This is the first time for us traveling all together east bridging an eight hour time difference, and from my own experience (and according to some websites), eastbound travel screws more with your internal time system then westbound. Why? To adjust westward you have to force yourself to stay up longer the first few nights, which is easier than forcing yourself to go to bed while your internal clock still says it is early in the afternoon, which is what you have to do when flying east.
While you might be possible to do this as an adult, try to get this into a terrible two toddler who does not listen very well to begin with.
We are having quite a hard time to get Julius to adjust and this is not helping our own transition either. We are following common sense guidelines like lots of sunlight and fresh air, trying to keep him awake during the day as much as possible so that he would finally sleep longer at night.
So far it has not been very successful, we managed to keep him up until noon yesterday (After he had been up since 3 AM) but then even after 3 sleep cycles (=4.5h) it was hard to wake him up. Then we kept him up again until 10:30 PM (He totally crashed in my arms), hoping he would sleep longer … But no .. 3 AM again and he is totally awake, wants to play and screams if he does not get his way (which is not a good thing in an old style ryokan where the walls are not that soundproof) … So, to not totally wake up everyone we have to let him.
And so the cycle continues .. He will wants to sleep a lot during the day again and tomorrow night the same dilemma … I am seriously concerning if there are any mild sleeping aids for kids in this case …
Looking forward to any other ideas
[update 7:37 AM]: Sure enough, the little guy was not to be convinced to return to bed … Until after our 6 AM bath, at 7:35 AM .. I was folding laundry … And when I looked at him again .. I found this:
So, he got another hour of sleep and then we went to breakfast with a very sleepy, grumpy kid. At least he liked the grilled salmon and ate both our portions. Somehow he is not touching rice these days .. Maybe the furikake is not the kind he likes.
[update 8:32 PM]: Today’s sleep patterns were even more mixed up as we were on the road again. He slept one hour from 7:30 AM to 8:30 AM … we had to wake him up for breakfast. Then he slept half an hour on the bus from 11:20 AM on … it took us until 3 PM to reach our hotel in Ginza, and while he looked sleepy, he did not fall asleep again.
Then the Japanese grandparents came to visit and that was of course way more interesting than sleeping … we had hopes that we can keep him up until a more decent sleeptime .. but alas, he crashed at 5:30 PM, just when we were deciding what we should do about dinner … We tried to wake him up again at 7PM .. but no chance .. do .. he has been sleeping for 3 hours now and I am curious when he will wake (us) up tomorrow morning…
Here a picture of us 3 sleep deprived zombies at dinner (nice Japanese isakaya style food, yum)
I think this is going to be my first new years eve since early childhood that I am just going to sleep through .. Good night !
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Needless to say that we had another early morning get up and I tried to keep Julius busy … by 6 AM finally I could go to the bath with him, which he loved and we stayed for nearly an hour .. then hush hush getting dressed without waking up mama and then we were out for a nice morning walk and were rewarded with a beautiful sunrise.
While waiting for breakfast, Julius checked out just how far he can climb up that store’s shutter before daddy would come to get him down (but of course, daddy had to take pictures first.)
Breakfast was great again and Julius loved especially the grilled fish.
The main item of the day was that we had to change rooms. It is a bit complicated .. the 2 nights before they had offered special packages that we had booked and that got us that nice, new room .. but since we are close to new years, there are no plans available anymore and booking ‘just’ the room we had would have become fairly pricey, so for the last night we booked a ‘basic’ room (kinda hoping they would upgrade us to stay in our room .. since from what we heard from other guests, hardly anyone stays more than 2 nights). So we packed our stuff as neatly as we could and just left it in the room .. and the we headed out for a long walk … exploring the little peninsula with its little light tower where Julius got to play with a little cat … these little kittens are great .. they do not run away from him … and somehow he managed to not get wacked .. no cat scratching occured.
