Food!

As almost everywhere in Asia, food is delicious. Whether it's an Obento lunchbox for the train, an elegant New Years dinner, a quick bite at a small street restaurant, or at home. Its yummy. Both in Japan and in Hong Kong. And so think the kids.

Always-popular osoba noodles, somewhere in Tokyo.

Hong Kong style street food. Noodle soup and dumplings.

Waiting for the yakitori around the irori, the Japanese in-door bbq. Seems like our future house will come with one of these, too.

Gulping down dim-sum, part I.

Part II.

Do Not Climb

Well, I guess that was too good an idea, to much of a temptation...

Cubic

Big cities. Come with big houses, big cubes..

Urban architecture at its worst (best?).

Hong Kong

We ended also this trip as we usually do: With a stop-over at some interesting place on our way home. Now, time had come to Hong Kong. We enjoyed two days of walking around our Kowloon neighborhood, riding the ferry over to Hong Kong Island, taking the very steep Peak Tram up to the top for a walk through the forest and to enjoy the tremendous views. We even had time to visit various playgrounds. I don't think we even entered a shop - might we be the first tourists ever being that crazy?

Urban jungle. On our way from the airport.

Cool boy in Kowloon area. Got some kind of a ruff down-town New York feel to it.

Not ready to leave the playground just yet.

Crossing the strait, on the ferry between mainland and island. A penny for their thoughts.

Hong Kong by night. Just like on the postcards.

Kuro

Kuro is Miyata-san's dog and now I have, again, sort of, promised my kids they will soon get a dog, too. As soon as they are big enough to walk it by themselves. As soon as we move to the countryside so it's actually possible to walk it by themselves. Wonder when, then...

In Japanese Kuro means black, and this year I could actually understand quite some of what people were talking about, even say something little every now and then. Definitely a progress since last time - four years ago.

Escaping it all. Miyata-san's place

After too many days in too many big cities and shopping malls, we headed back to the mountains and spent two nights at Keisuke's friends Miyata-san and Wanda-san's place in Shiga. We got some more snow and enjoyed the silence and the space, as well as the company and some great food. A perfect way to continue the new year.

Hana and Kai

Lately, it's all about attitude. A two-and-a-half and a five year old, is about what I can handle...

New Years with family

New Years celebration is the big thing in Japan and you spend it with your family eating a lot of yummy food. As houses are small and Keisuke's family is rather big, they normally go to a nice hotel somewhere and hang out for a couple of days. This year we all went to a place next to lake Biwa, Japan's largest. We had some great food, made good use of the hotel's luxurious ofuro on the top floor, played ping pong and even did a little bit of shopping in the nearby mall.

Shabu-shabu on New Years Eve - which is actually not at all the big day. After dinner and some play everyone goes to bed early, what is important is to see the sunrise of the very first day of the new year. Keisuke and I managed to stay awake until 12.00, but it was just way to cool to get out of bed for sunrise next morning, no matter how beautiful over the snow covered mountains.

January 1st. View from our hotel window.

The whole family: Jiji, Shinjiro, Keisuke, Hana, Naoki, Anna, Baba, Kazune, Mary, Aoi, Kai, Kazumi, Harouka, Yoshiyuki, Setaro.

Ofuro

In Japan you take a hot bath in the evening. Period. Gandma "Baba" makes sure no-one misses out. And when it is winter time and freezing cold everywhere it is actually not bad at all.

Before you get into the hot tub, you have to scrub yourself carefully, as everyone will share the same water (normally, one at the time though). And it actually does remain clean. As long as you are clean before you jump in. The high-tech ofuro then, will make sure the water remains the same very hot 42 degrees - or whatever number you peg in, will even talk to you in case of any changes. We are definitely going to put one of these in our future house!

Tokyo

We also spent three days in Tokyo, hanging out with Keisuke's many friends, checking out the latest of the cool in Harajuku, strolling along Omotesando, watching people crossing the streets in Shibuya and much more. Atsuko and Damon hosted us at their lovely little house, and there was even time for a reunion party.

Going for a walk with Atsuko - who since we left already gave birth to a beautiful little boy! We just missed him...

Nonsense English

Especially on kids clothes, the Japanese love to print nonsense English statements. And, of course, in advertisements. I never know if they make them this way on purpose, or if it just doesn't matter.

Sometimes, things are really simple, sort of the way I would think of Japan: Tatami mats and futons you have to fold away during the day, ikebana flower arrangements, a beautifull ceramic bowl of rice on the wooden table, fung shui and stuff. But most of the time it is just hysterical. A tremendous information overflow, preferably with noice and blinking lights, and everything so very close. The homes are small, there are many people. After a couple of weeks in Japan, Hanoi feels spacious!

It is clean, though, and often outside feels like inside.

Takayama and Shirakawa-go

As our kids have never seen snow, we decided to go find some. We went all the way up to Takayama, where we even went skiing for a day, and to Shirakawa-go, where it was snowing so heavily we got our quota filled for several years. The next morning we could hardly get out the door in the small, traditional house where we actually spent Christmas eve.

Kai just loved it, while Hana mostly thought it was cold and preferred to stay inside, like in the warm cafe.

the Cousins

For Kai and Hana, spending a lot of time with their five Japanese cousins was probably one of the very best part of the trip. Luckily three of them live just next door to grannies house in Kobe, where we stayed. The others are an hour away in Osaka but we spent New Years together and our final night in Japan at their place.

Harouka, Kazune, Hana.

Shinjiro joining the session.

The whole team: Shinjiro, Setaro, Harouka, Kazune, Aoi, Kai, Hana and even uncle Keisuke.

On our way to the Shrine, which is the Japanese Shinto religion temple, to ask for a Happy and Prosperous 2011.

Japan Rail Pass

In the middle of our Japan winter break tour, we spent a week traveling around with Japan Rail Pass, which is about the same as the old European Interrail. We took the super-fast Shinkansen, that takes you anywhere in a couple of hundred of kilometers per hour, and slower local trains, we went to Takayama, to see some real snow! and to Tokyo to see friends. Traveling by train is just so much better than flying, in several ways.

A nice view of Mount Fuji, swishing by on our way to Tokyo. With its 3776 m. Fuji-san is Japan's highest mountain.

Winter break in Japan

After almost three weeks traveling around Japan, up into the mountains - we saw real snow! - and into Tokyo, visiting friends and family, we are back home in Hanoi again, with loads of great memories, stuff we bought - and photos. As soon as I get a little organized some will for sure appear here.