During the week break between our winter and spring semesters we were so happy to be able to drive down to Yokohama to attend the baptism of one of our dear students, into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) after some wonderful talks with her roommates and friends at Mikuni who are members she came to gain her own testimony of our church being true and decided to be baptized. Many of our students had traveled from their homes in varies parts of Japan to come to Hana’s baptism to show their love and support and one of our new teachers, Jessi drove down with us. It was a sweet experience and we all felt the spirit and our Heavenly Father’s love.
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| Aya pointing to the lei we made for Hana to show some aloha. She loves Bananas and chocolate so that's what we put in it :) |
While we were in Yokohoma we were kindly invited to stay at the home of a colleague, Joy Yuasa, of Geoff’s from teaching Japanese days at BYU. Since then she had married a great guy named Masa and they have an adorable baby girl named Maya. We had such a wonderful time staying in their home and getting to know them. They are such fun, friendly and awesome people and we became fast friends. Maya was adorable and loved Hana and Aya. In the mornings she would call for them. :) We hope they will come visit us at Mikuni sometime soon. Love and thanks Yuasa family!
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| On the front steps of the Yuasa's home. I'm so sad I didn't take pictures with Joy and Masa and of their cool, old Japanese house! |
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| In the van with Maya-chan |
We also attended church in Yokohama, Hana’s ward, and enjoyed that so much. Such loving people there! I love going to church wherever we are and meeting the local people there.
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| Here we are at the church nursery with the little kids of this ward. The girls loved it and I really enjoyed chatting with the sisters during this. I usually go with Hana and Aya to primary so I can translate for the primary teachers since our girls don't speak much Japanese yet. (One of the sad things about living at an English immersion school where no one is allowed to speak Japanese. |
The day before the baptism, Friday, we decided to take the opportunity to surprise the girls and take them to Tokyo Disneyland for the day since it was on the way to Yokohama. Our new teacher, Jessi, (who was immediately adopted into our family and taken on this road trip just a few days after arriving in Japan and was totally cool with that) came with us and we had so much fun! The girls favorite rides were Splash Mountain, Star Tours and the teacups. It was really fun to hear all the familiar characters and animatronic animals speak in Japanese!
We caught a Frozen show with Elsa, Hana and Olaf, a great parade and the really cool light/fire/firework show that they project on the side of the castle.
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| From the Frozen show in front of the castle. Ana, Elsa & Olaf all speak Japanese very well! ;) |
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| The cool light, fire work show |
We also met up with one of our students that was also there that day so that was fun too.
Tokyo Disneyland is very similar to the original one in CA but it’s on a little smaller scale land wise so everything is a little more close together. They have most of the same rides but not all of them and seem to have a few that aren’t in CA. Since it gets cold there in the winter the main street (not main street U.S.A.) is covered by a huge glass ceiling. We saw very few foreigners and the place was just packed because the Japanese people love Disney! Tons of people were really decked out in Disney accessories, hats and entire costumes, and often you'd even see high schoolers in matching outfits.
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| 3 girls in matching mini costumes (random pic I found online since I didn't take any pictures of this while we were there.) |
There is also another park next door called "Disney Sea" that is kind of the same idea as California Adventure that I really want to go to someday. It's the only Disney Sea park in the world.
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The Disney Sea park next door
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| Main Street |
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| Cinderella's Castle |
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| The castle at Tokyo Disneyland is Cinderella's castle instead of Sleeping Beauty's like it is in CA. You can see the Frozen troll flower beds they had while we were there in front of the castle. |
The price is also quite a bit less than the one in the U.S. One of the fun things that they have there are collectible popcorn buckets shaped like different Disney characters and Disney items that have a strap so you can wear them around your neck. They are all the rage in Japan and it seemed everyone there had one. Apparently after you buy one you can bring it back with you to Disneyland and get cheap(ish) popcorn refills. They have several yummy flavors of popcorn sold all over the park.
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The R2D2 bucket we wanted to get...
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The R2D2 bucket was adorable and we all decided we would get that as our one souvenir from the day but were sad to find that they only offer 2 kids of popcorn buckets at a time and R2 was not being sold :( I even startled a Japanese high school girl by asking here where she bought her R2 bucket and she told me she bought it quite awhile ago :(
Ah well, maybe it was for the best since the buckets were pricey and as a professional organizer I know what usually happens to trinkets you pick up on vacation!
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| These are little filled mochi desserts made to look like the Toy Story Aliens and they were delicious! I like the chocolate cream filled one best. |
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| In Toon Town |
Anyway, it was a fun day and total change of pace from what we’ve been doing.
I have to mention that Geoff drove the van all the way from our school in the mountains through crazy Tokyo traffic, to the tiny (and I mean so tiny we had to slowly back out of some of them because our van just wouldn’t fit!) streets of Yokohama when he had never done anything like that before. The driving he is used to in Japan is in the country where there aren’t a whole lot of other cars and wider roads. He’s so amazing!
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| In the van! |
