travel

We’re back home after two lovely weeks of getting our bottoms frozen in Japan. It was amazing, I’d highly recommend the experience. If one has to get one’s bottom frozen, Japan is a most wonderful place to do it.

I’ll get to the trip soon but first, I feel like we need to talk about traveling with an infant.

You know all those articles about 20 tips to survive a trip with a baby with photos of a happy smiley baby on a flight like so?

LIES. ALL LIES.

Here’s one tip from someone who has actually survived a trip with a baby: DON’T DO IT.

Unless you’re like me and you enjoy the finer things in life such as shovelling food frantically into your face in 15 seconds while standing next to your table rocking an angry baby in a cramped izakaya, or hoisting a squirmy sack of rice all day while strolling around the city, or spending your nights asking your baby repeatedly “Y U NO SLEEP, BABY???”, or feeling like you’re exhausted out of your mind every minute of the entire holiday, then go ahead and bring that baby along!! It’ll be a holiday you’ll never forget!

For starters, baby Hayley wasn’t too impressed with the cold. The big kids were like “woooo snow, awesome“, but the baby was all “WHY ARE YOU GUYS DOING THIS TO ME I’M JUST 8 MONTHS OLD I CANNOT DEAL WITH THIS!!” even though we dressed her in super warm thermals, fleece footed jammies and a poofy coat. Poor baby would look increasingly miserable as the temperature dipped and if we wanted to know how cold it was, we’d just need to look at her face. It was actually hilarious because she would start shouting like “ahhhhh ahhhhh aaarrgghhh” whenever it got too cold, which would be our cue to duck into a mall or somewhere indoors to warm up.

What’s the temperature here? Misery.

Speaking of the cold, as you know, I’ve mastered the art of breastfeeding the baby on the go and it was super convenient to just latch on the baby whenever she got hungry. It worked really well until we got to Niseko when I decided to just feed her at a quiet corner out in the snow because it was too much of a hike uphill to make it back to the hotel. I didn’t realise how cold it would be to breastfeed a baby out in the snow. Let’s just say that having a -10 degree arctic blast hit me right in the boob is something I’ll remember for a long, long time.

During this trip, I also discovered that baby Hayley does not like sleeping anywhere that is not her home. As it is, she already does not like to sleep much at home but when we were away, it was much, much worse.

She would struggle for an hour to fall asleep every night only to wake up every 30 minutes throughout the night. She developed a new rule of sleeping, wherein I had to lie down very close beside her and not move an inch. If I so much as twitched a muscle, she would immediately wake up and cry. So brutal.

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I’m not gonna lie, it was exhausting and there was more shouting than I was prepared for. But I don’t know, if I could do it all over again, I think I’d still want to bring the baby along.

We were at Sapporo Beer Garden one night just watching the snow fall gently around us while trying to walk off a particularly tasty dinner. The big kids were rolling around in the snow making snow angels and I had baby Hayley nestled against my chest. She looked around at the snowflakes falling like tiny crystals in the night, at all the pretty lights dancing along the street, then back up at me and her face broke out into the widest, happiest grin.

That was so much joy in her squishy little face I cannot even.

She’s probably not going to remember that moment but that’s ok because I will.

I got to see my baby experience snow falling on her nose for the first time. I got to watch her eyes light up on It’s A Small World ride in Disneyland. I got to feed her the first bite of creamy Hokkaido soft serve (she went completely insane right after, flapping away frantically in the direction of the delicious ice cream. When we were done, she spent several minutes trying to eat the leftover taste of soft serve from my mouth like “what?? No more ice cream? I will have to eat your face!!“).

My philosophy for traveling used to be that we had to pack in as much fun and enjoyment into every moment of every day. EVERYONE NEEDED TO HAVE FUN AT ALL TIMES! I’d get bummed if things went wrong or kids got tired and grouchy. That’s just too much pressure for any trip.

These days, I’ve learnt to take it for what it is – a time to get away and hang out with the people who bring me joy.

After spending 2016 at home, we’re in Tokyo with kids 1, 2, and 5.

