Tag: travel with kids

Ramblings

Japan

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Over the summer, we went to Tokyo, Japan for 10 days (followed by Australia but more on that later). This would be my third time in Japan, so I wasn’t too keen on visiting again except for a few reasons:

  1. We brought C to Japan when he was only a year old, and O has never been
  2. DisneySea is often called the best Disney park in the world, so we thought it was the perfect place to take the boys for their first Disney experience
  3. We wanted to climb Mt. Fuji
  4. Japan is only a three hour flight from Taiwan – plus, no jet lag!

Japan has always been a favorite destination for many, particularly in the last few years to the point that it’s suffering from overtourism. To be honest, I never understood it. Japan is nice enough – safe, clean and affordable – but I didn’t think it was any more special than other countries. I never got the hype…until this trip.

First, the food. We didn’t seek out the most popular spots, yet even the little restaurants down the street were amazing. I don’t think we ever had a bad meal there, and everything was so affordable! (As you can tell from the pictures below, we ate a LOT of sushi.)

Next up: DisneySea. We’re not huge Disney fans, but could still appreciate their stunning visuals, immersive experiences, and attention to detail. DisneySea felt especially unique, with rides like Soaring Fantastic Flight and Journey to the Center of the Earth that we had never experienced before.

Tickets to DisneySea were about $70 USD for adults, and $60 USD for kids, which is a STEAL compared to the prices for Disneyland in Anaheim. We did splurge on fast passes for Soaring Fantastic Flight and Anna and Elsa’s Frozen Journey, at around $15 USD per person per ride. What would’ve been a 1.5 hour – 2 hour wait ended up being a 10-15 minute wait with the fast passes, so the splurge was worth it!

By the end of a full day at DisneySea, our feet were so sore and our wallets a little lighter, but we had an absolute blast. Disney sure knows how to make your experience there enjoyable!

On a less successful theme park note…

We had also planned to go to Legoland Japan for O’s birthday. We were careful to book tickets for Legoland Resort (the full theme park), not the Legoland Discovery Center (the smaller indoor version). The day before while checking the route, we realized it would take us THREE hours by train to get there. (Why we didn’t notice this earlier, I have no idea.) But since it was O’s birthday and we already had the tickets, we decided to make the trek anyway.

At the crack of dawn, we packed our bags and headed to the train station…only for Baba to discover that round-trip train tickets would cost us $700 USD!! 😱😱 We checked, re-checked, and triple-checked, but it was true. Since Legoland is in Nagoya, the only way to get there was the Shinkansen, and those tickets are pricey. (Planning ahead? Clearly not our strong suit.)

We had to cut our losses short. We gave up our Legoland tickets (about $150 USD) and faced the hardest part– telling the boys. Poor O burst into tears, heartbroken that his birthday trip to Legoland was canceled. My mama heart was crushed.

To soften the blow, we went to the Legoland Discovery Center instead (ironically, the very place we had been so careful not to book initially – ha!). Thankfully, it’s right in central Tokyo, and while it’s nowhere near as comprehensive as the full resort, it still had enough rides, games, and Lego builds to keep the boys entertained for most of the day.

We wrapped up by letting the birthday boy choose dinner — AYCE shabu shabu, which helped turn a disappointing start to a day that was still memorable and fun. Happy birthday O, we love you! ❤️

On our last day in Tokyo, we visited TeamLabs Planets, an immersive exhibit that combines art with technology. The boys and I had already been impressed by a TeamLabs exhibit in Taipei, but since Japan is where TeamLabs originated, we wanted to check it out.

The experience was nothing short of psychedelic and fully immersive, from bouncing among giant ceiling-to-floor spheres, to walking barefoot through water as digital fish swam around us! The “wow” factor never stopped. It was wildly creative, awe-inspiring from start to finish, and highly recommended for kids AND adults!

As you can tell, we didn’t exactly dive into Japan’s cultural side on this trip. 😏 Instead, it was mostly theme parks and art exhibits, but we still had a fantastic time.

As for our Mt. Fuji climb…this post is getting a bit long and I think that deserves a post all its own. So, stay tuned!

