Japan - Tokyo

In the October school holidays we went to Japan.  I have already posted a few photos about Japan, but the other day I tried to consolidate all photos, from all places, and I thought I'd post about each city we went to.

First off we arrived in Tokyo, and it was more humid than we expected.  We arrived early in the morning but couldn't use our hotel rooms till the afternoon, so after negotiating the trains and finding our way to the hotel so we could leave our bags we wandered around and found a bakery (Japan has cool bakeries - I imagine it is the French influence), and lay around in some gorgeous gardens close to our hotel (you could tell we were the Aussie tourists - the only ones lying on the grass with our shoes off!).

On the streets....

In the temples...

Eating yummy food ...

And back in the hotel...

Leave a Comment Charlie, Erin, family, holidays, Japan, Natalie, Rory

Japan #1

In the October holidays we went to Japan - what an amazing experience!

Travelling around a foreign country on public transport with four kids is not necessarily a chilled out and relaxing holiday, but we loved it.  Japan is also NOT the place to go if you are thinking to unplug your kids (I am always looking for opportunities to remove them from devices) - everyone there seems to be constantly on their phone.

We were there for 12 days and then stayed one night in Hong Kong on the way home, but it felt to me like we were away for much longer and I think that is because we were travelling around so much.

I haven't got all our photos organised at all, so there will be a few instalments on Japan.  These first ones are some that came off my phone.

Leaving Sydney Airport

In Tokyo - we couldn't get into our hotel immediately so we dropped off our luggage and went for a walk.  We discovered a beautiful park nearby where we were able to lie around in our exhausted state until we could check-in!

Brooms and other street cleaning equipment left conveniently, ready for use.

 Some interesting toadstools.

The view from our hotel room - you can see the park that we wandered about in.

Hachiko the dog

I started to teach the girls string games on the bullet train.

 In Hiroshima

A decent photo of Robin and myself

The Japanese love Halloween decorations (they were everywhere) and our hotel lobby in Hiroshima was no different.  Notice Natalie edged over to one side of the seat - she was a bit wary of the big spider!

On Miyajima Island where they have very friendly deer.  We stayed in a "traditional" hotel, complete with traditional dinner and breakfast.

The streets of Kyoto.

In Osaka we found the Pokemon centre - more fun than expected.

Leave a Comment Charlie, Erin, family, holidays, Japan, Natalie, Rory

Shakespeare

Last term Charlie did Shakespeare study with some other homeschoolers - they studied Romeo and Juliet.  They had fun looking at Shakespeare insults and reformatted the play (with a Hogwarts theme) as well as making various props (ie swords!).

We also went to a Romeo and Juliet performance at the Opera House put on by the Bell Shakespeare Company which was very well done I thought (those actors have soooooo much energy!)

Later in the term we went to a performance of The Comedy of Errors which was put on by the Pop Up Globe Theatre.  This is temporary travelling theatre which is constructed in the design of Shakespeare's original Globe Theatre.  It was complete with open roof, standing room only at the front of the stage and seating all around to the sides of the stage.  It really allowed the audience to be up close and personal to the actors - there was a school group in the standing area who had water and other props thrown on them!

It was a great experience as it really brought home to me how involved in the plays the audiences of the time would have been.

In the photo below you can see how close to the stage we were.

Rory, Noah (a friend) and Charlie

Leave a Comment Charlie, homeschooling, Rory