Puerto Viejo. I learned of this place back in 2013, but we couldn’t make it out to see this town last time we came to CR. It’s on the East coast, and has a different type of vibe compared to the beach cities we went to last time. As one lady told us, the culture has been better preserved because there aren’t as many tourists. She said travelers tend to avoid Puerto Viejo “because of all the Blacks, and all of the crime that goes on here”. The town (and the entire East coast) has a long history of slavery, primarily to power the banana and tropical fruit industry. The country was segregated up until relatively recently – those with black skin were not allowed to travel to central and West coast cities before 1949.
But what’s important for this blog is that Puerto Viejo is right in the beach. It’s a party town. The most popular activity is biking down the road to visit small beaches. Most of the beach cruiser bikes in town have a front basket, and that basket has been converted to a cooler (more accurately, a bucket). Dump some beers into it. Dump ice on top. You got cold drinks for a couple of hours. Pura vida.
So, we did that basically every day. Hannah and I rented some bikes with child seats in the back, they were $5/day. One of the child seats had no seat belt. We asked if they had anything we could use – the lady brought out a used inner tube and said we could maybe use this? Haha, pass. Tying my child into a child seat with an inner tube seems quite uncomfortable. We made sure that the second bike/child seat we got had seat belts. I don’t exactly trust Bean to keep himself in the seat at all times. I thought Max was going to be ok.
Bean cruisin’ with Hannah. What a baby.Max’s “no seatbelt” bike seat. The dogs tried to snatch food from him a few times so he’s avoiding them in this pic.Stephanie with her bucket/cooler bike.Our first trip down the road.The no seat belt thing is all fine and dandy until Max falls into a deep sleep. Then I genuinely got worried that he’d fall out.Bean fell asleep within minutes every time he got into the bike seat.Saw some monkeys. I didn’t get a great pic of the actual monkeys but did snag this great pic of us looking at monkeys.Made it to this beach on our first biking adventure trip. Niiice!
Sam rented a bike but he also rented this scooter. He had lots of fun on it.
I was freaking out a little when we first got to Puerto Viejo because it was POURING rain. So hard, that two of our three cars pulled over because they couldn’t see the road. I kept going. We’d had a screaming baby in the car for the previous 2 hrs so I wasn’t going to stop for anything.
The rain would come and go with semi-regularity. The mornings would be sunny, hot, humid. The late afternoons and evenings would bring about rain. First, a drizzle, then all-out “pouring buckets” type of rain. It was warm though, so a lot of the times we would just gear up in bathing suits and walk/bike through the rain. One of the nights our group wanted to drink beer in the ocean during a downpour – so I suited Max up in swim trunks, rode the bike 5 mins to their hostel with a few beers in my basket, and joined them in the ocean in front of their beach-front hostel. BTW, the water is also warm. That was one of the weirder nights, during which Max ended up wearing someone’s shirt as a dress and running around our friends’ hostel for hours.
Running around like he just don’t care.
Fits him perfectly, actually!
One of the weirdest family photos we’ll ever take, thanks to uncle Ben.
We ate dinner out a few times, food was good. Made some breakfast sandwiches in the hostel once or twice. Ate cheese-avocado-tomato sandwiches for lunch a few times. Drank quite a few Imperial beers and canned rum and cokes. One of the best dinners was at a high-end restaurant near the beach, set among a bunch of trees, with lights scattered around everywhere. This is where Hannah and I celebrated our 10-yr anniversary. Go us!
Hannah looking cute while perusing the menu.Us with our plantain chips + guac appetizer.Yum.
Huge shoutout to Stephanie and Nikita for watching the kids while we went out on this date! So here we are, crossing this milestone in our lives, eating dinner in Costa Rica, during a 10-day trip with 13 friends and 2 kids. Wouldn’t have had it any other way. Love you, babe.
But back to our adventures.
The crew taking a dip.
There was one day which I spent with Bean, while Hannah and Max went off and did zip lining with the rest of the group. I still can’t believe they let a 3.5-year-old zip line, like the full-on ones, high up in the tree tops. To be fair, we lied and said he was 4. From what I hear, Max did AWESOME. No fear. He was with a guide for most of them, but got to do the “Tarzan swing” by himself. He’s still talking about it a few days later, and always says that it was his favorite part of our Costa Rica trip.
Checking the belts, making sure they’re tight (I’m guessing, since I wasn’t there)Max with his personal guideMax and his other personal guide.
Max on the Tarzan swing!
Meanwhile, I had to kill 6-ish hours with the baby. We started with a light breakfast of avocado, then got sunscreened up (lots of crying) and took off on the bike. I knew he’d fall asleep in the bike seat, so I might as well use that to my advantage.
So, we biked 15 miles that day. I explored ALL the beaches, even the ones that required riding through creeks and muddy roads to get to. Here’s a pic that I snapped that took me more effort than I’d like to admit: (bean is on the back, unseen in this picture, but trust me he’s there)
Yup, rode through a creek with a baby on the back.Two guys, just hanging out.Rough roads.The day started at the hostel.
I also biked with him on the wet sand part of the beach for about 1/2 mile. One of the coolest things I’ve done as a dad, ever, is when we got to a creek/river that was feeding into the ocean. It was waist deep, so I couldn’t exactly ride the bike through that – Bean would be underwater. So I hoisted the bike on my shoulder (with Bean in the child seat still) and carried it across this river/creek. That’s pretty badass
I found a cool beach, and we hung out. For about 3 hrs.
This is pretty cool, right?!
Right under this palm tree.
I got Bean naked, so he just enjoyed the water and sand in the nude.
So bean and I just hung out the beach for a while.
Then we all reunited for lunch (quite randomly actually, we didn’t have any specific plans to meet at this place)
After some 2×1 tacos at Tasty Waves Cantina, we biked over to a craft beer brewery, right here in town. This town has everything! The brewery is on a black sand beach.
Gets messy fast.Family picThe baby loved touching it. And as always, putting his hands in his mouth right after.
There were some crabs casually walking around the brewery. One really scared Leanna as it came out from behind a toilet as she was doing her thing. She screamed.
Pretty dope!
The owners talked about how operating this brewery is much different compared to the one they used to run in St Louis. They also talked about how last month there were tens of thousands of crabs which came out and took over the entire city. Playa Negra Brewing, if you’re interested. There’s also a guest house at the back of the brewery (called Kaya’s place). They also do yoga on the rooftop every morning.
I haven’t mentioned this yet, but our hostel was awesome! It’s called La Ruka hostel. We had a private room for $40/night … our room was called Surfer’s Paradise. The owners are really dope, and do this because they love meeting people and love Puerto Viejo.
Hanging out at the communal outdoor hang out area.Playing outdoor pool; hammock
La Ruka front desk. The banana boat picture on top of the water machine (in this pic) was gifted to us by the owners for our 10-yr anniversary. It’s going to be one of those things we keep forever.
Nikita in front of the hostel.Stephanie in front of the hostel, taking a picture of Nikita in front of the hostel.
Surfer’s Paradise roomNote the pouring rain as Sam gets ready to ride his scooter.Max chilling on the hammock.Sam hanging out with one of the hostel dogs.I am passed out in this pic.
I love hostels.
Here’s a cute pic of hannah sleeping with Bean:
We also went to the Jaguar Rescue Center. Saw some animals.
Ganz meeting real monkeys. Ganz is Max’s first stuffed animal – he’s already been to China, Japan, and now Costa Rica with us.Toucan!
And before we knew it, it was our last day in Puerto Viejo. We just spent it at the beach. Snorkeling, swimming, drinking. A man came by and sold us ceviche for $3. It was great.
When we went to Peru 10-ish years ago I was too scared to eat ceviche (raw fish) at restaurants in fear of getting sick from it. How my standards have dropped.Nudist Bean, day 2.Water so clear.Yuuup. This was great.
Did I mention the beaches look cool?
Our bikes and stuff (and nudist Bean) under ‘our’ palm tree.It looked stormy for a bit, but the storm never reached us. Phew!
Our trip to San Jose (the capital) the next day was grueling. 4.5 hours of driving to visit a volcano. Then another 1.5 hours to get to San Jose.
Unfortunately, the volcano was closed.
But the drive there was kind of fun, and at times harrowing. We were driving up extremely steep dirt roads during a downpour. It looks much worse in real life than in these pictures, trust me. here’s a quick vid of the drive:
We also got to experience the classic “cows in the road” scenario.
We also saw the mostly poorly named martial arts studio I’ve ever heard of. Still laughing about this one.
Got to San Jose, spent a night at a hostel. Ate some breakfast. Returned the rental car. Now here I am on the plane to Mexico City, typing this on my phone as Max bothers the people in the rows in front and behind us. He’s also had 2 nose bleeds in the last 2 hours. (Edit:he ended up having 5-6 nose bleeds during the two flights total. Sometimes bleeding from both nostrils simultaneously!)
Here’s our weird/whacky/lovable family checking in to LAX:
I think that sums up the trip pretty well! As always, I’d like to mention that one of the main reasons I write this blog is to inspire others to travel. Specifically you, the person reading this blog. It’s fun. It’s not even that expensive. I’ve mentioned the prices of most things throughout the blog , but here’s some more details. Flight round trip from Chicago are around $350/person. Private rooms in hostels are $35-40, dorm beds are around $10 each. Our Airbnb was $200/night. This ended up being $25/person/night. Food at cheaper restaurants is $5 per meal, and make-your-own food is even less expensive (hostels have kitchens for your use!). White water rafting cost $60/person. Zip lining was also $60. Our 10-day car rental totaled $500 for the nicest imaginable car (a 7-passenger 4×4 SUV), which included gas and insurance and all rental fees. Bus travel is much cheaper, but with our kids this wasn’t a real option for this trip. Think of (realistically) how much money you spend on eating out every year, or on dumb unnecessary things. Then think of how much fun you could have with that money in Costa Rica.