The plan is to eat up all of the food we can stuff into our faces, do a bit of Disney and then head to Hokkaido for some skiing. We briefly considered bringing all 5 kids along for this adventure but that would have been hardcore level masochistic and I’m only moderately masochistic so we’re here with just 3 kids.

How do we choose which kids get to travel? It involves a very scientific methodology called “How Many Can We Bring Without Killing Ourselves Or Losing Any Kids”.

At this point, baby Hayley = Finn + Theo in terms of high maintenance quotient, so we had to choose either the baby or the two boys and since baby Hayley needs her food delivery system in the form of my boobs, she gets dibs this round. We could probably have done kids 1, 2, 3, 5 or 1, 2, 4, 5 but that would mean leaving either Finn or Theo at home, which would be super sad and lonesome for the one who doesn’t get to go. This way, they will both be slightly less sad and not at all lonesome.

It’s like that riddle where the guy has to cross the river with the fox, chicken and corn, except instead of animals and food, we have babies.

Truett and Kirsten are thrilled to have each other for company and they’re having a blast. I was like “if you guys could pick only 1 sibling to travel with, who would it be?” and they immediately shouted “OF COURSE KOR KOR/KIRSTEN!!” They are usually very politically correct with these pick-a-favourite-sibling/parent dilemmas I like to dish out but this time, there was no hesitation.

“If we go with the small kids, we will be so busy taking care of them, it’ll be like hard work. With each other, we can just relax and play,” they explained.

Fair enough.

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More to come soon, but Tokyo has been a delight. I think Japan is becoming one of my favourite places to visit.

Our last stop for the trip was in Los Angeles and there’s a lot to like about LA – Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, Santa Monica, Venice Beach, In & Out Burger, The Grove, the palm trees, the glorious sunshine, spotting famous people…it was the best way to round up a visit to California.

We thought it’d be fun to spend a few nights in Hollywood and what better place to stay at than the historic Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel? It’s where the first Academy Awards was hosted and the hotel has seen guests ranging from Clark Gable to Scarlet Johansson. Later, we found out that it’s also the favourite hangout place of Marilyn Monroe’s ghost, so that was um, interesting.

LA is the sort of place that feels larger than life. If you consume enough movies and TV, you’d recognise many of the places and it’s fun to go on a spot the scene tour around the city.

So here are all our favourite things to do in LA.

The Grove + The Original Farmer’s Market.

The Grove is an excellent way to spend an afternoon even if you’re not of the hardcore shopping variety. I was sort of expecting it to be like an outlet mall style setup but this was one of the prettiest outdoor shopping experiences I’ve had. The whole place was decked out all gorgeous in christmas cheer and everything was so festive. Best of all, when night time came around, the streets would be covered in tiny flakes of fake snow and the kids understandably went nuts.

My kids aren’t fond of shopping but they had so much fun here they were all “you guys should do more shopping!” just so they wouldn’t have to leave.

Venice Beach + Canals Walkway

LA isn’t typically known as a beach destination but we discovered that it has some very spectacular beaches. Such as Venice Beach, which is already gorgeous on its own, but it gets even more street cred when you realise that’s where a very buff, shirtless Edward Norton shot hoops on American History X.

Steps away from Venice boardwalk is a charming little place called the Venice Canals Walkway. It’s a row of houses along a little canal with picturesque bridges and boats.

Kirsten was like “you mean people live here in these houses?? Like everyday they stay here??? Why don’t we bring baby Theo here to LA and then we can all stay here, that’s a great idea right?”

Not a bad pitch by a 7-year-old.

Santa Monica Pier + Boulevard

I have a soft spot for Santa Monica because one of the best memories we have of our honeymoon was walking down Santa Monica Boulevard listening to a guy play this mesmerising tune on the saxophone. I still remember his name – Sha Shaty. We were there for a long time, just sitting by the sidewalk and holding hands, being all newlyweddy and in love.

Over the past 8 years, in good and bad times, we’ll still often talk about that time we were in Santa Monica listening to Sha Shaty on the saxophone. It was like our moment. That’s definitely core memory material, and one of the very best ones.

