Cruzin' With Tyler and Emma: To the Land of the Rising Sun

This is very delayed, but it took us awhile to upload and sort through our pictures from our trip to Japan. Better late than never, right?

(Here's T in his car seat and Snap 'N Go ready to conquer the flight.)

On May 29th Tyler experienced his first international flight to visit his Japanese side of the family in Tamana, Japan. Tamana is a small town in the southern island of Kyushu. It's part of Kumamoto prefecture (state) and isn't known for very much except their hot spring baths and ramen. This is the town that Mommy was born in and where Obachama and Jiji (maternal grandparents) and Mamachan and Jijipapa (maternal great grandparents) live.

It was quite a journey. First we had to fly to Narita (Tokyo) from San Francisco which took about 11 hours. On the way to Narita, we were fortunate to get the bassinet seat (we didn't have it on the way back). It served as a place for T to sleep as well as for us to put all sorts of stuff. He actually seemed quite comfortable, even though he was strapped in.

Once we got to Narita, we had about a 4 hour layover before our flight to Fukuoka. And, once we got to Fukuoka, Jiji picked us up and we had a 1 hour car ride to Tamana. It was quite a trip, but T was a champ the whole way.

Our time in Japan was relaxing. We didn't do much except hang out with the family since everyone couldn't get enough of T. Mamachan, who in the past year had broken her back, insisted she was fine and wanted to carry around the little guy. Jijipapa, who hasn't carried a baby since Uncle Hide was born, also wanted to hold T as much as possible. Everyone was pretty much fighting over him. =)

There was a lot of drinking, at least between Daddy and Jijipapa. T has started to already show his interest in alcohol too (like parents, like son?). He still has many years to go, but here he is wanting Jijipapa's sake.

Even though we didn't do much besides relax, it seems that hanging out with the family is exhausting for all (Don't T and Uncle Hide look alike here?). =)

The one big thing that we did do was "omiyamairi" or "shrine visit." This is a traditional Shinto practice of taking one's baby to the shrine to have the priest pray for the baby's health and happiness. Obachama and Jiji bought T his first kimono (which is wrapped around the adult carrying him) and we went to the shrine that Mommy went to for her omiyamairi many, many years ago.

Here's T cleaning his hands with the Shrine water.

And the priest doing his thing...

While we watch.

This is us, as a family of three.

And this is T with his Japanese family (minus Suechan (his great aunt) and Gonchan (his great uncle)).

Aside from doing the omiyamairi, we also stopped by the Iris Festival to see the pretty flowers. Here's what it looked like.

That's about it. It was a quick trip there and back. The travel back home was another journey, but it was uneventful. We didn't have the bassinet so T had to sleep in Mommy or Daddy's arms the whole time. But, he was well behaved and slept a lot.

Here are some random photos from our trip.

Crazy hair