So if you’re considering going and doing something like this, do it. We did it with two young kids. And now we have some pretty good stories to tell when we get back to grad school (and for the rest of our lives).
Costa Rica was so great last time, we came back with 2 kids and 13 friends. Having a group of 17 people travel together has its perks and its downsides, but one of the main perks is that I get to share not only my stories but the stories of others who have come along on this journey.
For example, I did not see a beautiful, giant crab get crushed yesterday by a car. But when Ben described his experience in detail – that he was riding his bike along the side of a tropical road, got excited to see this magnificent creature walking by, then watched as a passing car drove directly over Mr. Crab, sending a shower of guts and crab pieces flying directly onto Bens legs and rental bike. I didn’t experience that. But Ben did.
We are 5 nights into this journey, which is already the halfway point of the trip. I have not seen one Internet café this entire time – I’m assuming they have all gone out of business. Everyone has their own phones now. So here I am trying to dictate this blog into my phone as the rest of my family lays in our wooden beach shack-room at LaRuka hostel.
The weeks leading up to the trip were crazy busy for all of us. My main focus was finishing up the semester, finalizing a first draft of my dissertation, and finishing out my externship at a school district. In the 3 nights leading up to our departure, I slept for a combined 9 hours. That’s all! Somehow we crammed all my family’s supplies into 1 checked bag and 3 “personal item” backpacks, and were able to leave for the airport on time, leaving our house at 1:20 AM. It took 2 flights to get here. Bean slept for about half the time on the plane but Max only took about an hour long nap on the second flight. We arrived in CR exhausted.
Ready to fly.Max is showing Ganz (his monkey) the yellow airplane next to usMax and I had a contest to see who could sleep longer. He woke up and told me “I won”, then went back to sleep.Arrived. In CR.
It’s cool, though, that’s nothing new for us. At the car rental agency we got talked into upgrading to a nicer 4 x 4 SUV. It was only $120 extra to do that which brought the total rental to $400 for the entire 10 day period, including insurance. Not too bad of a deal! The car we got was actually really cool. This was my first time driving a Toyota Land Cruiser. Great off-road capability, but no Bluetooth.
Plenty of space. And I’m enjoying the smell of diesel! Meeting up with our friends was quite a challenge and took several hours. A few people took different flights to get here, which makes sense because some were coming from California and some were coming from Chicago. We then waited for an hour or two as my friends from Illinois scrambled to find a car to rent. They did it, and we felt pretty bad ass driving across San Jose in our fleet of shiny off-road vehicles. After an hour of maddening traffic we got to a restaurant. Had some food. Drank my first Imperial beer of the trip. Check.
Ah, the mandatory group picture. So relieved to be out of the airport.Shots! (Of a tomato juice-type unknown drink)Hannah didn’t love it.Some of the crew…Walking back to our car in San Jose…
Things are going good at this point. The 3-hr drive to our next destination makes life even more exciting: we are going to a volcano/mountainous town of Turrialba. The traffic-choked streets give way to steep, curvy mountain roads which are impossibly narrow and cause panic whenever there’s a truck, car, or even a motorcycle heading in the other direction.
We splurged on a fancy Airbnb rental, so the first night is all about drinking some beers, sharing travel stories, and taking it all in.
Look. At. This. Place.
Max’s favorite activity was running back and forth over and over…
Max’s sprinting bridge.Hammock o clockThe kids are playing with … dirt, or bugs, or whatever . They’re fine.Jungle boy.
That’s dope. It wasn’t a real jacuzzi, so it was dubbed “bath with friends”.
“Balcony with friends”The night view from the balcony. Nice, eh?How we mostly spent our evenings in Turrialba.
A few people take a soak in the jacuzzi-bath tub, set on its own platform and with a hanging bridge leading to it. Ben and Hussein spearhead a night-time walk to find spiders, which turns into a (successful) attempt to find a waterfall which is on our property. I will point out that Ben did the entire hike without shoes, and we took a 3-year-old with us. Alcohol was involved, not everyone had a flashlight, and it was extremely steep and wet. Plus we saw lots of giant ants and a few spiders, so who knows what kind of trouble we could have been in if Ben had stepped on the wrong thing.
The night time creek waterfall hike area picture
Well, we made it, and we found the waterfall in the night time.
Day 2
can be mostly summarized by these photos:
The night time creek waterfall hike area revisited in the daytimeHannah breastfeeds in the wildest places.Ivan and Cybel are here! Eating pickled things and cheese things.“Road” heading to Turrialba volcano.Adventure road.The scenery was stunningAnd so were the wild animalsLand cruiser = no problem.These are fun.
Bean on a hike. He learned to walk a few weeks ago. Dirt don’t hurt.We’re in the jungle!!!
We gave Max away to our friends for the day as Hannah, me and Bean waited for Ivan and Cybel to arrive. They took an Uber all the way to our mountain town. Uber. In Costa Rica. It was only $50 for a 2.5 hr ride.
I climbed down to a small waterfall on our property, took a dip.
The water was only belly button deep, but I made the best of it.Bean’s dog friend.
Also, Bean played with a dog. The dog had a lot of Costa Rican fleas.
The rest of the day doesn’t sound as exciting in writing as it actually was. We basically drove around for 5-6 hours on extremely steep, poorly maintained dirt roads. The local volcano had erupted recently so it wasn’t accessible. But we saw lots of lettuce farms instead. At one point we stopped for a beer and drank it on the side of the road.
Google maps told us to go down many dirt roads that were laughably narrow, steep, and pot-holy. It worked out all right until we took a 25-min long drive down one and arrived at a locked gate.
We figured out (with some help) that the lock can’t be opened, but the gate can just be pulled open if you tug really hard. So we did that. The whole day we were re-tracing the path that our friends took in their other off road vehicles and apparently they did the exact same thing. So we got back to the house. We drank beer. And we ate tacos. It was a good night.
Taco night!!!More taco night!!!
Yeah so the next day we went white water rafting. We got to the base camp 15 minutes late. It took a long time to get ready. It took a while to get breakfast. That’s what happens with a large group. It’s been happening pretty much with everything we do.
I imagined it would be two guides who took our group of 13. Instead, it was 3 guides, 2 drivers, 3 rafts, and two kayakers (one to take photos, one to provide “support in case someone fell out”). The deal was that the first person to fall out would have to buy beers for everyone.
My raft had the most *reserved* guide of the three. Kind of jealous of the other rafts, actually. Our guy told us to “GET DOWN” quite often as we smashed our way through rocks. He also told us quite frequently that we need to paddle better, with more power, and more in sync. I feel like we let him down at every rapid.
Other guides did fun things with their rafters. Leanna and Lauren’s guide had them stand on the side of the raft as they leaned backward while holding a paddle on either side. Like a trust lean. And the game was to see who would let go first and fall in. So then after like 30 seconds he just took his own paddle, whacked theirs really hard and they both fell in. The other guide also had the entire boat stand up and “surf” the raft as he steered through a rapid. At another one he told Them all to lie down in the raft and not help, because he wanted to see if he could do all the work on that rapid. He did.
Nikita was the only one who fell out the entire trip. His guide told them at the beginning of the trip that when he says “oh my god!” It actually means to get down because they’re about to crash into rocks. But then, for the next hour he jokingly kept saying OMG OMG to freak out the rafters, he’d whack a rock with his paddle and pretend it was his head hitting it. Well, when they were about to actually crash the guide started yelling Oh my god oh my god, but no one reacted because they were looking back at him, smiling, expecting him to be doing something whacky. He wasn’t. They crashed. Nikita flew out. Then floated next to / under the boat through the rest of the rapids as the guide tried to pull him back in.”I’m good” Nikita said, and resisted being pulled back into the boat. Lol. I mean, we were explicitly taught to just float if we fell in. So that makes sense. Nikita bought 15 beers after the trip ended.
The rafting crew.I started to have doubts of my fellow rafters when they insisted on wearing rain coats under their life vests. “What if it rains?” They said. Come on, guys.The guide talked them out of wearing those rain jackets as you can see in this pic.That’s dope.Me! Backflip!!Most of the left side of the raft.These guides just nonchalantly made this beautiful spread to make your own burritos on the bottom side of a raft. Dope!Lunch spot.
Overall the trip was great fun. And it was only $60 (plus tips). So yeah, pura vida!
This pass is called “dos montanas”So cool.
We ate empanadas that night. And drank beer. It was an ordeal to get empanadas. A few places were closed. Hussein and Andy got them at a panaderia as they were closing. They were just pointing at all the things they had. “grande lo siento” they kept saying for all the “trouble” they caused.
And just like that, it was the last night at our beautiful Airbnb.
Andy arrived. And he showed off his weird crotch money belt.
Next morning we packed. Ate eggs. Drank coffee. It was cool.
This is the picture that’s going to go in my wall.
We hiked at some pre-Colombian ruins. Lots of snakes, be sure to wear shoes! Lots of mosquitos too! (Not really, we didn’t see any of either one). But we saw a few cool things. Like these:
If this was a Live Photo you’d see this camera shy iguana jump off to the ground.Turn left!What is this.
Some old ruins.
In this picture I’m trying to gauge whether max is going to fall off the bridge.These ants are super cool, and they’re all over the place!
The drive to our next town (Puerto Viejo) kind of sucked. Construction. Rain. Screaming baby. But it was kind of cool driving in a caravan of three cars. Made me feel important.
I’m bringing up the rear. Kind of nice not being the leader. Too much responsibility.
You don’t cross bridges like these every day.Or like these.Stopped here for a bit. There was a part just before this when we sat in construction traffic for 30 mins without moving more than a total of 100 feet.
So, I guess I’ll pick up with Puerto Viejo in the next blog. We’ve been here for a day and we already found some bikes with child seats to rent and some cool roads to take them on.
