Washington State Fair 2014

On Monday, our family drove down to Puyallup, Washington for the 2014 State Fair! Whoohoo! In the car, Brock seemed to be really excited to see the animals we named being there!

Lots of people were surrounding these pigs because of the little piglets!! We also saw some huge horses - we couldn't get too close because they had blocked off this area due to a show.

 This was so much fun! After putting on a ladybug helmet, Brock got to "drive" his own tractor..... with a little help from Daddy. I think Brent was a little worn out after this, but Brock loved it! Next year he'll be able to steer a little better and get one that peddles!

Driving in to the grass!

After a quick bite to eat, it was time to see more animals! Brock really liked the rabbits, ducks and turkeys. He got to see some baby chicks and was super excited about it - we had to remind him not to put his fingers in the cage. (Lots of hand washing and sanitizer was used this day)

After dessert, our annual tradition of Strawberry scones (Brock liked the whipped cream on the top, but wouldn't try the rest of it), it was time to move on to the bigger animals - goats and cows! Brock loved the goats - perhaps they look like Oscar?

But was definitely not feeling the cows. He was a little scared.

I tried to show him where the milk comes from - they do have it set up like the NC State fair where you can milk a cow..... unfortunately, here it is a fake cow with rubber udders that produce milk. Not really the same thing, is it?

It was hot that day and even though we talked about the animals the whole way down to the Fair, Brock seemed a little overwhelmed and mostly scared/nervous of the animals (cue fingers/hands in mouth). Perhaps next time we'll try to prep him a little more. He does seem to THOROUGHLY enjoy the pumpkins on display at the grocery store..... so perhaps this year's pumpkin patch visit will go much better than the State Fair. :)

Tokyo - Part V

Friday, September 5th the entire family was supposed to fly home to Seattle, however Brent got word that he would have to stay in Tokyo another week. Brock and I talked it over and decided we would stay a few more days too! So, on Friday we headed to the Tokyo Toy Museum. This place was pretty interesting. Everything was wood!

We started in the baby room - set up for crawlers to toddlers. I was a little worried Brock was going to show off his awesome throwing skills, but he was good and played with all the toys "correctly".

The museum is in a portion of an old elementary school built in 1935. The floors in this room are covered in cedar wood and the center dips down to make a really cool area for babies to lay and play.

Brock really had a lot of fun playing in this room. By late morning it was a little crowded, so we headed out to explore the other areas of the museum.

This is the "Wood Toy Forest" room - the center has a huge tree house for children to climb up. The floor here is made of cypress lumber 3cm thick which comes from the mountains of Kyushu. The ball pit was different - all the balls are smooth sanded balls of wood (getting the theme yet?). According to the museum, there are over 20,000 wooden balls in the ball pool.

Just down the street, we stopped at the Fire Museum. We liked it because it was free! A cute museum above a real fire station; it showed how fire fighting has evolved from the 16th century to modern day fire-fighting in Japan.

And a cute picture of Brock showing off his rain boots when we went back to the hotel. 

Teal blue with dinosaurs

On Saturday, Brent was finally able to do a little sight-seeing with us! 

After a nice breakfast, we headed to the Tsukiji Fish Market. The wholesale market was huge and loud and moving! We either carried Brock or kept him in the stroller the whole time - forklifts were moving all around and workers were hurrying with handcarts to move the fish. It was all hot and muggy inside the building too.

TUNA!!!

Covert picture taking since you're really not supposed to....

We were there late - around 9:30am. To see the tuna auction, you have to be there at 5am and to see the fish market at it's peak, you need to be there at 7am. But we did get to see some nice tuna slabs.

These guys were cutting big blocks of ice with a hand saw and then picking them up to put in the machine to grind down for ice - Brent said it's been about twenty years since he saw that!

After the Fish Market, we headed for Ginza. The above picture is from a toy store - these are action figures that change from crime-fighting ninjas to..... sushi. We picked Brock up the red tuna model. :)

We walked around Ginza window shopping and then did a tour of the Sony Building. It looked pretty much the same to me as when I stopped here in 2006 (albeit newer models), but Brent enjoyed it.

Brock's first gelato

After lunch we stopped for some gelato at the train station. Brock got strawberry yogurt and he loved it. He only wears his bib for ice cream now. Brock.... no ice cream unless you wear your bib. [Oh okay Mom.]

We had a fun night hanging out in the hotel. We ordered pizza and had a pajama party. Brent even made a fort for Brock to play in! Sunday was going to be a loooong day.....

The Westin Hotel jammies

Good-bye Tokyo, Good-bye The Westin Hotel! After a search around Ebisu for diapers (no one sold them, but ended up getting some from a friend Brent had made in the hotel!)... Brock and I waved to Brent and boarded the bus for the 1 hour 45 minute journey to Narita Airport. We were there a little early for our 6:20pm departure, but worked out well for Brock to burn off a little steam in the play area.

Yay for America Airlines! We were able to get two seats (Brock is technically a lap child) for the 10 hour flight to Chicago. Brock was an angel, he slept the majority of the flight. However I couldn't sleep for fear he would fall off the seat; I watched two movies. :) After another 3 1/2 hour flight back to Seattle, picking up luggage, and stopping at the grocery store, we were home by 11pm. From hotel to home in Seattle - 27 hour travel time.

I want to thank my mother for allowing us to use her flight benefits and helping us with the usual drama that comes with looking at flight loads. It was wonderful to have this opportunity to visit another country - everything worked out so well.