We then did a visit to the supermarket and got some onigiri for lunch .. then back to our ryokan and we found all our stuff moved to our new room. Yep, there is a reason the rooms in the older part of the building are cheaper … they are smaller and older .. but we did not mind much .. it actually had a bit more charme and we still had a fantastic seaview.
We spent the afternoon napping and lounging around and waiting for dinner … I took another bath with Julius so we were spending most of the time in our lounge wear (yukata)
Dinner was a little less spectacular (since we were neither on the fancy seafood nor healthy plan) but still pretty great.
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Another early get up day … When jet lag aftermath awoke me at 4 AM, I noticed that Julius was also rustling around and I kept very quiet, hoping he would fall asleep again. He tried several times, but then he just sat on the futon, looking around, a bit later trying to explore the room in the dark, finally, around 4:45 AM he uttered in his tiny whiny morning voice the question for one of his travel toys … “space ship?”
So, sleeping was over and we tried to make the best of it until the breakfast call at 8AM. E.g. I took a walk around the small peninsula here that has a nice light house while the sun was rising and some early birds greeted me with a polite ‘ohayo gozaimasu’. And Ritsu had an early morning bath with the kid.
Breakfast was fantastic, typical Japanese, mainly seafood (i.e. A miso flavored fish) and a lot of it. Our waitress lady, who also seems to be our main guest relations focal point, had a chat with Ritsu about possible activities in the area and the spa treatment schedule of the day. While playing rough with Julius (actually, HE was playing rough and she tried to defend herself.) [Yes, click here for the video]
We geared up and went out to find the local supermarket to get one of J’s new favorites: a juice made half of fruit, half of veggies. The weather was getting much better and we had a very blue sky and only some wind for the rest of the day. The supermarket shopping was fun as usual and Julius suddenly fell asleep in his stroller. We returned with our loot and put the little guy down on his kid size futon and just hung out and marveled at the view.
Lunch plans were changed as we were not hungry enough to go to e restaurant, so I did the trip to the supermarket again and got some sashimi, onigiri, bread (which turned out to go by the name of ‘nice stick’ and was filled with some icky fake strawberry cream, which I scraped out as much as I could before giving it to Julius) and crackers.
Just after 2 PM Ritsu was picked up for her first spa treatment (something about soaking your arms and feet in 42C water to make you sweat and lose 2% of your body fat within 20 mins) and I finally got Julius to wake up. After trying to feed him we went for a walk to the rocky beach just across the street and he had a blast with sticks of dried sea grass and ‘see how I can kick sand around’.
Upon return I dressed him in his yukata (which we had asked for at breakfast) and looked very comfortable in it.
Dinner .. What can I say … Not without reason did we select this place for being known to be a seafood lover’s dream. There was shark fin soup, a fish head with an eyeball the size of a hazelnut (supposedly you can eat it .. I tried .. But it was impossible to bite through … The outside tasted like boring egg, but we were told it is very healthy) and very yummy meat all around (the cheeks are supposed to be the best part of the fish anyways) a big shrimp with a mayo-scallop, a gorgeous selection of sashimi .. The food just kept coming and I just kept taking pictures…
Afterwards we felt like exploding and were all very tired. The little one went to bed at a fairly civilized time for a change … Which worries me a bit, thinking how early he might wake up again tomorrow …
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Our second day started very early at 2:30 AM with a crying and jet-lagged toddler. Once we were all awake we noticed that we were hungry again and I did 2 quick trips to the nearby konbini to get some nice food.
We then fell asleep again around 5 AM and our alarm clock was set for 9 AM … But after it rang and Ritsu turned it off we all kept sleeping and if Ritsu’s mom hadn’t called at 10:34 (check out is at 11) who knows how much longer we had slept.
We actually managed to get packed and ready in 25 minutes and did not have to pay any overtime charge for the room.
Then our trip to the south tip of the peninsula started. First a free shuttle bus from the hotel to the Narita train station, then a half hour train ride to Chiba and from there another 1:45 h train ride to Tateyama.