Our last three days were spent in Okinawa, staying with Hali, a Lieutenant in the Marine Corps. Hali is married to Greg (a Sargent in the Marine Corps), and Greg also happens to be Hannah’s younger brother.
This part of the trip was much different. Hali drove us around in a car. We stayed in a 3-bedroom apartment with 5 air conditioners. We ate out at restaurants. We watched Netflix.
Some things didn’t change. We continued our drinking streak – a streak which continues to California as I write this (cheers!) on July 23rd. We continued adventuring and seeing Japan. The hot and extremely humid weather also continued.
My last blog ended with “tomorrow the plan is to hike to a waterfall, then to chill on a beach”. We did exactly that. I have no pics of the waterfall, but imagine walking upstream in a creek/river, at times having to wade in waist-deep water, at other times having to climb up steep rocks while holding on to a rope. Lots of large spiders and flies all around. A few large fish. The waterfall itself is about 40 feet, with plenty of water flowing down into a chest-deep pool. There’s a rope swing that I used no less than 15 times. If you asked Hannah for her favorite part of this walk, it would be the 30-second period in which she felt like Wonder Woman, climbing down a steep rocky face with a child in one arm and a rope in the other (as I take the ‘alternate route’ of jumping down a much smaller waterfall).
Also, as a side note, we saw several groups of Japanese tourists doing the same upstream walk we did, but in full on body wetsuits and life jackets. Why?!
We then went to a beach, and Max refused to get off the towels. Sand = yucky. Except when I walked away to go back to the car … he cried, screamed, and put one foot into the sand, reaching his arms out to me as I’m walking 50 feet away. As I kept getting further he put his second foot in the sand, and stood/cried as he longingly reached out to me. It was extremely cute. It’s like he was doing the bravest thing possible to demonstrate how much he loved me. Then I snorkeled, saw some fish. Didn’t see any sharks, but at several points became extremely paranoid of them. It’s quite eerie being 1/4 mile out from the shore by myself, as the sunset is setting on a beach I’ve never been to before. Again, no pictures, sorry.
However, we did find this (which of course I ordered to go with my taco rice and ramen):
The next morning we went to a really fancy coffee shop in a district called “American Village”. So fancy that they have coffee cups (handmade in Portland!) for $49 each, and several of these clocks around the coffee shop for $250 a piece:
We got the all-important picture taken at this place, which will end up on our wall in the near future:
Max didn’t get the memo that he’s supposed to look AWAY from the camera.
This next pic is a good representation of American Village:
As is this one, of booze and beach:
We finally got to drink the mojitos that we thought we were promised at the top of Fushimi Inari! So good.
Rather than narrating our every step, here’s a few pics from days 2 and 3 in Okinawa. We took Hali’s lead in what to do, and we also scoped out a few activities just for Max.
As you can see, this is a really long slide.
Hannah trying not to drip burger juice on Max’s head. Mmm. Burgers.
And sandwiches at a restaurant primarily for Air Force servicemembers. Fancy! I saw people jumping off that rock in the background, so I finished my lunch and swam out there to jump off a few times, then swam back to the restaurant. Yesss!
All in all, Okinawa was less extreme, but equally as fun.
The time zone difference between Japan and California makes for a very long day of return travels – we technically flew out of Japan at 6 PM on Thursday and arrived in Los Angeles at 5:30 PM on the same Thursday. Max was nice enough to sleep the entire 12-hour plane ride across the Pacific Ocean (but not the initial 2-hour plan ride to Shanghai).
At home we’re right back at it … seeing friends, family members, and having a good time:
So, what did we learn from all of this?
Lesson 1: Despite the initial wavering, the $5,389 we spent on this trip is well worth it (note that this is well below our initial $6,000 budget). Not only do we get three weeks’ worth of entertainment, we also get:
-A stronger marriage
-A tougher kid
-Cool passport stamps
-Memories that we’ll be reminiscing about for the rest of our lives.
Lesson 2: Traveling with a young child is not easy. But it is possible.
Lesson 3: Max is taller than Japanese babies his age.
Lesson 4: Everyone should buy a bidet toilet seat for their personal bathroom. And we will.
and lastly, Lesson 5: We shouldn’t take the great things we have in our country and in our lives for granted. Because they simply don’t exist in other parts of the world. The U.S. (and especially California) are like the Beverly Hills of the world. Enjoy it.
If you’ve made it this far, you’re a trooper. Thanks for reading! Can’t wait to see where the next adventure takes us.
Once we found out we could borrow a bicycle with a child seat on the back our entire game plan changed. From that point on we didn’t take a single mode of public transit – all of Kyoto sightseeing was done either on foot or on bicycles.
After another 30,000+ step day exploring the textiles district (summary: we walked a lot, Hannah bought some fabric, we saw a temple) we got back to the hostel and borrowed that special bike for a test ride along the river. Really, this could have gone either way – Max could have hated the bike, he could have cried … but he didn’t. He loved it. He loved it so much he’d kick me in the back repeatedly to encourage me to go faster.
Our evening cruise along the river included walking across the river:
And giving Max a taste of fireworks (someone just handed these to us then took pictures of us):
The next morning we set off to Ayashiyama bamboo grove (still in Kyoto). An 8-mile bike ride took us here:
Which may have been a cool experience if we didn’t have a cranky baby with us. One of the more challenging experiences for sure. Let me paint you a picture: it’s crowded on the path at the start of the bamboo grove, with hundreds of tourists streaming by every minute. Half of them ignore Max, half point out that the baby playing in the muddy area is kawaii (cute). After illegally parking the bikes in the back of some parking lot, I get Max and attempt to carry him further up the path. He’s screaming. “Hey Max, can you high-five the fence?” No. screaming. Ok, let’s sit here for a bit and watch people go by.
He then starts playing with rocks, in the mud, running out in people’s ways on the path. He climbs between two random bicycles, plays with their pedals, as I’m holding the bikes to prevent them from falling. After ~20 mins I pick him up again, we continue up the path as he screams.
“Don’t worry, Hannah, he’ll stop screaming soon. He’ll just run out of energy and fall asleep.”
Nope. Dead wrong. We end up at a train station stop with a screaming baby and Hannah watches him as I de-stress (by eating noodles). He runs around for about an hour and a half, eats plenty of breastmilk as a bunch of people walk by (not culturally appropriate in Japan) and generally acts like a maniac (in my mind making all white people look bad). Even though I’m undertaking a Child Psychology Ph.D. program I’m still not sure what the right parenting maneuvers would have been in this situation.
After that 90-min stint at the train station, we end up like this:
And after walking around for a bit we discover that there was a CHILDREN’S PLAYGROUND 30 seconds away from that stupid train station we wasted all that time at AND that there’s a monkey preserve fairly close by. We decide to go for it. I mean, Max’s favorite stuffed animal is a monkey, so obviously he’d like to see a real life monkey, right?
Right! (also worthy of mentioning is that Hannah heroically carried Max up a giant mountain with frequent strops for breastfeeding despite it being in the 90’s and high, high humidity. Also, Max has taken to slapping/kicking while breastfeeing, and sometimes just walks up and bites Hannah for no reason. Parenting = patience, indeed.
And here’s a pic of the view from the monkey preserve (we started by the river down below):
As mentioned in the previous blog post, we found a cat cafe and painstakingly watched/tackled Max as needed so that he wouldn’t murder any of the cats. Meanwhile, other people in the cat cafe got to enjoy the experience by laying there, petting the cats, and calmly drinking their delicious ‘included in admission to cat cafe’ coffee beverage.
Just imagine a speech bubble in the photo above that says “You’re next”.
The ride back was cool: there was a sense of accomplishment for not having given up on the day. Max immediately fell asleep in the bike seat and we took side streets back, which included narrow, steep alleys to bike up and down.
We did a 15 mile bike ride in Japan that day without getting hit by any cars or having any excessively close calls with cars/bikes/posts/pedestrians. That’s a win!
The night ended with Pizza Hut (our first non-Japanese meal of the trip!) and multiple rum and cokes:
I had to strap the pizza box to the back of my bike with a scarf Hannah had given me. And then ride 20 minutes back to the hostel.
Next day: breakfast, bike, Fushimi Inari Taisha (shrine famous for being on a mountain with a lot of gates leading up).
And when I say a lot of gates, this is what I mean:
So then it got more steep and was just constant stairs. It helped that Max learned how to walk upstairs at that exact moment, which was really motivating for him to keep going up. Here’s a video of that:
He had his share of freak-outs, and not wanting to be carried. Also of walking downstairs instead of up, and generally being non-compliant and wanting to play in smaller temples/shrines which had dozens of large spiders within.
I’m proud to say that after hours of waiting him out, Hannah put him to sleep (again) by carrying Max using the baby backpack…and we painstakingly hiked up the mountain. Plenty of people told us it was too far. That it wasn’t impressive at the top. One person told us there were “moquistoes”, which we interpreted to be either mosquitoes or mojitos … either way we were going to make it there.
Here’s some pics from the way up:
Some places higher up top had areas with few gates, because older gates had rotted out:
Still exhausted from his newly-found love for stair climbing, Max missed the peak of the mountain and part of the descent. He woke up when we were on our cumulatively 4th beer at this store/temple/hangout about 2/3 of the way up the mountain:
Damn, those beers tasted good! Because they had a sense of accomplishment mixed in. So good.
On the way down we found a cat and high fived a lot of gates/poles to keep Max interested.
The bike ride on the way back included a detour to “arguably the most beautiful street in all of Asia”, but by the time we got there we discovered Hannah’s bike had a flat tire. So the bike with the baby seat turned into the world’s biggest/bulkiest stroller.
The next day was mostly just a prep day, getting our travels prepped, shopping, people watching, etc. This was the day we all tried raw octopus and 2/3 of us didn’t like it.
Max just kept sucking and sucking on the octopus, and eventually bit off a few of the suction pieces. He kept asking for more and more, but I wasn’t sure how appropriate it was for us to be feeding the 1.5 year child old raw octopus. So, as I mentioned on my facebook post, the octopus eventually ‘swam away’ into a trash bag.