Ramblings

Thailand

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The last leg of our month-long SE Asia trip was to Bangkok, Thailand. Since we had been bouncing around Vietnam and Cambodia the past few weeks, we decided to station ourselves in Bangkok for the remainder of our trip. Bangkok is one of my favorite cities in the world. There is a special vibe and energy that that’s both comforting and thrilling. There is just so much to do, see, and eat! This is my third time there, and my feelings about the Bangkok remain the same.

It would be negligent to visit Thailand and not eat to our heart’s content. 😊 We love Thai food but as with Vietnamese food, Taipei unfortunately doesn’t have a lot of authentic Thai restaurants and we sorely miss it.

We spent the week in Bangkok eating and eating and eating. Probably gained a few pounds from this trip but boy, was it worth it!

The food prices in Bangkok were not as cheap as Vietnam’s, but more on par with Taipei’s (about $25-$30 for a casual meal for family of four). However, you can also easily find street food that’s much cheaper.

Another “must” when visiting Thailand is getting a Thai massage. Since we didn’t have anyone to watch the boys, Baba stayed at the Airbnb with them while I went to get a 1.5 hour massage. It was a relaxing experience, but not as joint-cracking as I remembered (and hoped for) 😂. At $30, the massage was on the higher-end but still very reasonable compared to the US.

Sightseeing around Bangkok: Chinatown (incredibly chaotic but in a good way!), Icon Siam (the biggest, most fabulous mall in Bangkok), and Wat Arun Temple.

Around the second or third day into the trip, Baba started experiencing GI issues. (We suspect it may have been all that coconut cream from the mounds of Mango Sticky Rice he ate.) So, I decided to book a last-minute Thai cooking class with C, my boy who lives to eat.

We had a total blast!! The class started off at a local wet market, where our teacher showed what some common ingredients are in Thai cooking. We went back to the cooking school via tuk-tuk and cooked four amazing dishes: Tom Yum Goong, Pad Thai, Massaman Curry and Mango Sticky Rice. Every dish was restaurant-quality and surprisingly easy to make! Then again, not having to source ingredients and clean up after ourselves makes a huge difference too 😅.

As the week went on, C caught another stomach bug. 😣 (Or maybe he never fully healed from the last bug in Vietnam?) With two men down, O and I went sightseeing at the Grand Palace and Wat Pho (Reclining Buddha Temple) by ourselves. I remember seeing these grand, opulent temples for the first time 20 years ago and feeling my jaw drop to the floor. It was moving to see O reacting the same way when he laid eyes on the Grand Palace, and I was reminded why we take these trips with our kids.

And that completes our whirlwind trip in SE Asia! Thankfully, Baba and C recovered from their illnesses before we flew back to Taipei. We even got to sneak in some delicious food (but with extra caution) on our last day. We got back to Taipei in the evening and the boys had school the very next morning 😅. Even after a month-long vacation, they whined and wished they could stay in SE Asia a while longer. But you know what? I felt the same way.

Ramblings

Indonesia Part 1: Java and Bali

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Bali had always been on my list of places to travel to. I was captivated by the blend of culture, beauty and laid back vibe of the island. But the 20+ hour flight from San Francisco deterred us from visiting for the longest time.

So when we moved to Taiwan, I knew we had to take advantage of the 5 hour flight to Bali. As I did more research though, I realized just how many islands there are in Indonesia that get overshadowed by Bali! (Seriously, there are 6,000 inhabited islands in the country.) I felt like we wouldn’t do Indonesia justice by visiting just Bali, so we decided to visit Java as well. Even thought there were other islands I wanted to go to – namely, Komodo, Borneo and Lombok – it was logistically hard to plan. We spent 1 week in Java and 1 week in Bali.

Java. Java is considered the economic and cultural center of Indonesia. The capital Jakarta is also on the island but we decided to skip it after reading many reviews saying there isn’t much to see/do. Instead, we went to Yogykarta and Surabaya.

Yogykarta (or commonly called “Jogja”) is known for its cultural heritage and traditional arts. It’s actually the most popular destination in Java but it never felt overly touristy or inauthentic. I really liked the laid-back vibe in Jogja.

