Wow, this week really flew by and the speed of the week countered by sleepless nights with Ben left me little time for the blog, so finally here I am on a Saturday morning trying to catch up. This morning I feel as if I have a bit of a "Japan hangover." I'm tired, need a coke and ready to just veg for the day.
On Wednesday Jane, her two girls, the babies and I ventured to Nagasaki to Toys R Us! Let me tell you, I was pretty excited to visit Toys R Us. I had visions of American toys and feeling like I was back in the States. Well unfortunately that was not the case. Japan Toys R Us is what I would like to call a pachinco parlor for kids. Pachinco parlors in Japan are like American casinos but they are filled with only one game which is simliar to a slot machine filled with ball bearings. Pachinco parlors are LOUD and bright and so was Toys R Us. It was filled with Japanese toys and many of them I felt were overpriced. I did manage to spend a little money but I don't need to make the hour long trip to Nagasaki just for Toys R Us anytime soon. At least now I know that I should stick to Amazon.com for my toy purchases. After Toys R Us we were hungry! We ventured out onto the street in front of Toys R Us but couldn't find a single resturant so we decided to pack the kids up and head towards home in hopes of finding somewhere to eat. Jane, like me, is a little leary of pulling out of parking lots on the opposite side of the road so we were limited to our side of the road. We stumbled upon a place that looked promising so we went in. We were greeting with table tops with a grill on them. What an adventure! As we ordered I guess I should have known it would be interesting because I think our waitress thought I kept saying cook instead of coke. She probably thought I was crazy until we were ordering our food and when she pointed to the drink I said coke! Yeah! The funny part is I don't think our food was supposed to come out cooked (from what we could tell at other tables) but it did. I think they thought we had no clue what we were doing (which is somewhat true!!) If you saw my post on facebook right when we arrived in Japan I had a picture of the octopus balls I accidently ordered. Well I would compare my lunch to the octopus balls - hmmmm interesting....
All the kids loaded up in Jane's van. She has an 8 seater just like me!! We took Ben and Grace to the bus stop for yochein before we headed out. They were all very excited to be in the car together. It was loud!!
This was about the time the loudness factor got out of control!
Toys R Us Japanese style!
If you enlarge this pic it says Game Paladise. In Japan they have a hard time with speaking the letter R - it comes out as an L. I guess this is their solution, go ahead and make signs spelling it how they say it.
My lunch.... When I got home I had to eat a peanut butter sandwich. At least I tried it! Next time I'll stick with noodles!
Friday night: They had an activity on base for Halloween called Running Scared. After I got Ben off the bus we headed home, got dressed in our costumes and went down to main base. Ben had an awesome time!!! It is his first year to really understand Halloween and it was so much fun. There were tons of people there. Stations were set up along the main road of the base and the line of kids trick or treated along the street. Now I'm really excited for the real thing next week! Just wish Grant was here!
The babies in their costumes. Piper is either a strawberry or flower??? and Nate is a monkey. This is the same costume Ben wore his first Halloween! It is amazing how much they look alike!!
Batman and the babies!! Ben loved his costume! In fact he already has it on again this morning!!
Little Monkey!
Little flower or strawberry..
I had hoped the babies would sleep throughout the event but of course they didn't. I think the lights and noise kept them awake but they did great regardless. Of course they didn't sleep in this morning for me though!
Mommy and her little superhero
One of the trick or treat stops. Our neighbor Michaela came with us. Ben was thrilled and so was I! She was a huge help with Ben!
The trick or treaters heading down the street to another stop.