Our overnight bus pass was entirely in Japanese:
So after 12 hours of misery we got off at this random bus stop and waited an hour for the next bus:
But eventually the right bus came:
After three hours of which we took a crowded trolley:
And ended up at a ryokan (traditional japanese guesthouse). This easily could have been the scene of a horror movie: all the walls move sideways, there’s no locks on anything, the metal bathtub is deeper than it is long, and we are literally the only guests in this 4-story tall building, ran by an older Japanese man.
So now we were in Kagoshima, Japan. A town known for …. nothing, really. Our guidebook mostly just mentioned an aquarium and a beach, nothing else.
That night we literally just sat at a park and drank beers/milk and watched skateboarders do olleys over cones:
The next day Google maps routed us over a giant mountain on the way from our ryokan (at sea level) to a nearby beach (also at sea level).
But the water was refreshing and mostly free of sea creatures, so all was forgiven. Max really didn’t like the sand in the beginning, crying and pointing at his feet whenever a piece of sand was on them. He got over that eventually though, and now runs around the sand like California baby would.
That night we went to the same park, where a giant festival was now occurring, and we ate the healthier-than-American-festival food and successfully kept Max from getting lost in the crowds. He also kept trying to eat a bouncy ball.
So really, that’s the extent of Kagoshima. We only had two nights here, and we didn’t do much.
The next day we just did some shopping (for example, we bought “table salt candy” and “tomato candy”) and boarded a boat for a 25-hour journey to Okinawa.
We asked the ryokan owner if he’d please take a photo of us. This is what we got instead – a great photo of him next to Max (lost in translation):
This is what we looked like on the way to the boat:
The 45-minute walk to the ferry terminal was so taxing that I literally dripped sweat from my forehead on my wallet as I was buying tickets for the ferry. It splashed and sort of looked like a paintball splatter on my wallet for a few minutes.
The boat ride was as expected. It was a challenge keeping Max occupied. I even resorted to letting him play the slot machines…he lost $4 because he’s not good at them. He also pushed a lot of buttons on vending machines.
The above picture only shows about half of our room. Imagine there being 30-40 people in there, and Max repeatedly waking up in the middle of the night and in a loud voice saying: “Wa bagga mmaga magababaga??” (sth like that). Then waking up at 7 and wanting to walk/run around sleeping people. “Ok max, I’ll take you to push vending machine buttons instead of sleeping”.
Well, we made it. We’re now in Okinawa and I’m writing this from Hali/Greg’s computer, on the 4th floor of US Military housing compound. It’s three bedrooms and has plenty of cool things to keep us occupied, like Netflix, a kitchen, and a cat. As I type this it’s 2:20 AM, and tomorrow the plan is to hike to a waterfall, then to chill on the beach.
Americans are wary of staying at hostels. But hostels are great. So great, that we’re choosing to stay at them even with a baby. And the Kyoto Morris Hostel is so superb, it deserves its own blog post.
The Kyoto Morris Hostel opened in March 2017, so as I’m writing this it’s still extremely new. It lacks ratings on hosteling websites, it’s not crowded, and the stairwells still smell of fresh paint. Everything here is brand new and top of the line.
Beds in the dorm room can be had for $26/night. The private room we’re staying in is $65/night. Here’s what you get for that inexplicably low price (for Japan!):
A central location near downtown AND near the Kyoto Imperial Palace and gardens. You’re a few blocks from the river, near a playground, and directly next door to a bread factory. It smells like freshly baked buns all day long. A few blocks away is the Kyoto Ritz Carlton, where rooms start at $750/night. According to an old Japanese man we met, both Obama and Trump have stayed at the Kyoto Ritz Carlton. This speaks to the great location this hostel is located in.
When we arrived at the hostel we were exhausted from our overnight 10-hour bus ride. Here’s what greeted us:
The outside is gorgeous. Trendy. Cool. And remember, there is a strong odor of freshly baked bread.
(the bread factory is the building on the left)
The lobby looks like this:
Note the two brand-new computer that are FREE to use 24-hrs a day.
Since we got there at 9 AM (check-in time is 3 PM) we asked if we can store our bags somewhere. Sure! you can store them here:
And then we asked if they have a recommendation for somewhere to eat breakfast and get coffee. “Oh yes, we have good breakfast buffet here. It’s 500 yen (about $4.50) and is downstairs.” Well, that seems like a great deal, since a cup of coffee in Japan is usually around $3-4, so we paid the 1000 yen and went downstairs. We were greeted with this view (in a BASEMENT!!):
And snagged a corner of the lounge area for us to eat/chill in:
There were even other families there, so we didn’t feel out of place.
That area behind the couch is an artificial outside area – we are 2 floors below ground, yet they found a way to let natural light into it (supplemented with artificial light), put plants in it, made the pipes look cool, and added a touch of style to the basement lounge area.
Japan is known for futuristic technology. Well, this hostel is full of that. One example we saw during breakfast: Balmuda the toaster. Here it is, and instructions how to use it:
And hey, the toast comes out PERFECT every time, no matter if its white bread, a croissant, or a dinner roll. I looked up more information online: Balmuda the Toaster is about $230 and is only available in Japan and Korea. It does not work on US plugs unless you get a bulky and expensive converter. SAD.
They also have Balmuda the Gohan (rice cooker) and Balmuda the Pot (electric tea kettle) at the hostel but they aren’t nearly as cool as Balmuda the Toaster.
So, back to breakfast. Here’s the spread:
There’s things like scrambled eggs, salad, miso soup, corn soup, pancakes, french toast, spinach, broccoli, rice pilaf, sausages, yogurt, many types of bread items, and of course juices and a fancy coffee machine:
Everything is constantly being made fresh, and they don’t run out of things. We literally ate breakfast here 5 mornings in a row.
Need to use the bathroom while eating breakfast? Here’s what your bathroom looks like:
There’s a second bathroom which has fake plants instead of pipes/dots. Both have warmed toiled seats and that panel you see floating on the glass panel controls the flushing and the bidet features (warm water squirted upwards to clean you in either gentle or regular fashion? Your choice!)
Here’s some more pictures of the basement because I love it so much:
Our favorite books here were the book that was solely dedicated to high-res photos of cats and another book which detailed the making of the Harry Potter films.
That beam that you see was part of the original building that this hostel is in – the former store of a fish wholesaler!
Then there’s the kitchen that is free to use 24/7:
That window behind the sink is real. Remember, we’re two floors below ground, yet they’ve found a way to make this look like we’re in the countryside. The lighting changes as the day turns to evening, and it gets more dim. Here’s a close-up through that window:
A few other cool touches in the basement:
Those words are spelled out in marbles.
Decorative ceiling beams.
Then, you take the elevator up one floor, and they just have a room full of cats:
Ok, that’s a joke, they don’t really have a bunch of cats at the Kyoto Morris Hostel. Those were pictures from an actual cat cafe. A cat cafe that foolishly allows children of any age (most have age requirements to be at least 13 y/o) so Max terrorized the heck out of those cats by yelling, pointing, chasing, kicking, and throwing cat toys at them. He was so excited he forgot how to pet cats, he just wanted to catch them. And we spent the entire half hour trying to stop him, but really, how can you stop a baby from yelling out in excitement? You can’t.
Back to the hostel. After breakfast we went for a walk by the previously mentioned river and Ritz Carlton:
And saw other things, like palaces and cool cars:
So 3 PM rolls around, and we check in. “Would you like a baby bed for your child?” Yes please. This was the first time we realized there are pillows for babies and crib-sized comforters. We’ve been just using a blanket from our couch for Max for the last year.
Exiting out of the elevator you’re asked to put on slippers and you have the option to choose any of the 5 types of pillows they have in addition to the ones already on your bed:
Here’s our room (picture taken as we were checking out so its not as perfect as it was when we checked in):
The bed has built-in lights and USB plus in the headboard.
The bathrooms are unisex, so you just choose a stall and go:
The shower room is in the basement, where they have more slippers and all the shampoo/conditioner/body wash you need:
There is also a separate bath room for handicapped people and/or babies, which we found to be extremely useful for Max:
There is also free laundry (and free detergent):
So nice, we washed our clothes twice.
To top things off, there are approximately 20-25 bicycles that you can rent FOR FREE. Incredibly, one of them even has a child’s seat attached to the back, so we could take Max everywhere with us. We used these bikes three times: for a river cruise, once to get to a bamboo grove (15 miles round trip) and the third time to get to a temple (10 miles round trip). We popped a tire on the second trip, and had to walk back about 2 miles. Kyoto Morris Hostel didn’t even charge us for the popped tire.
So that’s basically it. If that doesn’t impress you for $65/night, in one of the most expensive countries to travel in, nothing will. Bottom line: Air bnbs and hotels are great. But hostels are better. Especially this one.
It’s been over a week since we arrived in Japan! It’s been busy busy busy. This pic summarizes our 8 days in this country:
July 3rd was our first day in Japan. If you add up the steps we’ve taken in the last 8 days, you get:
207,409 steps.
That’s over 100 miles.
We’ve done that with a baby!
After day 2 we realized that carrying Max around in our arms wasn’t exactly ideal so we started looking for a stroller. Easy, right? Not in Japan. Immediately after the last blog, I went to a 24-hour department store. It was six stories tall … no ‘baby car’ sold here. In the next few days we went to at least 10 such department stores, and the closest we got to one having a stroller was one which had three of them! They were all display models, and had to be special ordered. In comparison, here’s how many different storm troopers they had in stock, for immediate purchase:
They also had at least 100 bicycles, probably 300 different model toy cars, but NO STROLLERS, GODDAMIT. So, we googled the nearest Babies R Us store on Day 5 and took a 45-minute train journey to get us a stroller. It was one of the happiest experiences we’ve had in Japan so far. Max literally cried when we took him out of the display stroller and clapped/immediately fell asleep when we put him into the one we bought.