Well, that just about wraps up this little travel series, thanks for sticking around. Regular programming will resume shortly!

So you know there’s no way we’d take a trip to Southern California and not spend some time in Disneyland right? That possibility does not exist in this universe or any other universe.

We had 4 days to spend in Disneyland, which might seem like a lot of days to cover 2 parks but it really isn’t. Especially so during christmastime where crowds are heavier than usual and park touring becomes less efficient. 4 days gave us time to cover everything we wanted to without hustling like maniacs around the park. *But if you’re visiting during low season, 3 days should be just about right.

Yeah, first things first. Here are all the things you need to know about visiting SoCal Disneyland.

1. Buy park hopper tickets. 

Your mileage may vary on park hopper tickets at Disney World and you’d have an equally nice time without them, but at Disneyland, get them park hoppers! The 2 parks are located just steps away from each other and getting from park to park takes you 5 minutes tops. In fact, you can think of it as one big park separated by 2 turnstiles.

This allows you to get concurrent fast passes for both parks without waiting for the 2 hour window and more fastpasses = YES.

2. Stay offsite. 

Again, there’s no real need to stay at a Disney hotel in Anaheim, unlike in Disney World. The price vs perks ratio just isn’t justified in this case, plus there are so many other decent (and very cheap) accommodation options just directly opposite the park.

3. Allow more than 1 day to watch the fireworks. 

I could watch the fireworks everyday for the rest of my life, but that’s not really the reason for this. As it turns out, there’s a pretty good chance of the fireworks being cancelled on days with unfavourable wind conditions. This happened 2 out of 4 days we were there, which was such a bummer. It was a good thing we managed to catch it at least once on the second night.

We were hoping to watch it again on our last night at the park but it got cancelled minutes before showtime. :( So make allowance for this to happen.

4. Sleep in and stay late. 

We tried a new strategy this time around – to sleep in and stay till park closing, which in this case was at midnight every night. This probably wouldn’t work as well during the lighter months where park closing is at 10pm, but with the parks open till midnight, we managed to do way more rides during the last 3 hours than the rest of the day combined.

The queues for most of the rides were in the region of 40-60 minutes throughout the day, so we took it easy with fastpasses and shows during daylight hours. And then the fun really started after the fireworks, which is the point where most families with sleepy kids would make their way to the exit. Except my kids, who are commando trained and extremely dedicated to their enjoyment of rides.

This is when all the rides (besides Radiator Springs Racers + Hyperspace Mountain) dwindled to 5 minute wait times. All of Fantasyland was so nice and quiet, it was such a treat to have the whole place to ourselves. Like Dumbo was a walk on and we rode it 8 times in a row without waiting. To do this during the day would have taken 3 hours at least. It’s a Small World? Walk on. Peter Pan’s Flight? Walk on. King Arthur’s Carousel? Walk on. We got on Storybook Canal Boats and had the entire boat all to ourselves so we had a delightful time chatting with the cast member who decided to break out in song midway though the ride.

One night, it was drizzling and even Toy Story Midway Mania(??!!) was a walk on so we held an epic 7-round smackdown for the highest total score. When the parks are operating at full capacity, the late night hours is where it’s at.

As a by product of our late nights, the kids would be exhausted and sleep in till 10am the next morning so by the time everyone got ready and had brunch, we’d make it into the park like 11.30, just in time for the parades and shows.

The only caveat is that if you intend to get fastpasses for Radiator Springs Racers, get there early on one morning before you do the midnight run.

***

As far as the highlights go, I have only 2 words: Cars Land.

I’m a little late to the Cars Land party but this new addition to the park is a home run. It’s a bazooka fly ball into the stratosphere kind of glorious home run by the Disney Imagineers.

I’ll preface this by saying that Cars (the original) is one of my top 3 Disney/Pixar movies. It used to be the top until it got taken over by Inside Out and Frozen, but I still have a very soft spot for the magic of old town route 66.

The theming here is out of this world gorgeous.

And forget everything you think you know about the best theme park rides. Allow me to introduce you to the best ride in the history of awesome rides: Radiator Springs Racers.