I'm sure some people will wonder why I would travel such distance "unnecessarily" with my toddler, and my response is, why not? We had a few moments in the mix where he wasn't his happy self... but to see Brock's expressions when he was exposed to new experiences or things we've only since read about in books (panda bears, trains, octopus, etc)... it was totally worth it. Additionally, it was great for the family to be together an extra week where Amazon had intended of stealing Brent away. The entire experience was worth it and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Tokyo - Part IV

Tokyo Sky Tree in background

On Wednesday, our goal was to take it easy. I wasn't looking for a long commute to get to our destination, so we settled on visiting Roppongi, two stops up on the metro, for shopping and cool playgrounds.

The shopping area was a little different than I expected. I knew it was a nice mall... just didn't know how nice. The area is very upscale and modern - in the center is Mori Tower, a 54 story retail and office building bordered on one side by four residential buildings. I felt very safe walking around here and saw lots of mothers with children walking around the neighboring parks.

This is Robot Park in Roppongi - small, but fun.

Brock had fun sliding down (and walking up) all the various slides.

We both really loved this slide! It followed the stairs down to the street so I can only imagine that some adults choose to ride the slide too on the way to their destination. Here's a cute little video of him sliding.

Such a silly little boy! And I love his legs!

This huge sculpture was in the front of the Mori Tower - Brock didn't seem fazed it was a humongous spider.

I bought Brock a pair of Hakka rain boots from a kids boutique. I probably paid more than I would have back in the States, but they are adorable and are totally "Made in Japan". He's going to look so cute this winter!

No highchair for Brock!

When Brent finished working, we all went out to a Chinese restaurant and had dumplings, pork lettuce wraps, spicy chicken (Brent), and white rice. Have I mentioned before how much Brock loves this rice??  It was all really yum!

Moving right along to Thursday, Brock and I decided to head to the Aquarium. I had intentions of visiting lots of (free) Japanese gardens, but there's an outbreak of dengue fever noted at one of the big parks here in Tokyo and it has me worried. It's also really humid (especially for us soft Seattle-its) so two for two - get inside away from the mosquitos and the humidity.

The Aquarium isn't too far from our hotel, so I thought it would be a nice little trip.

We arrived just in time for the Dolphin Show and Brock thought it was the coolest thing ever.

I thought it was adorable that all the grade-school children were there in their cute uniforms!

Brock enjoyed watching the fish. I think he liked that he could see everything!

The Aquarium had a little hands-on area.... with a twist. Silly me should have recorded Brock's first, and only, attempt at putting his fingers in. It was filled with little garra rufa fish that swarm to you and nibble all the dead skin away. Brock pulled his hand out of the water so fast! He did not like that one bit!

"Giant Pacific Octopus"

It was a cute little Aquarium. By lunchtime, we were done and boarded the train to return to Ebisu. We stopped in the basement of the Mitsukoshi department store to pick up some lunch. It is amazing all the variety of foods they offer - pastry shops, fresh sushi, bakeries, ramen noodles, bento boxes, jellies and jams, etc. There is a gellato shop in the train station that I ogle every time we pass. People work such late hours here, many stop and pick up dinner at the train station before returning home, so the food there is surprisingly really tasty!

Tokyo - Part III

On Tuesday, Brock and I headed to the Ueno Zoo - Japan's oldest zoo dating back to 1882 when the Imperial family bestowed the land to the Japanese government.

We were there to see the Giant Pandas! This place was not like the Louvre where they make you walk all the way to the back to see the Mona Lisa... the Giant Pandas where the very first exhibit upon entering the park!

This place was all about the Pandas! No, Brock did not want to wear the Panda ears with me.

It wasn't until we saw the next set of animals that I realized how different this zoo is from anything in the States. These animals are confined to some pretty small cages. Yes, we were able to get really close to a lot of these animals, but seeing how they're living? Totally not worth it. I was telling Brent, the lion's habitat was about as big as the footprint of our home. The Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle may not have a quarter of the species of this zoo, but they are all living a lot better life. As we continued on, I just felt bad for these animals.

Okay... let's make this post a little happier! Brock loved the gorillas! He waved to the baby gorilla and it came over to him!

Brock was cute with the polar bear too - every time he saw it, he would roar just like I do when I read him his books. I told him the polar bear has big feet like Diesel so he can walk on the snow - and he seemed very satisfied with that answer - "ohhh".

Who screams for ice cream? Oh yeah, that would be Brock - Brock has started screaming in the middle of every sit-down meal. Thanks Brock to start that while we are out of town.

The meerkats were hilarious with Brock. It was like they were really playing with him - running back and forth playing "tag". Wish I got a video, but alas I did not. We even saw a cotton-top tamarin and I told him his great-grandfather had one! Did you know the monkey is at "critically endangered" status?

Above is a good picture to show how the cages were almost lined up - not very many of them were fixed up to emulate their typical habitat. Poor kangeroos were lying on dirt with one tree for shade. The penguins were sitting on, what looked to be, the side of a pool with water as a moat. Ugh. The place was landscaped beautifully and it was clean and we felt safe.... so there was that.

No $25 stuffed Panda for Brock. I did get him a panda fork though - super cute

We were there to see the Pandas. I don't know if I'm happy I went and paid the 600 yen to help for the zoo's expenses or if I'm sad I went, making the Japanese government think this is okay. Anyway, Brock was happy.

And one more from our way through Ueno Park to catch the train. Can you imagine this place in spring when the whole walkway is blooming with Cherry Blossoms?

Oh and we did return to the hotel and after a quick bath (it was HOT at the zoo), Brock was off to lalaland by 2pm local time. We were also invited to dinner at one of Brent's coworker's home, but I didn't take any pictures. It was nice to see a Japanese home and eat a home-cooked meal. Brock enjoyed playing with the children's toys there too!