ALL THOSE STROLLERS.
The one we bought. Obviously, the cheapest one ($30).
But let’s backtrack a bit. Before we had a stroller, before we even knew Babies R Us existed in Japan … we were still getting used to the 10-hour time change. On the morning after the last blog, I let Hannah sleep in and walked around with Max in the early morning. We found some cool things, like this:
And we circumnavigated the Tokyo Tower:
Then we had a full-on breakfast at the hostel, which included coffee, a cheese sandwich, and the world’s tiniest salad:
It was good though. This day was our day to pamper, relax, and get ready for DISNEYLAND TOKYO, which we would do the next day.
So we just chilled. Went to the playground. Walked around the neighborhood. Saw some unique things:
(Note Max pointing at the mario carts in the right side of the picture)
Had a temper tantrum at the grocery store:
But all was solved when we had lunch and beer:
For the full experience see the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjwYmIPnyfk
But the almost highlight was finding an abandoned stroller which was badly broken. The hope was that a $5 tube of super glue would fix the snapped plastic bit, but that only worked for about 30 seconds of Max riding in it. We re-abandoned the stroller and continued to carry Max around.
That’s why this blog is called what it is BTW. We had high hopes that Japanese super glue would actually work – since in my experience American super glue doesn’t actually do anything. I literally have a 0% success rate with it.
So after my failed attempt to fix the stroller, and after Max took a decent nap, we headed off to Shibuya, home of high-end shopping (at this point we were still hoping for a stroller) and the world’t busiest street crossing. It’s the same one that was featured in Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift:
But here we are walking across it, then observing the madness from a 2nd story Starbucks:
Shibuya has lots of other exciting things to do (preferably without a baby) such as:
Bookstore. Hannah: “It was cool looking at books, but they were all in Japanese.”
High-end fruit stores: the cantaloupe on the right it $216!
This is a cool picture from an art gallery high in a building.
Other things we did: high-end French bakery (the flour is imported from France)
Saw an arcade with hundreds of claw-type games. Hannah won a tiny stuffed black cat! Loud techno music blaring…Max deep asleep.
So, after several hours of this:
and this:
and this:
and this:
we were exhausted and went back to the hostel, then to bed.
Next day, DISNEYLAND TOKYO (where we happily rented a stroller for $10). This was quite an emotional trip, since Hannah and I both grew up going to the original Disneyland in Anaheim, CA. Here we are, decades later, visiting Disneyland Tokyo in an alternate reality: in Japan and with our son.
Rather than narrating the exact order of attractions visited, here’s a summary of exactly what happened: we had fun! Max did great and LOVED all the rides we took him on. We stayed the entire time, from 9 AM to 10 PM and rode about 12 rides in total. He knows the sign language for *more* and he’d do it after every ride. The day included some unique experiences, only to be had in Tokyo Disneyland, such as eating ramen noodles for lunch, and seeing stands everywhere for soy sauce flavored popcorn. Lots of Japanese people dress in kimonos in matching outfits to visit Disneyland. The lowest point in the day came around 3 PM, when Max rubbed sunscreen into his eye while waiting in line for a ride. He didn’t stop screaming for over an hour, no matter what we did. It was emotionally exhausting, but eventually he fell asleep and Hannah and I grabbed some iced coffee and a waffle with some mango syrup on it to snack on.
So here’s some pictures of this magical day:
Walking in.
Waited for an hour to get in, Max took full advantage and caught up on sleep.
Before Max knew rides were an option, he wanted to spend time playing with lame things. Like a fence.
And these things.
And weirding out Japanese people.
But eventually he found his way to more interesting things, like:
Levers.
The Jungle Cruise.
Rides.
Quality control for screws. (He’s been watching too much Bob the Builder).
Playing with light toys.
And taking naps.
Here’s that waffle that I told you about earlier:
Beautiful, right? And I’m usually the person who complains about people posting food pictures on social media. Seriously, people, stop posting pics of your dinner. No one cares.
Disneyland: success. Except for that one hour of non-stop screaming. Hannah and I each aged 5 years during that one hour.
After Disneyland we had two days left in Tokyo. In no particular order here’s what we did during the 59,563 steps that we took during those two days.
We went to Akihabara, the anime central of Japan. After carrying Max around for an hour, getting him to sleep, we finally found the train cafe we were looking for. Alas, he woke up about 20 mins into the cafe experience, then ran around like a wild man. Nonetheless, this was an AWESEOME place, built in an abandoned railway station and on top of a former platform, with trains whizzing by every few minutes:
So cool.
During these outings, Max alternates between three moods:
Chill:
Sleeping:
WILD MAN:
I really wish this could be live photo. He tried to pull the pocky stick out of my mouth with full force, then his hand slipped. That’s why we look so intensely focused, because we are both focused fully on our goals (me: keeping my pocky stick in my mouth, Max getting it out).
I could write pages about how terrible/terrifying/miserable it can be at times to be the parent of a 1.5 year old. However, if you’re already a parent, you already know. If you ever plan on being a parent, you’ll find out eventually. You’ll see.
After we got a stroller, things got significantly easier (although there are times when Max flat out refuses to sit in it).
Hannah even invented a clever way to keep Max from bobbing his head forward when he’s asleep (this $30 stroller doesn’t have a reclining feature):
Although I’ll admit that it does look quite awkward when the scarf slips down to cover his entire face. Which it always does. But he seems to like it that way, honestly he does! People must think we’re terrible weirdos though.
At one point I drank a green tea beer.
We visited the Imperial Palace gardens in Tokyo.
And saw a Prius C with drifter rims and a tough-looking tattooed up man driving it. Inexplicable.
We said goodbye to Tokyo in the same way that we said hello: by eating sushi under the Tokyo Tower:
Then we made our way to an overnight bus to Kyoto:
I think Japanese people find it impolite to recline their seats. So the people in front of us (and for that matter in the entire rest of the bus) DID NOT RECLINE AT ALL THE ENTIRE NIGHT while Hannah and I reclined ALL THE WAY. It wasn’t a great bus ride, but it wasn’t terrible either. 10 hours. It was $58/person. Saves us a night in a hostel. Gets us to Kyoto. win-win-win.
——————KYOTO———————
So now we’re in Kyoto. This blog is getting to be quite long, so I’ll keep this section on the shorter side. Our hostel is amazing. So amazing, that I’ll write a separate blog entry specifically profiling this place. Here’s a teaser picture, of the basement hangout/breakfast area:
More on that next blog. In the two days, we’ve seen the Kyoto Imperial palace gardens:
This gravel is so hard to get through with these tiny stroller wheels that we restored to forest paths:
Here’s another GREAT VIDEO THAT YOU SHOULD WATCH that will give you a good idea of what traveling with a baby is like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtFLCFf8B_c
Things don’t always go according to plan.
Max fell in the mud:
We found out that drinking fountains are quite intense:
So, Max is now scared of all water fountains.
So, to sum up the last few days, here are two pictures, with appropriate captions underneath:
“Go ahead, Hannah, enjoy this world-famous temple while I watch Max play with gravel and keep him from running into forbidden sacred areas”
and
“Sure, Max, we’ll go down this slide made or stone, as long as you’re having fun. Even if it’s not equally pleasant for everyone.”
We’re having fun. Seeing the country via tour buses are for the elderly. What we’re doing is for the young at heart.
So here we are, in Tokyo Japan. I write this blog from a 12th story internet cafe where I splurged for a 3-hour stay in a room that includes a massage chair. Dumb move, actually, since this massage chair’s remote control is 100 percent in Japanese, so all I can get it to do is to squeeze my legs repeatedly. And it’s leaned back, so I can’t reach the keyboard, so here I am, hunched forward as I type this. I’ve also had to figure out from trial and error how to sign in to wordpress, gmail, youtube, and how to upload photos from my camera using a japanese~only Windows computer. I even accidentally quit out of everything once, having to start over.
So, I can describe how well this trip is going with one picture that denotes my true mixture of feelings:
Max is 18 months old, which means he is largely driven by in~the~moment desires, with little ability to self-regulate and little understanding of what’s going on. He gets mad, he throws things or hits us in the head. One minute later, he’s giving us hugs, running around laughing. Sometimes it takes longer that than to turn his mood around. Sometimes it doesn’t. He’s still breastfeeding, also drinking lots of regular milk, and is generally picky about the food he eats. At home, the routine was to have a daily nap from 12~2, then sleeping from 7PM to 6AM. We’ve completely disrupted this routine, and we knew there would be consequences. But the consequences are painful, and they’re certainly putting a damper on this trip. Let’s begin at the beginning.
This epic journey began at 2:30 AM on July 1st, 2017 when LEANNA was awesome enough to pick us up and drive us to IHOP, then the airport. Neither Hannah nor I had gone to sleep that night, since Hannah worked until after midnight and I’d stayed up packing, washing the floors, wiping my phone, etc. Here we are at IHOP, so happy and full of hopes/dreams:
Max was fresh off a 10~hour slumber by the time we arrived at the airport, so he ran around everywhere:
But generally the 5~hour flight to Los Angeles was a breeze, and we kept him entertained with the iPhone:
And by fun activities like drawing on himself and the airplane:
We had a few small victories at LAX, such as being allowed to cut in front of the security line because we had a young child with us, and being assigned an extra seat for the long journey to Shanghai so Max could sleep between us. Other small victories during the 14hour flight: putting Max to sleep in the first few hours, getting free beer, and watching LEGO Batman.
Look how happy we are!