This is by far the best ride I’ve ever been on. It’s kind of like my next favourite ride, Test Track, except much, much, much better. The line for this was consistently over 120 minutes during our entire trip and the fastpasses for this ride is usually distributed by 10 in the morning. The only way to ride this without waiting 2 hours is to hit the park at rope drop and then RUN LIKE YOU’VE NEVER RUN BEFORE TO GET FASTPASSES.

I never ever say this for any other ride, but even if you have to queue for this, it’s worth it.

The other ride you’d want to check out is Hyperspace Mountain. As it is, Disneyland Anaheim’s version of Space Mountain is far superior to all other versions, and they’ve managed to make it even better by jazzing it up with a Star Wars spin. I didn’t ride it in my pregnant state, but the husband rode it with Tru + Kirsten and they all assured me that it was quite spectacular.

In addition to the rides, one of the surprisingly fun sections was a little nondescript corner called the Wilderness Explorer Camp at Redwood Creek Challenge Trail. It’s an area for the kids to earn wilderness explorer badges by completing explorer tasks. My kids seem to have a very bizarre obsession with collecting badges and say what? Wilderness Explorer badges?? With a proper presentation ceremony by Russell??? Are you kidding me I’m never leaving this place!!

Finn is usually very shy about this sort of thing but he was super excited to volunteer to take his Wilderness Explorer pledge on stage. So adorable.

And as a special treat at the end of it, they got squashy hugs from Dug and Russell.

Okayyyy, that’s all from this Disney nut. Over and out.

It was a 3 and a half hour drive up to Lake Tahoe but the 7-hour detour was so worth it because this.

And this.

And this.

And this.

I don’t do a lot of quotes but here’s one from Mark Twain, who apparently said that “To breathe the same air as the angels, you must go to Tahoe.” He’s probably right on that one.

We took a whole bunch of photos and then we stopped because all the photos just felt like they weren’t even close to capturing what we were seeing with our eyes. Also, it’s really hard to hold anything with your frozen stumps in that sort of temperature, much less think about framing and shot angles.

Next time, I’m just going to make the husband wear a gopro on his head – problem solved.

***

We had 2 nights in Tahoe, which factoring in the drive, left us a full day in the snow. 1 day is far too little time to spend up in the mountains if you intend to do any proper skiing, but it was good enough for this trip because I couldn’t snowboard in my pregnant state anyway and Finn is a little young to start ski school. Ideally, 4-5 days would be just about right. We’ll put the kids in ski school and go hit the slopes all day.

For non-skiers, there’s still lots to do in Lake Tahoe, starting with a healthy breakfast. Incidentally, *we had the healthiest breakfast of our entire trip in Tahoe. Like woah, look at this huge pile of green things I cannot even identify.

*Full disclosure: I’m using the term “we” loosely because the husband ate this. I had a delicious bagel with cream cheese. 

//Oh oh, and snow gear! I did a quick check prior to the trip and it costs $20 per day to rent ski suits for the kids, which is daylight robbery.  I managed to snag these snow bibs + jackets on Amazon during black friday for under $30 each, and it kept them nice and warm in the snow. Plus it’s super cute and I ordered a size up so hopefully it lasts them for another 18 months at least.

I suppose this means more ski trips on the horizon. Or I’ll just make them wear it at home for fun. Kids, every other Thursday is ski suit day. I don’t care that it’s 32 degrees out, just put this on!

***

Whether you ski or not, a trip up the gondola to the snow capped peaks has to be done. I mean, where else are you going to get away with looking like a deranged person in a photo? Okay, tons of places, but here you get a magnificent view too.

There’s also tubing (super fun according to the kids!), making snow angels (also super fun!), pretend-eating snow cones (NO DON’T ACTUALLY LICK IT, that’s disgusting!), snowball fights (girls team always wins, no hitting girls with snowballs!), and um…do you want to build a snowman? YES, the answer is always yes.

Except that it’s really hard to build a snowman without Elsa’s ice powers. We made a sad-looking lump and then gave up to go lie down in the snow instead.

