Coromandel

Posted on by Caroline
I’m catching up now because we’ve had some technical difficulties and we’ve been busy exploring. Coromandel was craggy and wild and chill and stunning. It was the perfect way to start our trip. I told the kids that if I ever run away, they can probably find me in Coromandel… Since there’s just not enough time to write, a slew of pictures will have to do….

36 hours in Auckland

Posted on by Caroline
Yesterday was our buffer day in Auckland. A chance to recover from the red-eye flight and ground ourselves in New Zealand before picking up the RV today and heading out to the main event - our road trip through North Island. We had originally planned to spend a few hours in the Auckland War Memorial Musuem. It’s supposed to be fabulous - history, culture, natural history…. a great way to get some context for everything we hope to see in the next few weeks. But (in what is starting to feel like a recurring theme for me) the museum is closed both days we’re here… so we had to re-group. If you’re ever able to make it there, will you...Read More

Off to New Zealand

Posted on by Caroline
This year when we dreamed about what we wanted to see and do for the year, an RV trip to New Zealand was high on the list. We figured we’d go sometime around September - plenty of time to plan and dream, and catch the shoulder season between winter and summer. What we didn’t dream about (at least not yet) was transitioning from homeschooling and back into school for the kids. But after oodles of dreaming and scheming and thinking, we decided that this year will be our last year of homeschooling. Homeschooling has been an unexpected joy for us… It has been the right choice for these last five years. We’ve taken full advantage of the flexibility, travel opportunities...Read More

Sharing Japan

Posted on by Caroline
I’m sitting here in our hotel room, watching the early morning light grow over the Tokyo rooftops in Akasaka. In a few hours we’ll all go with Meg and Kate to the Haneda airport to send them on their way back to their life in France. It’s been so much fun to witness Guam and Japan through their eyes and share our life with them. I feel like we’ve made the most of it. We really only had enough time to give them the teaser tour of Japan - a few World Heritage shrines in Kyoto, a little shopping in Tokyo, and we ended the tour at The Making of Harry Potter outside Tokyo yesterday. It was the first time...Read More

Best Laid Plans

Posted on by Caroline
We had a plan for Meg and Kate’s visit: a day in Tokyo to meet them, a couple days in the tourist hotel in Guam to introduce them to the island, a few days in our house to show them our daily life, and then back to Japan to see Kyoto and then visit The Making of Harry Potter before sending them back on their way home to France. But life has a sense of humor, and all our plans were thrown into disarray when illness joined the party and proceeded to tear through the house, felling Duke, Kate and Amelia in rapid succession. So we lost three days to illness and then a slow recovery. And sometimes I wonder…...Read More

An afternoon in Tokyo

Posted on by Caroline
I apologize in advance for the quick post… We had a fabulous day yesterday. After meeting Meg and Kate at the airport, we took them back to our hotel in Ueno so they could drop off their bags, and recover from the long bit of traveling they’ve already done. Then the goal was to get them as much sunshine and fresh air as possible. I imagined a slow leisurely day of strolling through Tokyo neighborhoods. Amelia imagined a trip to Shibuya and the Pokémon and Nintendo stores there. …So we chose to go to Shibuya. Which is an absolutely amazing place. And if you want to supercharge your entry into all things modern Japan, the perfect place. Although I’m still...Read More

Visitors!!!

Posted on by Caroline
We’ve had a few visitors to come see us here in Guam, but it’s been a little while. Guam feels far away from absolutely everything, and no one is ever ‘just in the neighborhood’, so we don’t expect visitors. But today the four of us will head to the airport, while on the other side of the world, my sister and niece will start their journey from France. If all goes to plan, we’ll meet up in the Haneda airport tomorrow morning, and we’ll start a two week visit together. I’m so excited! We’ll start in Tokyo, but just long enough to let them catch their breaths and start to recover from jetlag, before we continue on to Guam. We’ll...Read More

The Monster Slide

Posted on by Caroline
Yesterday felt like a gift of a day. We really didn’t have much on the agenda that we had to do, so we just took our time wandering around the city. So often, traveling devolves into a list of things you have to see and not quite enough time to see it all. And so you dash from place to place as efficiently as possible. And I truly believe that in by dashing, you lose the soul of the place. Yesterday we had some extra time and decided to go find a park and playground nearby. I turned the phone over to Amelia and let her navigate us to the park. I kept wanting to take control back, but I...Read More

Back in Tokyo

Posted on by Caroline
I’m back in Tokyo - this time with Amelia and Duke. Tim will join us tomorrow. One of Tim’s cousins graciously invited us to have dinner at her place, so that’s the primary motivator to go this week. But it’s also been far too long since we’ve played our adventure song, and we’ve been looking forward to our next trip. Aside from dinner on Tuesday, we don’t have too much time and we also don’t have too much on the agenda. Tuesday morning I’ll take the kids back to the custom notebook store, and I’ll take Tim back to the izakiya that’s around the corner. Aside from that we might go to an aquarium and a Pokémon Center and hopefully...Read More

A Stationery Store Pilgramage

Posted on by Caroline
It’s been a strange season - I think we’re transitioning to the taxi-driver phase of parenting. The kids are enrolled in surfing and soccer and cross country. And I can’t even remember how long it’s been since all four of us have been healthy at the same time. But on a positive note, our school year has been off to a great start. All the habits and skills that we’ve been working on have all clicked into place and we’ve been humming along and (generally) having fun. But…. It’s been two and a half months since we’ve been off island and I’ve been getting itchy feet. So we hatched a plan to make a quick jaunt to Tokyo. The plan...Read More