all they have been trying.

I could go on and on, but suffice to say that I think Japan is pretty great!  Their attention to detail is incredible, they are so respectful and helpful – a woman on the street actually put an address for a restaurant we were looking for into her phone and walked us there!!  It’s clean, it’s safe and super fashionable, which leads me to my luggage.  Yes, I am living out of a carry on for 1 year.  How am I going to do it it?  I’m not sure.  Things are already not fitting in the suitcase like they did the day we left San Francisco, yet I have nothing new in my bag.  Go figure.  The hard part is just seeing what other women are wearing and wanting to wear it too.  But, no worries, I will survive with what I have…..I hope.

Hard to believe it’s only been 12 days and we have 11 months to go on this crazy adventure.  We hope to keep blogging to keep you all up to date and to create a journal for ourselves of this amazing experience.

I think Tokyo is an amazing place.  It’s fun, it’s different, and it’s cool to eat their food. Tokyo’s food is very good.  I love the sushi.  It’s the best sushi I have ever had:)  They read up and down, they don’t read side to side. They have these bugs called cicadas that are as big as my sisters’ thumb. They take 7 years to grow underground and only live for a week.  Tokyo has these amazing museums that you should see.  Tokyo is really clean.  Some people dress different.  My favorite thing was going to the top of the Tokyo Tower.  It is slightly taller than the Eiffel Tower.

Tokyo is not for the faint hearted. It’s intimidating. It’s a trip. It’s an assault on the senses. Hardly anyone speaks English. Its also hot as hell right now.

The Japanese subway map. Just slightly confusing.

But despite all that its also totally awesome.

This is my 2nd time in Tokyo, the last time with my family when I was about 14. I remember it being totally clean and weird and cool. I bought a samurai sword (unsharpened) and a fake wig with samurai hair. Thats how cool I was when I was 14.

This is my kids first international experience. They haven’t even been to Mexico yet. Tokyo was an easy first choice for me as its so completely foreign, pretty damn safe for one of the biggest cities on earth (a testament to Japanese culture), and its 1st world. Doesn’t hurt that the Yen is at multi year lows vs. the U.S. dollar as well.

I needed the first stop on this trip to be smooth, to start the trip right. We are staying at the Tokyo American Club through my Olympic Club membership and it has been the perfect oasis to chill out after our daily adventures in the city. The place where you can get burgers and a western breakfast. The place is great for kids, it has a six lane bowling alley, kids lounges, a kids library and a great rooftop pool with a patio that overlooks the city. They even have a kids daycare but we have not (yet) used, but its nice to know that we can. Everyone here has been super helpful.

Here are some example’s of Tokyo’s strangeness-

-All the driving and walking on the left side of the street. Not that big a problem since we aren’t driving, but I’ve almost run into people on the subway several times by walking on the right side.

Very Helpful.

-All the weird versions of western food

Oreos with green macha filling. Coke Cola Life.

-These strange Teva-like elevator shoes that were pretty common in Harijuku

I could have used these on my high school basketball team.

-How clean everything is, the subways, the bathrooms, etc

-The cabs here look like they are straight out of the 70s, with some kind of lace covering the seats, and drivers dressed in suit and tie. Also the back doors automatically open and close. Nice touch.

-The Toilets. You have probably heard of how hi tech Japanese toilets are-makes American toilets seem downright primitive. Heated seats, plays music so nobody can hear you do your business, the bidet feature-(I’m not saying I tried it but if I did I would find it strangely thorough) Some of them even open up when you approach them. It’s like meeting an old friend. We will definitely be getting one in the Alonso household when we get back.

-The strangest thing so far has been all the french bakeries we have seen. The Japanese know what’s up.

Who knew the Japanese were such Francophiles?

The kids are still adjusting to everything. After 4 days I think we are finally over the jet lag. Its been a pain just getting them out of the room (and off their new kindles/ipads) but once we do they have totally loved our daily adventures. We are trying to pace ourselves and just do half days while throwing in day of just chilling once in a while.

We havent had a bad meal yet and the girls have been game to try everything. All my kids have nut and seed allergies so we have to give people a sheet of paper written in Japanese. Its worked out well so far. One french bakery even refused politely to sell us anything becuase there were nuts in the back-which is fine for us but we couldn’t communicate that. We appreciated the concern anyway. Just the general politeness and respect here is unexpected and refreshing.

Call in case of emergency. They also have McDonald’s delivery.

Every kid needs Grateful Dead ankle socks. Roll away…the dew…

Vending machines everywhere, in the most random places

Bowling at Tokyo American Club

Why not.

Ghibli Museum

Fake tears

What does this picture mean? Is this a Bansky?

If I could get away with wearing a nice bathrobe in the streets..

Foie Gras Sushi. I might frame this one.

We are ready to go! Yes we are just doing carry ons for our round the world trip. Most people find this just as crazy as actually traveling around the world. We will see if this works, I am not wedded to the idea and if it doesn’t work we can just buy things along the way. So far the best part of the trip is seeing the response from people when we tell them about our trip. My best responses so far:

“What are you going to do with all your clothes?”

“But you’re not supposed to do that” (Jokingly)

“How is that even possible?”

“Is somebody dying?”

It definitely messes with people’s minds. It definitely messes with mine. We have been living with Kelly’s parents in Moraga for the last couple of weeks since we have rented out our place to some friends who are remodeling their home. Its been a nice transition period since we have space to spread everything around and parking if we need to run errands. So we’ve been doing all the little things- getting flu shots, making reservations (the general plan is to plan on a rolling 2-3 month basis), packing, downloading apps and movie on iPads/Kindles. Right now we just want to get on the plane and get this going.

Regarding packing this is what I am bringing:

3 Pairs of shoes- tennis, birks, flip flops

4 Pairs of socks

2 Pairs of pants

3 Pairs of shorts (nice, swim, gym)

6 Pairs of unmentionables

3 T-shirts (All merino wool-which I just discovered. Supposed to be much better than cotton- doesn’t hold smells, keeps you warm and cool (look it up), much more durable). We will let you know how many days I can wear it before washing or until my girls don’t want to sit next to me.

1 Long sleeve merino wool shirt

1 Tennis Polo

3 Long Sleeve Button Downs

1 Merino wool hoodie

1 Rain Shell

1 Sun Shirt

3 Hats

Toiletries-I’m not going into all the details but nothing unusual

Electronics

Cameras-Fuji X-100s, Canon S95 point and shoot, and Canon SL1 with two lenses- 18-135 f/3.5-5.6 IS STM and 28mm f/2.8 fixed.

2 phones (my CDMA iPhone which will be pretty much useless and will basically be an iTouch and an unlocked GSM phone-Moto G with a global SIM card from gosim.com.

Computers- MacBook Air (Kelly), iPad minis (Dave, Claire), Kindle Fire (Lauren, Grace)

There is more stuff too but if I’m getting sick of writing this you are probably sick of reading this.

I just really feel fortunate to be able to do this. Its pretty much the #1 thing on my bucket list. I feel that the universe really conspired to make this happen and that if the universe is going to help you out, it might as well be for something like this. I should probably start an orphanage or something to pay back the Karma.

First stop is Tokyo for 9 days.

Its 3 weeks in Japan, 3 weeks in China, and 3 weeks in Vietnam.

Thanks for following us! See you soon!

Wandering5