!!!~~Family Time~~!!!

This post is really belated but here it is!!

Last month was really exciting for me because I got to see my family again after six months!

They arrived at the airport on the morning of the 16th of Februari. I was lucky that their flight was delayed because I'd overslept a little and might not have made it on time to pick them up otherwise. In the end I waited over an hour but I was so, so happy when I saw their faces appear at last!

After our tears had dried (mostly just me and my mom) we had a drink at the airport and hopped on the train towards their hostel. It was a nice place close to Umeda eki, which is one of the biggest stations in Osaka, so it wasn't hard to get there.

We spent the rest of the day exploring Umeda. It's quite a busy place but not quite the center of Osaka. There are lots of shops, restaurants and entertainment halls (with karaoke, bowling, arcades, slot machines,...).

We ate some awesome comfortfood: Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き) and Yakisoba (焼きそば) and walked around the busy neighbourhood. It was a good, chill first day.

Minamisenri park, right outside my dorm

On Tuesday we went to, what during the trip was called 'my habitat'. We briefly visited my dorm and went to see my university campus and surroundings. We had lunch at one of my favorite places in Kandaimae (関大前 place where my uni is). It's called Cape Cod and it serves really, really, really good curry with naan bread. It also sells the best cake I've ever eaten. Not Japanese food but still very delicious!

Campus

Campus

After lunch we visited the dog café I go to a lot. The guy from the café was really happy to meet my family, which made me really happy. They have puppies now too so that made it even more fun!!

Also, mom explored the glory that it 100 yen shops and Lenny lost his mind over how cool our second hand game shops are.










That evening we returned to the more lively Umeda to have dinner with Kazuki. He took us to an amazing sushi place! Even though I don't like eating fish, I had to admit that everything there was really delicious! Also I was happy that everyone got a long great! ^^

Todaiji

 
The next day was more of a touristy day as we visited Nara, a place known for its deer and its temples. We went to see the Todaiji(東大寺), a temple I've been wanting to see ever since my first year of studing Japanology back in Belgium. The Todaiji holds the worlds largest Buddha statue. It was made in the 8th century, it's 16 metres high and weighs approximately 500 tonnes. A good few people died in the making of the statue and when it was finished, an eye opening ceremony was held for which people all over the Buddhist world came to celebrate. I was so impressed by how massive the statue was. I knew how big it was but I was stil blown away by the proportions when I finally saw it in real life!

On Thursday we went to the Ramen museum, something I'd done already but thought would be fun to do again with the family. We had a lot of fun making our own ramen! (I've eaten mine already haha, it was great) 

Then we went back to my dorm and I secretly cut my bother's hair in the first floor bathroom 

For dinner we returned once again to Umeda. We met up with Kazuki at an all you can eat Chinese buffet. It was so good I ate until I felt physically ill!

Friday is my work day so I had to get up early to go teach at my kindergarten, but after that it was time for me and my brother to have some good old brother/sister time! We basically went to all the places we knew mom and dad wouldn't be very interested in going.

you just put in about 200 yen and twist the handle for a little surprise

 We started by trying out some gacha machines. I love these things! We sometimes have gacha machines in Europe but they're not as abundant or cool as the ones in Japan. In Japan, you find then literally EVERYWHERE! And they have all sorts of fun/silly goodies in them!









We quickly checked out Yodobashikamera (a huge electronic store) for video games and/or figurines for Lenny before heading on over to the pokémon center.

After that we went to an arcade to play some Mario Kart and Taiko no Tatsujin (drumming game) and we took some Purikura (photobooth pictures). (well, more like I forced him to take purikura with me but it's fine he secretly loved it, just look at all that excitement!)

Lastly we went to LOFT which is a huge store full of random goodies and on top of that store is another store called Village Vanguard. Now this is a shop I really, really love, and I knew my brother would love as well. They seriously have the most random things. From CD's, to face masks, to art books, to gumball machines, to figurines, to backpacks, to candy, to my little pony merchandise, to plain weird Japanese things and all of it is cramped into this little space so when you walk into it you're completely overwhelmed in the most wonderful way! We both spend quite some money here...




In the mean time, mom and dad were going on their own little adventure in the Umeda area. We met up at the hotel in the evening.














