sv evi

On our way back to the boat we stopped in Japan. We visited Disneyland Japan in Tokyo, Warner Bros. Studio Tour to the Making of Harry Potter in Tokyo, and Universal Studios Japan in Osaka. Tomu, Jade, and Riki went on all the scary upside down backwards rollercoasters at USJ. Luz wanted to, but she was too short. We also went to a fabulous immersive art museum called teamLab Planets and a Pokemon Center in Tokyo. In Hakone we visited an Open Air Museum and went zip-lining.

We got to be proficient on the subways, and we took two bullet trains (which were quite expensive!). We joked that our favorite restaurant in Japan was 7-11. Seriously, you can buy so much at 7-11. We bought edamame, cheesecake, pancakes, waffles, mandarin oranges, frozen blueberries, coffee, onigiri, inari, sembai, chips, soba noodles, ham cucumber sandwiches, and tiny Haagen Dazs ice cream containers. They even had cups full of frozen fruit with a machine that would blend it into a smoothie.

The weather was very humid, muggy, and hot. It seemed even more muggy and hot than Indonesia! We used our sun umbrellas all the time.

We are huge Harry Potter fans here (well I wouldn’t call Riki a huge fan). We have listened to the books countless times. We know lots of spells. We have Harry Potter Codenames game, Harry Potter Trivia game, and Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle Defense against the Dark Arts game. So, we bought robes on Amazon to be prepared. We went to two Harry Potter places: the Warner Bros Tour in Tokyo and Harry Potter Wizarding World inside of USJ in Osaka. The Tokyo one had many sets from the movies and many photo ops. We bought the kids wands at the Warner Bros. Tour. The Osaka one had a really fun ride, giant Hogwarts castle, and Hogsmeade village. Personally, I liked the Tokyo one better. The kids liked the Osaka one better because of the ride. Jade says: “it’s okay if you want to skip getting Butterbeer because ginger ale is better and it’s expensive.” Here are lots of pics from both places.

And in the middle of our trip we visited Yumie, Harufumi, and their children Hikari and Amane at their Airbnb Haruya Guesthouse in the mountains outside of Kyoto. Our friend Maki had recommended that we visit their Airbnb, and it was the highlight of our trip to Japan. We took a train and two buses from Kyoto to arrive at their place. They have a magnificent garden. Our visit coincided with a hippie festival called Yamauto where Tomu learned to play shogi, Japanese chess. We shared a delicious vegan meal of several courses with our hosts and stayed up late playing music, playing shogi, and drawing. I went on a few hikes in the forest. Luz and I separately discovered hiru, or leeches that live in the forest, on our feet. That wasn’t too fun. We loved seeing rural Japan — so different from the big bustling cities.

The last bit of our trip was in Odawara and Hakone. We enjoyed the sculptures at the Open Air Museum and we all had fun zip-lining. I realized that I need to study a lot more Japanese to be able to communicate!

And some zip-lining videos.