Photo Class!

This weekend I had the exciting opportunity to take a photo class with our base's most favorite photographer, Danielle Caceres. In high school I took beginner through advanced photography classes, and still remember the basics (like how to use an SLR in manual and the rule of thirds), but I was just looking for any extra tips to make my photos as phenomenal as Danielle's (besides my need for a better lens!) Luckily, there's always more to learn, and we got a nice little opportunity to photograph at the Kintai Bridge. Here's some of my shots from class...

And I had to catch the class as we were heading out...

Fun class I definitely recommend, especially for someone trying to figure out how to manually use an SLR (single lens reflex) camera or what type of lenses and gear to use for your SLR camera.  If you are interested in signing up for a class, check Danielle's class schedule online.  She also does traveling photo classes to fun scenic locations, night photo classes and photoshop classes.

Sanzoku "The Chicken Shack"

I recently had a birthday, so my family let me pick a place to go to dinner. I chose Sanzoku "The Chicken Shack." I had never been there before, but heard many wonderful reviews of the food and scenery. Fortunately, it held up to all my expectations. A definite must for anyone visiting Iwakuni, Japan. With Halloween rapidly approaching, the place was extra decked out in Halloween decor.

Though this was just seasonal, the place is always decorated with beautiful Japanese lanterns and gardens. There is also a little marketplace with souvenirs and packaged food for sale. Here is what it looks like...

Yes that is a fish in the water!  Lots of giant orange and white Koi.

Here's what some of the food looks like...

Those are just a preview of what you can order inside. Inside are Japanese style tables with mats to sit on. The kids thought it was fun to have tables their size, and we were happy to not have to keep them from crawling under tables or climbing on regular furniture.

Dining room prepped for a large dinner party

Entrance to one of the dining areas

Fun outside the restaraunt

View from across the street

A fun night here in Japan! Friends and family, come visit, and we'll take you there. ;)

Japanese/American Goodwill Modified Triathlon

Before we were stationed in Japan, my husband and I had been doing triathlons for about a year.  I had signed up for my first triathlon 3 months after our daughter was born.  My husband thought they looked so fun that he did one too.  Suddenly, we were alternating races and taking turns with the kids every couple months for that year.  So of course when we heard we would be moving to Japan, one of the first things we looked for was races.  We discovered the Annual Japanese and American Goodwill Modified Triathlon.

This year's shirt design

  This race is longer than a sprint, but just under the Olympic distance at 1k swim/ 4k run / 28k bike / 4k run.  (The run is separated into 2 parts because the location of the swim start is not appropriate for a bike transition area.)  Though this is only one race per year, we were stoked.

After quite an uneventful stay here as far as races are concerned, we were very excited once registration finally opened and we could find a way to get our training on track.  With children and a husband that works long hours and is often out of the country, it makes training hard on BOTH of us!  Thankfully I was able to round up several athletic-minded friends and start a "Mommy training group" and my husband got to do some training while working out of the country for a couple months.  During that time I got 2 mommies consistently into training with me, plus another occasionally joining for fun, and we all got to take turns watching each other's kids to train.  Still complicated, but enough training to complete the race.  I am extremely thankful!  And, I ended up talking 3 women into signing up for the race.

RACE DAY!  My husband and I were both signed up, so we needed a babysitter!  Luckily a wonderful friend volunteered to help out.  There were only 49 Americans total entered for the race and around double that in Japanese.  The small American turnout was disappointing for us to see, but it was nice to see my little training group was not the only group of females entered.  Here are all the American female competitors prior to start...

The race was split into 3 mass starts with 2 times around an out and back course.  Here's what it looked like...

If you're thinking that looks crowded, you're absolutely right.  A somewhat frightening MESS!  An ordinary triathlon has a rough start for 50 meters or so, but when you're doing 2 laps around the same course with overlapping groups, we were running into people the whole swim.

From the water we ran up to our shoes and ran 2.5 miles to the bike transition area.  Here are 2 of my friends the gym got a photo of exiting the transition area...

We biked 3 laps around a bike course before returning our bikes and heading out on the final 4 km (2.5 mile) run.  Someone at the gym barely caught me in the blue running off down the sidewalk...

This run was 2 laps back to a finish line in front of the gym.

Thankfully, we ALL finished!  My husband got a flat tire, but managed to repair it and still beat a lot of people.  My friends did amazing, especially the first-timers.  I was so proud of them.  Most incredible were the Japanese athletes who attended the event.  They dominated it, taking almost every metal in every category.  Though, I was extremely lucky to capture one. :)

Beautiful day, wonderful friends, couldn't have asked for anything more.

Remembering 9/11

The US military does a pretty good job keeping up with important holidays and dates in history.  Today for 9/11 the base school had a "Hero Walk" to honor the surviving heros, and remember the innocent lives taken from the horrible 9/11 act of terrorism 11 years ago.  Parents were informed of the event and allowed to attend, so I decided to dress in red white and blue and bring our daughter to go walk with our son on this day of rememberance.  Classes and parents walked laps around a sports field and the total distance tallied for our heroes.