Saturday was the last day and it was quite a busy one too! We got up early to travel to Kayashima, where my kindergarten job is. As it turned out, my school was having their end of year party, which meant all the children would perform things on stage in front of their parents. As the English teacher, I also prepared a little something with the children so I had to be present, and when I told my boss about my family coming to Japan, he instantly invited them to come see the show as well!

I was so proud to show my family the kids I've been teaching! These children are not only fun to teach, they're also incredibly talented. Aside from my little performance (singing The wheels of the bus in English), they had so many other things to prepare and remember and they did everything so well!! They even did an incredible instrumental performance of Let it go from Frozen. At the end, the oldest children (5 year olds) sang a goodbye song because they were graduating (the school year ends in Februari in Japan) and I cried. haha!

Here's a little video of the performance of the English songs. Aren't they the cutest things in the world??

After the show, me and my family went to the other side of Osaka to go see the Aquarium. Yes, I went to the aquarium again haha! Lenny especially really enjoyed it I think so I'm happy we got to see it!










We had our last meal close to the aquarium and returned to the hostel afterwards for a nice last evening together.



I was not looking forward to saying goodbye to my family again. It really felt weird. I'd spent the whole week with them as if it was just another one of our family vacations so not getting on the plane home with them felt incredibly strange. I cried a whole lot at the airport after we said goodbye (but not that that matters haha. That was legitimately the third time that week I'd gone to the airport to see someone off and cried about it. The people at the airport must know me by now as that weird crybaby foreign girl hahahaha)

But just as when I first got here, I managed to fall into my routine life in Japan surprisingly quickly. And I'm grateful for that because I love my family so much and I'm very close to them, but I wouldn't be able to live my year here if I'd let that get to me every day. I still miss them every day and I can't wai! to be back in the comfort of my own home. But at the same time, I'm having the best year of my life here and I try to live every single day I get here to the fullest!

Last but not least, here's a tiny little video I made of some random moments. I didn't film much at all but I figured I'd do something with the footage anyways ^^

So that is all for now ^^


MUCH LOVE ♥

♥!!!!Disney Tokyo!!!!♥

Being as big of a Disney fanatic as I am, I couldn't let this year pass me by without going to visit the happiest place on earth, Japan version: Disney Tokyo!

I went with Marianne and a Japanese friend from  school who frequently visits Disneyland and knew perfectly how to get there cheapest, which was a really lovely bonus.




We decided on going two days. One day for Disney Sea (a second park, similar too France's Studio's Park) and one day for Disneyland (the original park). We took a night bus at around 9 o' clock in the evening and after a hellish busride and no sleep whatsoever, we arrived right at the Disney parks at 6 o' clock in the morning. Instead of checking into a hotel, we simply put all the luggage we wouldn't need in the park into coin lockers provided by Disney and went straight to the entrance of Disney Sea to wait for the opening of the park. The park only opens at 8 but this way we were sure to be one of the first people in the park.



Disney Sea

Disney sea is Tokyo's secondary park and I have to say I could kind of tell. There weren't all that many rides to do. The biggest two rides there are Tower of Terror, which is quite similar to the one in Paris, except they changed the theme a little bit; and Toy Story Mania, a shooting game, similar to the Buzz Lightyear shooting ride in Disney Paris, except more for kids. They're both really good though!















Aside from this there's an Indiana Jones ride that is nothing like the one in Paris, there's some flight simulations and it seemed like there were many in door shows you could go to. I went to see a funny magic show based on Aladdin, which was pretty good. They also have that 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea attraction that most people never go on at Disney Paris. So instead of riding rides, we did a lot of goofing around and shopping that day.

A part of the park I did really love was the Mermaid Lagoon. First of all, it's name comes from Peter Pan, so there that of course, but it's also absolutely stunning! My pictures honestly don't do it justice!

 The outside looks amazing and the inside is even cooler! This is pretty much how I want my future bathroom to look like. I'm serious. There's some kid's rides, some shops and a restaurant called Sebastian's Calypso Kitchen!

After a long and tiring first day at Disney Sea we grabbed our stuff from the coin lockers and took a free bus to our hotel. It was a nice place with a free breakfast buffet included. We checked back out and put our stuff back into some coin lockers.