We visited the famous Prambanan and Borobudur temples in Jogja. Prambanan (pictured below) is a large Hindu temple complex that reminded us so much of Angkor Wat. Visitors can also climb up into some of the temples, where a statue of a deity often stood. We went to Prambanan during sunset and seeing the temples in the warm, glowing hues was a wonderful way to end the day.

Borobudur is the largest Buddhist temple in the world. Borobudur is actually quite close to Prambanan (about 1.5 hour drive away) so many people visit the two temples in one day. But because we had extra time, we visited each temple on different days so as not to wear ourselves out.

Borobudur temple has several upper levels, which visitors need to buy a special ticket to in order to visit. I had such a hard time securing the tickets (probably due to bots 😒) so ended up working with an agent. Because of its massive scale, the temple is very impressive from afar. We climbed the stairways and walked through the corridors to see the relief panels but the temple has no interior you can walk into. Overall, we enjoyed the architecture and aesthetic of Prambanan more.

We didn’t realize it at the time, but Jogja had the best food out of all the places we visited in Indonesia. The dishes were reminiscent of Southeast Asia flavors: a mix of salty, sour, sweet and SPICY! I have a decent spice tolerance but some of the food set my mouth on fire (in a good way). The downside was finding food for the boys because even the least spicy foods were too much for them. 😂 Food was extremely affordable in Jogja – the total bill was generally no more than $20 for the 5 of us.

After Jogja, we took a 4 hour train ride to Surabaya in east Java. We were pleasantly surprised by how comfortable the trains were! We booked seats in the Executive Class through tiket.com, and each ticket only came out to be about $20 per person.

Surabaya is the gateway city to Mount Bromo, one of Indonesia’s most famous active volcanoes. We booked a Mount Bromo sunrise tour, which picked us up from our Airbnb at midnight (!!) 😱 to then drive 2 hours to a spot where we switched to a 4×4. The 4×4 drove us up a rugged, winding path for another 1.5 hours (which the boys loved of course) to King Kong Hill to catch the sunrise.

Prior to the tour, our guide had warned us about the windy and frigid weather at King Kong Hill. We packed as much warm clothing as we could, but our efforts were futile. The wind chill atop King Kong Hill was brutal. What’s worse is that we had to stand in the cold for 1.5 HOURS in order to see the sunrise from the best viewing spot. Understandably, the boys were very grumpy. At long last, we finally saw the sunrise and it was absolutely glorious…though we would’ve enjoyed it a lot more if it weren’t so damn cold.

After snapping some pictures, we raced down the hill to try and beat the other tourists leaving the area. The road was PACKED with 4x4s, causing a major bottleneck. We had to wait another 45 minutes for the cars to start moving.

The next leg of the tour was climbing up to the crater of Mount Bromo. It’s not a hard or long climb, but can be steep in some areas. It was awe-inspiring to see an active volcano up close!

The last part of the tour was seeing the Madakaripura Waterfall. What we did NOT expect was having to reach the waterfall on the back of a motorbike. 😂 Granted the ride was short (about 10-15 minutes), but you can bet I was hanging onto the driver for dear life! Of course the boys loved it and thought it was the best thing ever.

After the motorbikes dropped us off at the trailhead, we had to hike about 1/2 a mile – including crossing a few rivers and scrambling on rocks – to reach the Madakaripura Waterfall.

And it was STUNNING. Seriously, pictures cannot do this place justice. The soft streams of water flowing down from the cliffside was like a dream. The sound of the waterfall was thunderous yet I felt so at peace there.

The entire tour lasted 16 hours. We were utterly exhausted but agreed this tour was the highlight of our Indonesia trip. The next day, we all slept in and didn’t have the energy to do much except hang out at the pool/gym. There was a mall and food court below our Airbnb, so we never even left the building. The boys later visited a cool balloon exhibit in the mall.

Looking back, we’re a little disappointed we didn’t get to explore much of Surabaya but getting some down time to recharge was also necessary. (I was experiencing cold symptoms at this point too!) From Surabaya, we took a 45 minute flight to Bali. However seeing how long this post is getting, I think I’ll save Bali for another post!