An hour into the movie (maybe 3 hours into the flight) Max wakes up, SCREAMING, and doesn’t stop for at least 15 minutes. Mind you, this is a 99% sold out flight, nearly everyone is sleeping (including a very young baby right in front of us), and we have exactly three options for where to try and calm down Max: in our seats, in an emergency door area, or by walking up/down the aisles. We tried everything: breastfeeding, iphones, food packets, crackers, water, holding him, showing him things on the airplane, etc. both Hannah and I and NOTHING WORKED. Until those long, long 15 minutes passed and he drank some water, chilled for a bit, then started being his usual playful self:
Long flight short, we made it to China where we were forced to retrieve our luggage, go through customs, and check into the airline kiosk the next day since our layover was 16 hours and spanned two different days.
So then we had a big decision to make. It was 6 PM. Our flight was at 9 AM. We could stay in the airport … or … we could go to Shanghai for a bit. The original plan was certainly to chill in the airport but the promise of adventure quickly trumped that, and we pulled out $50 worth of Yuan from the ATM machine, checked our large bags, took a 90-minute long metro ride to downtown, and arrived here:
See? This is way cooler than the airport! Good decision.
I forgot to mention: Max had another 20~minute uncontrollable bout of crying/screaming on the train. As Chinese businessmen are sitting in the surrounding seats. Also, is breastfeeding allowed in China? Will we get beheaded if we do this in public? Not sure, so that wasn`t an option for the confused, screaming Max on the train.
We got some dinner in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, then scored some popsicles, and ended up at the Bund, where as per usual we took photos and numerous Chinese people requested to take photos while holding Max with us sometimes in and sometimes out of the picture.
Sightseeing done, we then tried to re~live an experience we had 7 years prior … we tried to go to a hostel with a rooftop bar overlooking the city to drink some beers.
This picture is from 2011. Turns out the rooftop bar was being remodelled in 2017, so instead we did this:
At this point we felt like we were pretty badass parents … drinking in the street with a baby, in China, during a rainstorm. Isn’t this the definition of living life to the fullest? We could have been in an airport this entire time, being `normal`. In the 1.5 hours we sat in front of this store we:
~found out there were centipedes crawling all over the planters we were sitting on
~bargained down the price for an umbrella from a motorcycle umbrella vendor to $3.
~found a scary alley
~chased Max around endlessly
~bought Chinese milk for the low, low price of 30 cents, which Max downed happily.
Once the rain let off, we walked back to the Bund, where there continued to be a mismatch between how much energy Max had compared to us.
After two hours of this nonsense (it`s 1:30 AM by this point in China) we decided we did NOT want to wait until 6 AM for the metro to re-open, so we flagged down a cab and took the .75~hour ride to the airport. The last three minutes of the cab ride went something like this: car in front of us slams on its brakes, taxi driver slams on his and the car slides, he honks and starts yelling loudly at the other car (in Chinese, with our windows rolled all the way up), which wakes Max up and scares him to the point where he won’t stop crying until we’re in the airport. Whatever. We made it back, and now we have about 4 hours to catch sleep.
I’ll be honest, I woke up about 7 times during this slumber, worrying that Max had woken up and had crawled off of Hannah, and was wandering around the Shanghai airport unsupervised. That never happened. Instead, we
ate some tea-steeped eggs
drank vending~machine coffee
and found a VERY leaky pen on the ground.
[side note: I just now found the dash symbol on this Japanese keyboard (-) which means I don’t have to use the wavy one anymore (~).]
As we waited for our plane to arrive, we stepped up our parenting game with new ways to entertain Max, such as:
and
Pretty dope for a 16-hour layover!!!
I’m pretty sure Max had another meltdown at some point, but here we are, on our third plane, en route to Japan:
Once in Japan, we took the wrong train (the *express*), which cost $50, more than we spent on our entire China trip! A strange night ensued, as we checked into our private room in a tiny hostel:
(this really is our entire room)
Then we wandered around the neighborhood between 11PM and 4 AM trying to keep Max entertained with:
cool cars
construction workers
high-fiving signs
Japanese playgrounds
giant breast-shaped climbing structures
shopping
vending machine buttons
and the fake Eiffel Tower
Three hours of sleep later we (only Max, really) were fully refreshed and ready to see what the Harajuku shopping district had to offer. Well, it certainly offered coffee, because we wouldn’t have gotten throught the day without it, but here’ some more pictures of what it offered:
walking down a cool path, holding Ganz, while wearing a romper
bath salts
Japanese cars/buildings/people
one of these
inspiration to stretch more often
purification of our souls (or something like that) with temple water
new insights in how to sort garbage (burnable/unburnable) (what?!)
a cool Starbucks
and some graffiti.
Max presented some challenges, like refusing to wave when being asked to or being waved at by nice Japanese ladies, yet waving at random things at random times all day long:
and climbing in places he’s not allowed to:
(max, you don’t have an appointment to be blessed!)
But we did find the “minimalist cube-concept” coffee shop we were looking for:
(yay!)
ate some fancy pastries
…while we were doing this an older Japanese lady was very interested in Max, and for 30 seconds was saying hi to him and saying how cute he is. Distracted, Max walked right off the edge of a step and did a faceplant into the ground … crying loudly afterwards. The older Japanese lady, horrified, started bowing and apologizing, then walked off. Max stopped crying soon thereafter.
Then we found more cool coffee shops. Just look at this place!
Then we did some shopping:
and I threw Max in the air from time to time:
Looks fun, right!?!?!?!?!? I didn’t talk much about the more challenging parts, like Max screaming for no reason for long periods of time, about being rejected by cat cafe after cat cafe because Max is too young, and about the struggles of trying to find food for under 15 dollars per plate. Also the rain, the arguments about how to parent, the fatigue from carrying Max 30,000 steps, and constantly keeping Max out of streets, fountains, people’s ways, etc.
This is hard. Really really hard. But in the long run, we’ll remember the good parts. We’re seeing Japanese culture and learning not to take what we have back home for granted. And Max, aside from his periods of intense crying, appears to be having fun.
This is why we travel. To live life, to break the status quo. And we’ve certainly done that.
I’m going to Japan. With Hannah (my wife) and Max (my 1.5 year old son). For 20 days. I write this blog for two reasons: to document the trip and to inspire others. For previous trips, feel free to look over my past blogs!
While I have traveled extensively in the past, none of those trips have been with a child. The concept of travelling with a baby/toddler (not sure what a 1.5 year old qualifies as) is terrifying. Will Max fall into a river? How will he like sushi? Will he like hostels? Will hostels like him? Can he sleep on an overnight bus? Will Max be taller than Japanese babies his age? Will he terrify the cats at cat cafes as much as he terrifies our cats?
Stay tuned for answers to these important questions.
Why go?
There’s more to life than work, money, and the comfort of our own home. We’ll never be this young again. Max will never again fly for free as a “lap infant”. When I’m a psychologist and Hannah is a nurse practitioner it’ll be way harder to get this much time off work. Most importantly, we’ll reminisce about this trip for the rest of our lives. That’s well worth the $6K we have budgeted for this trip. Traveling is fun. YOLO.
The travelers:
Hannah: the super great mom/wife, willing to put up with both Anton and Max and all the terrible ideas that we put forth. Max: sometimes referred to as “the evil midget”, sometimes as “a great baby”. With no previous travel experience, Max has no idea what’s coming his way. Anton: Loves exploring, constantly in pursuit of happiness. Willing to eat/drink weird things.
So here’s the plan:
Starting in Tokyo, ending in Okinawa. We’ll spend time in Tokyo, Kyoto, Kagoshima, and Okinawa. To get around, we’ll take overnight buses (cheaper than trains!) and a 25-hour long boat ride from the mainland to Okinawa. Those are going to suck!
Based on a quick google images search, here’s what we can expect in Japan:
Much like this dog, I expect to drink beer.I expect 1/3 of the people I meet to be wearing cosplay costumes.Obviously, street racing and drifting.Onsens (hot springs). Mmmm, steamy.Sushi. I’ll bet it’s going to be fresher than the sushi we ate in DeKalb as practice!Temples everywhere.I grew up going to the original Disneyland, so let’s compare!Weird vending machines.So many weird vending machines.
There’s not much else to say at this point. Due to the baby situation, we’ll have to avoid a bunch of typical touristy things, like seeing anything in a theater (sumo wrestling, for example) or clubbing. We’ll still stay at hostels, but in private rooms rather than dorms.
I will pick up where I left off on the morning of Day 9. As a recap, we are tired, grumpy, and miserable because we all just tried to sleep in hammocks unsuccessfully. The alcohol didn’t help. The reggaeton club nearby certainly didn’t help. And gravity made the blood drain out of our legs in the hammocks, so we constantly had our legs fall asleep. FUN.
So we drive to this beach nearby which is supposed to have either black or white sand. I don’t remember. We get there. The sand is yellow. Whatever. The dropoff from the paved surface to the unpaved surface is 8-12 inches at all points. So we just park out car in the middle of the street. Pura vida? Breakfast, check. Then, souvenir shopping. Check. The distance for today’s drive looks about the same as the distance for yesterday’s drive. So we figure it’ll take us about 2 hours to get to Playa Santa Teresa. Ok no problem.
The map lists several types of roads: Primary road, secondary road, and 4×4 only. Our drive today involves mostly primary roads, and a few short stretches on secondary roads. YEAH, WE GOT THIS. I drive first, and about 60 minutes into our drive we are stopped in some small town near the town center where there are people walking around. We just asked a lady for directions and she told us to turn around. Ok we did that. We are on a two lane road stopped at a stoplight now, and there is a car in front of us and behind us. Then this little boy comes into view and he is riding a bike which is all rusty and clearly made for an adult. He has to stand up to ride it. He rides toward us, and when he is two feet in front and to the right of our car, a dog jumps out in front of him. The boy swerves. Right into our car’s front bumper. He picks up his bike and rides away. Soon after we pull over and check the damage: a few small scrapes, but somehow he popped the top corners of the bumper off on both the right and left side by where the top of the front wheels are. Damage.