In the evening, after a long day in the snow, the husband managed to find the energy to go ice-skating with Tru and Kirsten while Finn and I went back to the room for a nap. We all had fun.

After our near death experience that was biking across the golden gate bridge, the rest of San Francisco turned out to be very lovely.

In total, we spent 20 days touring California – 5 days in San Francisco, 2 days in Lake Tahoe, a day in Monterey/Carmel, 5 days in Disneyland Anaheim, 3 days in San Diego, and 4 days in Los Angeles. This itinerary broke up the driving into 3-5 hour stretches, which was manageable with 3 kids in the back seat.

I don’t think there’s ever enough time to spend in SF, but 5 days gave us plenty of time to explore the bay area. Here are some of the highlights.

Golden gate bridge + Sausalito (Round 2)

Yeah, we went back across the golden gate bridge to Sausalito again, this time via a cushy uber ride because we know better. It was like visiting a completely different place, with golden light, clear skies and the soft caress of a gentle breeze. The kids were like, “woah, this is so relaxing, but…I think it’s more fun to cycle.”

I don’t know if we should be thrilled or concerned about their decision-making priorities. What have we done to these kids??

Time passes differently in Sausalito, there’s no rush to be anywhere or do anything. When one is in Sausalito, one takes the time to share an ice cream and really appreciate one’s company.

To be fair, it was a little hard to enjoy Sausalito while suffering from mild PTSD the last round, but being back again reminded me of why this is still one of my favourite places in the world.

Alcatraz

We were really keen on visiting Alcatraz but by most accounts, it isn’t considered an entirely kid-friendly destination. It’s the kind of place you bring the kids if you want really drive home the message about bad behaviour = go to jail = terrifying nightmares. Which, um, OF COURSE!

I’m kidding. Sort of.

Let’s just say that I’m not above a casual mention of jail time the next time they act up.

If you’re planning a visit to Alcatraz, I highly recommend the audio tour, which is excellent. It’s the right amount of chilling and captivating, with fantastic background music and interviews with former wardens + inmates. Both Tru and Kirsten were completely into it and they followed the tour intently from start to finish.

It was all so very Shawshank Redemption in an immersive, experiential sort of way and we all enjoyed it, including Finn who ditched his audio tour and decided it was more fun to dance his way around the block to Jailhouse Rock.  

Fisherman’s Wharf

Touristy as it is, Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39 is always a good time, especially with kids.

There’s so much to do – explore the pier, hang out with sunbathing seals, grab a freshly-steamed dungeness crab from street stalls, round it off with a clam chowder in a sourdough bowl at Boudin, watch a magic show, ride the carousel.

Golden Gate Park

We eventually made it to Golden Gate Park and I’m glad we did because if you asked me right now what my favourite thing to do in San Francisco was, it’d be riding a pedal boat around Stow Lake. And I’m not even the nautical sort – I get horribly seasick on most modes of sea travel, including cruises, ferries, kayaks, boats, canoes, rafts, and windsurfing boards…all except a pedal boat. Such is the nature of my peculiar nautical nausea triggers.

I’m now a pedal boat convert. Give me a pretty lake with some ducks and I’d be riding pedal boats all day.

After all that relaxing pedalling, we thought it’d be a good idea to end the day with more pedalling on a surrey bike. This turned out to be far less relaxing. It’s like as if we haven’t learnt anything from our previous bike riding experience.

Why? The idea of a surrey bike looks like so much fun. But don’t fall for it! And throw in 3 small humans worth of weight and it’s like trying to pedal a military three-tonner up a mountain. There’s no gear shift to speak of, just raw human thigh power and I pretty much used up all my reserves during the first 5 metres.

We had barely made it onto the street and I already could not even breathe. I then pretended to do my share of pedalling for the rest of the ride while the husband singlehandedly pedalled all 5 of us around the park very very slowly. We were moving so slowly that an old lady on her walking aid blitzed past us and lapped us twice.

On the plus side, the kids thought it was super fun, even more fun than the paddle boats but then they don’t know anything and they also do not do any of the hard work.