It’s been a while since I have posted anything about our adventures and transition to living in Japan. Only because it has been crazy, and our life has been running at a million miles an hour. So where to start?
Exploring at it’s Finest
So since my last time writing, we have taken a few trips around Iwakuni, even to Hiroshima. So let’s start with one of my favorite trips we took as a family, smack dab in between the two, a place called Miyajima. Also known as Deer Island. For those who have no idea what it is, it’s an island here that you take a 10 minute ferry ride to get to, where there is an abundance of deer on this single island. Crazy right? Growing up I liked to relate myself to snow white (as far as talking to animals), so petting a deer has been on the top of my bucket list. Getting off the ferry my husband and I went straight for the ice cream shop and each got our own ice cream. (Side note: He got “deer poop” which is chocolate coffee bits on vanilla/chocolate ice cream, I got a blueberry sundae which is the best sundae I have ever had. So if you visit, GET ICE CREAM!) Well, we were warned eating around deer was dangerous, because they are NOT afraid of humans or scared to take your food. So here we were eating our ice cream, no deer around us, munchkin in the baby carrier just sight-seeing. Then suddenly here comes this deer sneak attacking my husband for his ice cream. So we decided to stand up, next thing we know they are circling us, and they started trying to bite munchkins feet. Which she returned with a laugh and a kick to their faces. We spent about 6 hours there exploring, getting souvenirs and petting deer.
Let’s see our next adventure, was to Hiroshima. We actually had gone another time before to see the historical Dome, but had to cut our trip short because our poor little munchkin got sick. So that one is going to come again later on. However, being the Americans we are, we took a trip to Hiroshima to go to Starbucks. Where we actually found a huge 3-4 story mall, one of the cleanest malls I have ever seen. I shouldn’t be surprised because the Japanese are VERY clean people. I won’t even exaggerate a little, we spent 5 hours walking around and still didn’t get to see everything. The third floor has a huge arcade with claw machines bigger than I had ever seen. So naturally my husband had to take advantage and we ended up playing for 2 hours. He eventually won our little munchkin a giant sized stuffed pig from the movie “Moana.” Which to this day she is still in love with. One of the most amazing things I had seen at the mall though, was the parking garage. In America, we spend forever going down every lane and every level trying to find a spot. Here they have signs on the ceiling for every lane saying how many spots are open, or if there are none. Once you turn down, every 5 spots has a sign saying if there is a section with a spot open. Being a parent, or even just a person, my life was so much easier when parking.
A more recent trip we had taken we went to a place called Glass Beach, where you are supposed to find a lot of sea glass. When we got there the first thing I noticed was how clear and blue the water was. Living in California, then Virginia, I have never seen water that I can see straight through. It was so beautiful. We walked around for a little to just take it all in. We decided to stop and let little munchkin put her feet in the water. Biggest mistake, she was TERRIFIED and screamed and cried. There was nothing she liked about it, the waves scared her to her core. We decided to just keep walking along the beach some more. Walking down a little more we saw these two little Japanese girls with fishing nets, and a tank with what we thought was just water. Come to find out, it was full of water and clear jelly fish. The shore was infested with them, we had no idea and all of us had been getting in the water. I am not sure what they do with the jelly fish, do they let them go at the end of the day, do they eat them, keep them as pets? We will never know. I honestly have no idea how none of us got stung. I am very grateful munchkin didn’t get stung, especially with how she was kicking her feet. We ended up just sitting and relaxing looking for shells and sea glass for a couple of hours.
Saying Japan has been an adventure in an understatement. We are slowly taking in the culture and the area around us. I am so glad munchkin will be able to enjoy this for the next couple of years.