So we continue on, slightly worried about the damage from the bike boy. About 2 hrs into the drive the road becomes a dirt road, but wide and fairly smooth. It must be one of those secondary roads we think. I let Chad drive because I think he’ll want to have some exotic, foreign country driving exprience. Then the road steadily gets worse and worse. Two hours later, it’s still a dirt road. We are following the map just like we are supposed to. As we look for a turnoff for “Playa Santa Teresa” we do not see one, so we just keep going for a while. The road is bumpy, unpaved and full of potholes. Chad carefully navigates around them. We bottom out a few times, but Chad is like a magician driving a rabbit out of a hat.
Costa Rican “secondary road”The Hyundai kicking butt. Seriously, are we on some farmer’s driveway to his barn?
So we soldier on, and the road gets worse. There are rocks scattered around. There are steep hills. In fact, we get to a hill we cannot go up. Chad tries three times, the front wheels just spin and there are rocks being flung into the wheel wells. This is a big, long hill too. When Chad puts the car in reverse to back up a little bit and build up speed, the hill is so steep that the car slides back with it’s brakes locked until it stops. After the third try to get up, Hannah, Rachel and I get out of the car and PUSH the car from the back as Chad very gently gives it throttle. After 20 feet it builds up a bit of speed and makes it up the rest of the way on its own. Hyundai power!!!
We are relieved, scared, and excited at the same time. A few kilometers later we get to this farmer dude who is by the road and we ask him how much further to Playa Santa Teresa. He just smiles. Then he shakes his head. He says “It’s 20 kilometers back. If you keep going on this road you will get to Playa Samara (where we started earlier in the day). Apparently we missed our turn, get onto a secondary/4×4 road and went 20k in the wrong direction. No wonder all the 4×4 SUV’s passing us on the road were giving us weird looks for the last hour.
So we turned around, drove DOWN that crazy steep hill, then drove back UP the other side, barely making it without having to get out and push again. We found the correct turn (Labelled MAL PAIS, instead of SANTA TERESA). and made it to our hostel. As soon as Chad got back onto a paved road, he hit 3 pot holes in a row. Hilarious. This is the ‘parking lot’ for our car:
Parking lot AKA field
We sure had a few beers after that grueling 6 hour drive.
I asked Hannah where she put the socks I gave her earlier. “I put them in the cup holder.” “Sweetie, that’s how things become messy.”
We splurged on dinner. There was a fancy place called Beach Dog Cafe. I’m not much of a foodie, but we ate red snapped, pad thai, “buffalo wings” and a fried calamari appetizer. By far the tastiest and most expensive meal of the trip: $95 for the four of us (including 2-3 beers each). Here’s a pic:
Fancy meal at Beach Dog Cafe. We aren’t dressed so fancy.
Today is New Year’s eve. So after dinner, drinks, we go back to the hostel. They are mostly playing LMFAO and such, people are hanging out. There’s lots of talk around the hostel of who is going where. Most people are going to the Coco Loco bar, since they hung these spray painted sheets around town that said “New Years Party at Coco Loco”. Two hours of LMFAO later, we head down to the beach. There is an entrance fee at Coco Loco so we do not go in. Instead we sit on the beach with hundreds of other people, drinking and listening to Coco Loco’s loud music from a few hundred feet away. People are setting off fireworks, some people are lighting lanterns. Some lanterns fly towards the ocean, some towards the jungle. Possible Jungle fire? Pura vida!
Anyways, 12:00 comes around, people yell, shoot off more fireworks. I walk around a bit, and walk right through a campfire that someone just threw sand on to ‘extinguish’ it. Good thing I’m wearing sandals. Reef sandals: they protect feet from hot coals.We go to bed. Welcome, Day 10.
Day 10
January starts at 11 AM for all of us, when we wake up. Except for Chad, he wakes up at noon. Driving a Hyundai is exhausting. A perk of our hostel is that we get put into a ‘private’ room with a double mattress and two single mattresses and our own private bathroom. It’s $30 per person, per day. Good deal? On paper, no, but in the moment, heck yeah that was a good deal. In fact, here are some pictures of our hostel, called “Mini Hostel”:
The mostly outdoor kitchen. “Open flame” “Great view!” “sink drains to jungle” “Keep the fridge door closed. keep the monkeys out” “If you leave food out animals will eat it”Our Room AKA “the Pineapple room”Lounge area. “Mostly outdoors” “If you smoke, don’t share with the monkeys” “In peak season the lobby becomes a bedroom, right through that glass door”Haha, “mommy”
These hostel pictures are great, aren’t they?! Here are a few more:
Rachel in Mini HostelOur accordion-style bathroom door. For the rest of our lives, when we have kids who are teenagers, we can threaten them with “If you slam your door ONE MORE TIME, I will make your bedroom door be accordion style!!!!!”Don’t touch those wires while showering!Broken surfboard treeTropical jungle pool table.Pool/hostel restaurant. “We make good breakfasts. Eat breakfast here. Dinner? Not so good. I recommend you go out to eat.” – says the hostel owner.Chillin’
So, that’s our hostel. It’s for sale, don’t you know. Back to our story. We wake up and go to a fancy French pastry place for breakfast. Why is there a fancy french pastry place in a small beach town in Costa Rica? I don’t know. Here’s how fancy it was:
See, it’s pretty fancy.
That’s us sitting in the back corner. Unfortunately, the patio is next to a dumpster and people run their ATV’s on the other side of the fence, so it’s quite smelly. Also at one point one of the employees carried a 5-gallon gasoline can through the patio, put gas into his ATV which was right next to us, and it smelled INTENSELY of gasoline.As we sit there, enjoying the smells and the breeze provided by this fan, it falls off the fence and into the bushes. It makes a noise. I unplug it. I tell one of the employees. He responds with “Eh? Fuck it”.
After breakfast is the beach. I rent a surfboard as Chad, Rachel and Hannah play in the waves and read books. Hannah finds about 100 seashells and lays them out on her towel. By the end of the day there are three hermit crabs on her towel, all sifting through the new shells to find potential new homes. Anyways, this is MY BLOG so I get to brag about MY SURFING accomplishments that day:
Rented a surfboard. Check. Only $8.Waiting for tide to get higher. Reading Catcher in the Rye.Paddling outThese waves are WAY BIGGER than previous beachesWaiting for the perfect wave. Scared that these walls of water will crash on me.This photo here is of the BIGGEST WAVE I’ve surfed in my life. Sure, it pales in comparison to waves seen on TV, but if you were there, you’d be impressed. Note the pirate ship in the background. I’m going to frame this picture.I was still out there surfing during this awesome sunset. So cool!
I’m proud to say that Chad and I both scraped out feet/legs on the submersed rocks. Surfing injury in Costa Rica – check. We packed up, kicked the crabs off of Hannah’s shells, and went to the supermarket where we bough an assortment of items – Instant lunch noodles, 8 bottles of hot sauce, Coca Cola, a tomato, and sweet bread. Because, you know, when dinner costs $95 the night before, it’s a good idea to economize on dinner the night after. “Instant Lunch. Cheaper than a dollar” they always say.
Instead of LMFAO our hostel was playing Frank Sinatra Style music. I asked Chad if his mom would like it. He said yes. We notice that Chad’s instant lunch lid is put on crooked and doesn’t actually close the container. I tell chad “At the Costa Rican Instant Lunch Factory the guy says “This soup is fucked up … Pura Vida!!!” and then sends it down the line.” Chad, in fact, enjoys the heck out of this instant lunch. It is Picante Chicken flavored. While eating it,and coughing because it’s so spicy he declares “I’m going to write to Costco and tell them to put this on their menu.”
The conversation shifts to colloquialisms. We come up with a few for future use. These were hilarious at the time, only time will tell if they hold up:
-When the gold is near, you strike it.
-When the fire is hot you put your feet next to it.
-WHen the fork has food on it, put it in your mouth.
So start using those. They all make sense.
Back at the hostel we drink beer and rum+coke at the pool. Can’t do this at a hotel pool CAN YOU!!!???? Chad, would your dad like this feature of the hostel? Yes he would.At some point in the evening I built a card house.
And Chad and I played Jungle pool.
As we get ready for bed, I am bushing my teeth. Chad is walking around the room with a toothpaste-topped toothbrush in his hand while simultaneously chewing candy as hard as he can. “I need to get all the candy out of my mouth before I brush my teeth.” I laugh so hard I spit out my toothpaste.
As we lie in bed we discuss our futures. We decide that we want to all live together in a sharehouse when we are 65. “And we will have accordion-style doors for all the bathrooms.” “They will be painted green.”
We’re almost asleep. Hannah hears a noise and freaks out. “Was that a bat?” “No, that was Rachel moving her foot.”
DAY 11
Our last fun day in Costa Rica. The flight back to Los Angeles is fast approaching.
So we made it a FULL DAY. Morning: ziplining. Afternoon: Hiking to and jumping from waterfalls. Evening: dinner and a movie.
ZIPLINING: It was great. It’s one of those things that you have to be there to appreciate it. Pictures don’t do it much justice. But here are a few anyways:
To get to the start of the canopy, we had to get into the back of a pickup truck and drive up a steep road. I picked up a stick bug! And put it on my head! It hung out on my head the entire ride up. Then it crawled from my head onto a tree branch. Now the score is: stick bugs: 1. Anton: 1. Tie!
So there you have it. Atypical pictures of ziplining. That’s my style. Oh, and here’s the view from the top:
Next, we got ice cream.
“What kind of ice cream would your mom get, if she was here?” “None, she can’t have gluten” “So she would get an otter pop then” “I guess”If you’re ever in this exact situation, here are two pieces of advice. 1. Don’t ride a motorcycle through this herd of cow-like animals with horns. A guy did with his girlfriend on the back, and a horned cow was threatening them and charging at them until the dude on the horse whipped it. 2. Don’t turn left. Because if you do, you’ll go down that damned secondary road that you will have to push your car up a hill on. Then after 20 kilometers a farmer will tell you you are 20 kilometers in the wrong direction.