Disneyland

 We once again waited about an hour and a half at the gates before the Disneyland park opened and we ran to the first attraction whilst one of us grabbed fast passes for another ride. Disneyland has a lot more rides than the other park. It's got the Buzz Lightyear shooting game, the Peter Pan ride (MY FAVORITE), the Snow White ride, the Pinnochio ride, the Dumbo flying ride, It's a Small World (Japanese version), the haunted mansion, Big Thunder Mountain,... all of which are pretty much the same as the ones in Paris. They have Space Mountain but that one differs a lot from Paris. It's way more beautiful but a lot less wild.

Oh and the castle differs as well of course. Paris has the Sleeping Beauty castle whereas the Tokyo one is Cinderella's.

There is also a Winnie the Pooh ride at Disney Tokyo called Pooh's Hunny Hunt and I was really impressed by it! First of all, the outside looks and smells amazing (they make sure the whole area smells like honey!!). The waiting line is absolutely gorgeous. It seems as if you're in between the pages of a Winnie the Pooh book, which is cool because that's how the cartoons are done as well. The ride itself was obviously a very new one since the technology used was stuff I'd never seen before. You're in a honey pot car that moves without being on any kind of rail or track, so you never quite know where you're going to go next and this way, you experience one of Pooh's adventures. It's really, really good!!

Another fun thing is that they have a Roger Rabbit ride! You would never see anything Roger Rabbit in Disney Paris! I was so excited to see it!

That is something I really appreciated: the attention that was given to some Disney characters you would never see at Disney Paris, such as The Aristocats, Stitch, Mike and Sully from Monster's Inc, Oswald The Lucky Rabbit or even The Three Caballeros!

The weirdest thing was, there is this Disney character that I bet 99% of the people in Europe have never even heard of. His name is Duffy and he's Micky Mouse's stuffed animal.

I'm mentioning this because this guy was EVERYWHERE!! So many Japanese people walked around with Duffy merhandise (our Japanese friend included) and Duffy even had his own huge shop at the park (that was super crowded!). I have no idea why this little bear is unheard of in Europe and why he's so immensly popular in Japan, but yes, it's a thing.







Lastly I want to talk about the parade and the castle light show at the end of the day. This was by far my favorite part of the whole trip!

For so long I've wanted to see the Disney parade at night and, ever since the start of the castle light show in Paris, I've been dying to see them live but somehow something always came up that made me unable to.

This time I was determent!

I waited in the freezing cold (pretty sure it was below zero) for over 3 hours so we could have the perfect viewing spot for both the parade and castle light show. Luckily we made friends with some other people who came from Osaka so we could take turns in getting hot beverages for us to warm up a bit. In the end it was all worth it though because I finally had my dreams come true!! The parade was so beautiful! I loved Aladdin and the Giant Cheshire cat and the Cinderella ballroom thingy and mostly Tinkerbell because even though Disney kind of butchers her original character sometimes, she's still my number one!

 

After the parade it was time for the castle light show at last and by now I was dying of anticipation (and cold). I'm trying to convey how badly I've been wanting to see this thing here... basically, when the show first came out in Paris (it's called Disney dreams there), I watched the whole thing on youtube and cried because it was so beautiful.

There I said it! I'm a Disney loser!

In any case, the show was amazing! It differed a little from the original, which might be because it was Japan or because it's been updated throughout the years, but it was absolutely stunning! I was so overjoyed it was embarrassing hahaha!









We caught the nightbus home that same evening and arrived home early in the morning the next day. It was a wild ride, but it was so fun!!!!! I'm glad I've been at Disney Tokyo now. I think that overall, I do still prefer Disney Paris, however that might be out of nostalgia, I'm not sure. In any case, it was fun! ^^

This post just made me want to watch Disney movies hahahahaha

Oh before I go, can we talk about how appropriate my fashion was at Disney?

NAILED IT

I'm mentioning it because I notice a lot of people in Japan go to theme parks in costume and if they're in group they do group costumes. I tried to capture some on camera, as you can see in the video at the top haha, but it was difficult!


Anyways... until next time!! ♥♥♥♥♥