We are always thankful to have our family and freedom on this day.

First Day of Kindergarten

Yes that's right, Kindergarten.  We officially switched from Yochien to the base school system.  We are quite sad about it as our son was treated so lovingly by the Japanese teachers, and got to do so many special new things.  His teacher sent home a special frame with photos of him with his classmates and a quote "It was fun playing with you.  We are Friends Forever!! From Fuji 2 class's everyone."  We would have loved to stay, and had no problems with the Yochien, it was only because we weren't sure how our son would do in the American school system.  (A bit ironic, huh?)  So, here we are, back to learning the skills emphasized in the US... and no more uniform.

And here we are with our neighbor who is also starting Kindergarten...

The day went great!  Our son loves making new friends, so it was a very easy transition for him so far.  His favorite part was "They speak English so I can understand them."  He also gets to ride a bus, though just a plain white bus, nothing "cool" like the Yochien character buses.

Tokyo Disney and Disney Sea

For Labor Day Weekend we had big plans all calculated out to climb Mt. Fuji, Japan's highest mountain. One little problem we were constantly monitoring the week prior was weather. As July and August are the only official climbing months, even early September can get quite cold, wet and windy. In the days leading up to the weekend, the weather on Mt. fuji looked worse and worse. Very wet, barely above freezing temps, increasing wind speeds and no visibility. So, at the last minute we made a change of plans... to Tokyo Disney...

We got in line before opening on Monday morning hoping most people would be at work or school in Japan though Monday and Tuesday were holidays for my husband. Apparently it didn't matter much...

This was past the ticket gate. My husband was trying to not have a panic attack. I was glad I had our daughter strapped to me, yet still wishing I had the double stroller to keep both kids close.

Here we are in the center of the park in front of "Cinderella's Castle." Though I had downloaded a map prior to arriving, when we got inside the plan immediately changed to "run away from the crowd!". As you can see the crowd had already greatly dispersed. So we kept walking through the castle towards the back of the park...

We headed straight for "It's a Small World." The kids LOVED it, and we didn't even have to wait.

Then the kids wanted to ride the carousel. I had to stand next to our daughter...

Thinking lines might not be too bad since it was still early, we headed to "Splash Mountain." Nope, over an hour wait, so we passed. Good thing our son wasn't too upset about that. We headed off on the paddleboat instead.

A fun little ride around "Tom Sawyer's Island" and the back corner of the park. Of course then we had to take "Tom Sawyer's Raft" to his Island and treehouse...

The island also had a cool rock cave maze we enjoyed. Very dark tunnels inside which the kids weren't quite sure about.

Then the boys got to head out on a canoe ride...

What a fun grown-up activity for our son!










Then back towards the rides for a second trip through "It's a Small World" by popular demand, then to see "Lightning McQueen."

And our son's first "racecar" driving...

On to "Toontown" to see the character's houses. We were all starting to fade, so a quick trip through including a roller coaster ride for the boys...

Prior to arriving to the park it was our kids' mission to "See Princesses!". We had been looking for them all day and so thankful to find them near the castle on our way out. Our son had a lengthy chat with the "Sleeping Beauty.". Hopefully her prince wasn't jealous. ;)

And here's "Alice in Wonderland" who also got to hear a lot about boats. ;)

WHEW! If that was't tiring enough to look at, we only rested for a few minutes at our hotel before getting food, then our son was begging to go back. So, I took him back to see the lights while "Daddy" put our daughter to bed. We lucked out and got to see a lights parade.  (We also went back to the racecars, and on a scary ride through "Space Mountain.")  Special night for us both.

DAY 2: DisneySea

Day 1 was definitely enough Disney for a while (especially considering the limited food choices available.) Though what we did not know until looking into this trip at the last minute, there is a complete second park with equal pricing adjacent to DisneyLand called DisneySea. With our little sealife enthusiasts traveling this far, it was something we couldn't pass up. We has been told that DisneySea is for adults, but we may have ALL liked it better. Here is what you see when you first walk in...

And here's us...

Our son wanted to see all the ships, so we started with the "Columbia"...

Some great views of the park and the ocean from onboard. They also sell meals, but with snacks in our bag, we moved on. Next was a "Northeast" theme...

They even crushed shells to make the sand look authentic. And our kids enjoyed the lighthouse.

We walked around some cool looking bumper boats, but they were closed for the day. They said "Come back another day." (I'd love to ask if they'll pay our way that other day.)

It was SO hot out, we were already all dripping with sweat...

It was clear we wouldn't last long this way, so we quickly headed in the direction of the "Mermaid Lagoon," the area that had fascinated us most looking online. On the way we passed a pyramid...

Then we took a riverboat ride under the volcano towards "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was the kids' favorite. It was a slow moving ride in enclosed submarine-like "pods.". Here's a view of the volcano from the line where we waited...

Finally we made it to the Mermaid Lagoon. We watched a great performance "Under the Sea" in a theater there, rode a jellyfish ride, and enjoyed some cool inside air with beautiful underwater scenery...

That was our tour of Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea.