A Trip To The Land of the Rising Sun! 

Hey, so it's been a crazy two weeks. If you read the newsletter, you know we were taking a family trip to Japan. We stayed on the main island. Me, my wife, and my two kids, Noah and Sam. This is a trip we've been planning for about two years. We were supposed to go last year, and scheduling didn't work out and we were going to be going in August, which is one of the hottest months over there as well, everybody says it's very hot and humid. So, we postponed it this year to as early in the summer as we could get after the boys got out of school.

First off, let me just say jet lag is no joke when you're going to Japan. It's about a 14 hours’ time difference. So going, it just sort of screwed up our clocks. I think I woke up at 2:00 A.M. most mornings for the first couple days, then it went to 5:00. Finally, when we were just leaving, I think I actually managed to sleep to about 7:00 A.M. but we were tired every night. The boys stayed up a little later than us, but me and Holly went to bed early just trying to recover from the jet lag. Got to where we were okay during the day, but night times we were ready to crash.

A couple of highlights. One is just everybody's so courteous in Japan. Everywhere we went to it was super nice and it's such a clean area and their subway system is just crazy efficient. We rode it several times and it always was on time. The trains are just moving and it's just a massive endeavor there.

Also, kind of interesting, my boys did not love the food. So, we ate a lot of American food in Japan just because they like that better. Did have some Wagyu beef, which is just everywhere over there. It's really nothing special over there. I mean, we got some from a street vendor, a whole skewer for less than $7.00. So, if you're big into that, definitely should consider going.

This is a picture of Shibuya Crossing. This is the biggest crossing in the world. At any point in time there's like 3,000 to 5,000 people crossing the streets at this intersection. So, it's kind of crazy and it was super packed even on a regular night. So not even a weekend.

Tons of crazy snacks. Everybody told me about weird Kit Kat flavors and stuff they've got over there. They were serious. I mean this is a whole shelf full of Kit Kats, different flavors, everything. I mean like a cheesecake flavored, just wild flavors of Kit Kats.

This is just a little picture of the subway. We rode it a lot, so it reminded me of it. And they have bullet trains over there. They go super-fast. Somewhere between 250 and 300 miles an hour, so they just zip along. It's kind of crazy. Hello Kitty is super popular over there. Lots of that and also lots of anime stuff. You just see cartoon stuff advertising things all over the place. Advertisements for video games or movies, I guess. I couldn't read the language, but just everywhere. In the subway, on billboards, on walls, just everywhere. So that was a total difference from America.

If you ever get a chance to go over there, I recommend you stay in a Ryokan. It's usually a sort of a small family hotel. A little bit bigger than an Airbnb, but not like a chain. This is just a picture of the one we stayed at. The Shoji screens and the tatami mats. It was just really wonderful. Hosts were great. Really would recommend if you get the chance to stay in one of those.

I saw the bamboo forest, which is all this bamboo in this area. What's interesting is the bamboo is actually imported from China. So, the bamboo forest is not native Japanese bamboo. It's from China. But these things grow so tall, some grow up to three feet a day and they can use it for all kinds of stuff. Here's us on the subway again. Then we went to this area which has deer that are almost domesticated, and they sell these little deer cookies that you buy, and the deer will sort of bow their heads down to the ground in return for a cookie. So that was interesting and that's a picture of my wife feeding one. We fed a whole bunch.

We also went to Universal Studios Japan one day, and this is a picture of Super Mario World or Super Nintendo World. That was pretty cool and fun. Made me actually want to break out my old Nintendo system and play a game or two. And we saw some Mario Kart stuff as well. So that was fun. Somehow, we ended up riding a pirate ship while we were in Japan as the ferry. And when we went up to a volcano, not Mount Fuji, but one of the other areas that had a bunch of sulfur, they served these black eggs. So, the shell, they're boiled in the sulfuric water. It makes the shell black. The inside stays normal and white, but the outside turns black. They're supposed to be lucky eggs, but as part of the ferry from that area back down to the regular part, we ended up riding a pirate ship.

So overall, trip was wonderful, had tons of fun. We had tons and tons of pictures. Japan is a beautiful country. The training they do of their trees is pretty amazing. From simple gazebos with wisteria all over it to just big trees, to bonsai trees to the gardens. And if you like koi, obviously they have lots of koi gardens as well. So that was just a beautiful country, and all the people were super nice, but we're still recovering. I mean, we landed. Coming back home, it felt like we traveled back in time. We left about 6:00 PM on Sunday and arrived back on about 6:30 on Sunday as well.

So great trip. Glad we went on it. Amazing, wonderful trip with the family and had a great time. And now is back to work.

Paw Offices of Teddy, Robin, & Kingston

Hey, Teddy here. Can you believe it? Mom and Dad left me for two weeks at the house. They brought some stranger in to babysit me and take care of me while they were gone, I guess, or to live in the house. I don't even know. Fortunately, Robin was there with me, but I didn't know if we were supposed to fight the intruder or live with her. She did feed me every day and she would let me sleep in the bed with her at night so that was good, but it wasn't Mom and Dad. I don't know what this stranger was doing, living in the house, but she was there for two weeks and then finally Mom and Dad came home. I was so happy to see them. They rescued me from a stranger and kicked her out of the house, and now we're our normal happy family again.

They had some great stories to tell too! Mom and Dad told us about this crazy dude they saw in Japan while they were out there. He was walking 10 dogs. I can't even imagine that. 10 dogs, man! Me and Robin would take him down. Mom and Dad don't even like to walk with one of us walking, both me and my brother Robin. So, this would never fly with us. We would teach that dude a lesson!

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