Driving to Montezuma: No problem. We eat a tasty $5 lunch (great idea to put canned corn into sandwiches!)
Here’s our lunch restaurant:
Can’t beat the location for a $5 meal. Every sandwich includes “special pink sauce”. Also the beers are $2, and are 2 degrees celsius!!! So of course we have a few. There are two kids sitting on the steps in the restaurant. A restaurant employee comes over to Rachel and tells her to move her kids somewhere else. They are in danger there he says. These aren’t my kids she says.
Then we go to the waterfalls. It’s a bit of a hike, but it’s really fun. We all jump in quite a few times. You can climb up, you can climb behind the waterfall, you can jump from any height you desire (up to about 70 feet). We spend most of our time at the ‘first waterfall’. We all go up to the second and third waterfalls (except Rachel). The second waterfall is a 30-40 foot jump from the waterfall top into a deep pool. After seeing a few people do it and gathering the courage, I do it (no photos). Th third waterfall has another pool, and there’s a rope swing that goes to it. It’s awesome. Not to mention, this is all FREE!!! Here’s a bunch of pics of the ‘first waterfall’:
Chad jumping off.Me jumping off “squirrel-monkey” styleChad, would you mom like this place? “No”Rachel gathering her courage before her second jump (the camera failed the first time). “It’s Tough Mudder training” we tell her.There she goes! She jumped when I counted to 3!Then ChadThen me. I definitely have a pose when I jump.Then I do some backflips. Then I realize that jumping off rocks into water is MY FAVORITE THING IN THE WORLD. It’s free, adventurous, safe, fun, and it gives you adrenaline.Then we figure out we can jump THROUGH the waterfall WHILE HOLDING HANDS!!! Pura Vida indeed.Even Hannah goes swimming!Eventually, Hannah musters up the courage to go behind the waterfall … and we do a picturesque kiss.Then we jump!
But, when we get back to the car, we see “the damage” This bums us out for a few days. When did it happen? We don’t know for sure.
Do you see it yet?Now you see it. Ouch.
After the waterfalls, we go to a restaurant (instead of driving back to our hostel in the daylight) and order Banana, Papaya, and Pina coladas, pizza to share, and watch Life of Pi at a restaurant on a giant projector screen. Everything was perfect, and it hit the spot. Chad, thanks again for buying our dinner!!!!!!
A beautiful bug lands in my lap a little later. I pick it up. It sticks it’s long long nose into my finger. It’s a mosquito. I kill it with a menu.
Back at the hostel around 10PM. We have a few beers. A giant bug gets on Hannah’s thigh. I spring up and frantically hit it with a pen five times. On the sixth time the pen flies out of my hand and into the grass. Then I keep hitting it with my hand until it’s off. Win.
DAY 12 – The Final Day AKA Day of many travels
The morning wasn’t wasted on sleep. Hannah and Rachel rode horses. Chad and I went body surfing in some awesome waves.
Rachel and Hannah came from horse ride with sore bodies and big bruises. Hannah galloped and lost her bandana. Rachel galloped and almost fell off. Rachel’s horse kicked a dog.
On the beach…And through the jungle.
Then the drive to San Jose begins. We drive to the store (Rachel regrets buying those cheesy fry chips for $1)
In line for the famous “Tambor III”Here it is. The famous “Tambor III”Good thing we didn’t have to go on the Tambor P-2930Just drive your car down this ramp…And put it close to the pole and the Subaru.Look at these sexy people getting on the boat.Park your car everywhere.The beauty of Tambor III
Chad, would your mom like the Tambor III? “No.”
The music on the top deck erupted in volume sometime between the start of the voyage and the end. It was about 3x louder in the end than in the beginning. Oh, how miserable the old people on the top deck were. Especially when they began playing gangnam style.
I’ll spare you the details, but after our ‘cruise’ we were on the other side of the canal, and we had lunch. Hannah was grumpy before. Really grumpy. Miraculously, after we ate she laughed hysterically when I smacked chad’s butt with a newspaper. How much difference a meal makes. During the meal, Chad had a Coca Cola. When he ordered a second drink he and I both said in English and spanish that he wants a Fresca for his second one, not a diet coke. The lady brings him a Coca Cola. Chad drinks it.
We got to the San Jose airport, then we had to find our bed and breakfast. Our instructions simply said “200 meters south of “Mall Internacional” the entrance is on the right hand side. “Residencial santi-alajuela” (Whatever that means). After asking four people for directions at random part of the city, we got there. Everyone laughed at me when I asked 12 year olds about where the B&B was, but even they were helpful. Fun fact about Costa Rica: there are NO ADDRESSES. Everything is relative to other things – 2 blocks north of McDonals, or whatever. It was a glorious moment when Chad pulled out his cell phone, found an unlocked wireless network, and used GPS to locate our B&B one block away!!!
We had a sum of money to spend the last night, and we spent it on food, rum and cokes (pre-mixed in a can), and Kinder surprises. And what a night it was. The bed and breakfast was CLEAN and AWESOME. Here’s a pic of Chad and me “in action”
You give chad and me a bed, a few canned rum and cokes, and things get weird!
After a few hours of sleep, we woke up and returned our car (paying the $300 damage penalty). Then we went to the airport. I”ll leave you with a final photo and a few parting thoughts:
-The cost of our trip was $3000. This includes Plane tickets for me and Hannah, all food, lodging, and adventures described in the past few blogs. It even includes the cost of our rental car, which isn’t something that we would normally have splurged on. $3000 for two weeks of ADVENTURE and a lifetime of memories. Some people spend $3000 on rims for their car. This is SO WORTH IT. Traveling is so awesome.
– Coming back to California was pleasant. Things are clean. The roads are paved, and there’s literally 8 lanes on each side of the freeway.
-As always, the goal of these blogs is twofold: to transcribe my memories so they don’t disappear and to INSPIRE OTHERS TO TRAVEL. So if you’re thinking about going somewhere, GO.
I call this one: “The sunrise at the airport” Or is it “The sunrise over the rest of our lives”?
Alrighty. Before we move forward, we must look back. Here’s Week 1 in pictures. As you will notice, Jesse and Nikki are more focused on nature, thus there are many pictures of birds and other animals. Grab a cup of tea, sit down, and enjoy the pictures and the thought provoking captions.
The Costa Rican flag. I think they hung it upside down.Find the bats in this picture!!!Jesse demonstrating the thickness of a typical hostel mattress. “This mattress is as thick as a well-stuffed breakfast sandwich” Jesse said soon afterwards. Then I said “I prefer my mattresses to be as think as milk jugs.” But lets face reality, people. We all know that mattresses are, on average, the thickness of a Gevalia coffee maker machine.In Costa Rica you don’t find bats. Bats find you.It’s a slippery one.The Brown sisters on an adventure. “My hair is getting waterfall water in it” “Better waterfall water than lava” True. True.The bubbling mud pools. This is where the witches go on vacation.Just another scary tree that fell over. I suggested we sleep inside of it. Hannah suggested we don’t.Capybara! The world’s largest rodent. It’s about the size of a cocker spaniel. Google Image it!Me about to jump into a cold pool of water. Worth the goosebumps.This picture accurately represents the different levels of adventurousness of Hannah and me. One of the best pictures of the trip.I’m so wet.MY FAVORITE PICTURE OF THE TRIP!!!!!!Exploring mysterious pools of water is my forte.This bird looks like he just got beat up and robbed. Poor little guy. Jesse says he’s related to the crow.A magical bird that has a cool hairdo. Often confused with the tooth fairy.How do you make glue in the jungle? Squeeze an iguana.I spent a total of seven hours on this tiny laptop writing blogs (in Tamarindo). Then another 2-3 hours booking hostels. Note the awesome hostel fridge in the background. The password for the computer is ‘ladygaga’Don’t squeeze this iguana though. He has spikes.A bird!Mr. Crocodile hanging out on the beach. Don’t get a gazelle-shaped towel!Wheeeeeeeeeee!The uglier side of tourism. Sure, riding horses as a tourist is fun, but did you know that they spend hours breathing smog and stepping on trash in a parking lot while waiting for tourists to ride them?“This bird makes a nest near a termite mound so as to easily find food for it’s babies.” Apparently they can also twist their necks 180 degrees.Tamarindo = Tamagringo. Touristy but still fun.The closest Jesse got to catching a wave on a surfboard. “I got one foot on, then fell over!!”Tiny wave. Large surfboard. Photo-op.After sunset surfing. Another great photo.We all of a sudden wanted a green apple smifnoff ice after seeing 20 of these. It tasted like jolly ranchers!This is an incredible ‘nut’ find. He carried this up a tree then ate it!!What a cool squirrel!Some bird in some cactus. Jesse thinks he has a nest in there. A remote control helicopter with a video camera would have been useful in this situation.“Count Dracula in bird form” – still wearing his cape.Playa Conchal. Great tourist pic.This monkey could use a toothbrush. Or some Trident ‘mystery’ flavor.I am posing for a self-timed photo. Jesse makes fun of me but HEY, these take forever to set up correctly!!!Jesse and Nikki saw these cool birds. The rest of us never did.These guys just hang out in the trees and don’t bother people. It was pretty cool seeing monkeys around.We never saw a toucan in the wild, but Jesse and Nikki saw one behind a fence somewhere! Better than nothing. As Jesse points out “Toucans are ridiculous. They look like something a kid drew, and that kid wasn’t even a good artist”.ATV’s. The perfect transportation for short trips on dirt roads. Great picture.Jesse is #1 tourist in all of Costa Rica! Before the trip Jesse asks “Should I bring a Hawaiian shirt?” I respond with “do whatever makes you happy.” Clearly he made the right choice.
The next blog will have a higher word to picture ratio. That’s a promise.
here’s a quick vid of the drive:
antoninchina 