There we had to change to a local bus and once that one moved we were soon in Shirahama, where our ryokan had already sent a driver to pick us up. I always feel bad for these small Japanese guys who have to deal with our 32 kg monster of a suitcase. There as not enough space in the trunk, so it rode on the passenger seat.
We were greeted very nicely at our home for the next 3 nights, the Monya Ryokan, shown our beautiful, sea-view room and explained all the bath details.
Ritsu went for a first bath with Julius right away while I took a walk outside in some extremely windy weather (The wind had been a storm some days ago, which kept fishermen from taking their boats out and even our train line was out of service for 2 days, so we got very lucky)
At 7 PM dinner was served in our room … Let’s rather called that a seafood feast. Too many items to name, just take a look at the pictures. Besides a luscious sashimi tray (with a slightly tacky plastic bonsai tree)
| we had 2 warm dishes (one fish, one chicken), several trays of tiny delicacies (e.g. monk fish liver, salmon with ikura on daikon, some mini fish that peaked Julius’ interested, but somehow was too boney to really get to the meat), soup of course and a salad, rice and I think my favorite was a piece of fish wrapped with some mushroom in a leaf and it was served with an interestingly preserved egg yolk. |  |
For desert we had mini tomatoes which had been cooked in red wine, fresh kiwi and pineapple as well as kisses by Julius.
All in all it was fantastic, but we managed to eat pretty much all of it (we later noticed that one item that was on the list, a mini tuna don, was missing, so we are promised to get that for breakfast)
We then relaxed, digested and around 10 PM I went to take a bath with Julius. While he had been a very good boy when he went with his mama, he was a terrible terrorist toddler (TTT) this time around. Recently he just does not listen to me at all, and combine that with a big pool of water, and you can imagine the fun we had (he just decided to hop in while I was still shampooing my hair) but he did not drown and he just loves the very warm water and the height of the bath is perfect for him (as long as he does not trip and fall).
Bathing made us both tired and around midnight we were sleeping on our futons.
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After a 11.5 h flight we have arrived in Narita and stay the first night at the Narita Garden Hotel .. while we thought this might be in the middle of nowhere, we found out that there is a shopping mall nearby and so we took a 30 walk and found a plethora of great restaurants (the hotel restaurant’s menu was not very impressive) and so we selected a seafood specialty place and after some fresh scallop sashimi I totally Ikura’d out on a rice dish with a very generous portion of ikura (which I shared with Julius, who focused on picking those shiny orange pearls out one by one) and Ritsu had a mixed platter of very delightful bits.
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Today my dad turned the leftover goose into a yummy dish commonly known as ‘Gänseklein’ (basically you scrape off whatever meat is left on the bird and serve it with gravy and potatoes) .. it was quite excellent.
Then it was time to say goodbye and we headed off to the airport.
Julius, being the seasoned traveler, had lots of fun with the offered food and the entertainment program.
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The many times we have been visiting my dad, we have not made it to the center of nearby Frankfurt … mainly because it is very crowded during ‘normal’ days …
But 25th and 26th of december are super tight holidays in Germany and pretty much everything is closed .. all we found were a few touristy restaurants around the Römer, the St. Paul’s church and .. believe it or not .. a Starbucks and a Subway …
Julius fell asleep in the car and was still totally sleeping when we arrived .. so I had to carry him around for a while .. but he got peachy pretty quick once he woke up and he enjoyed walking around and discovering ducks and swans in the nearby river.
Its a shame that German law prohibits shops from opening those 2 days after xmas … people have money in their pockets and time to shop … but the inner city of Frankfurt was dead … besides some junkie who was still not ready to pass out and kinda scared us by his antics … But it was nice on the other hand that it was pretty empty and parking was no problem .. but it was also very cold ..
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2 more random xmas pictures …
I just keep ‘em coming …. for some reason Julius was fascinated that he can wear those pretzl rings on his nose …
This was a fantastic first for me / us … xmas BBQ in the northern hemnisphere …
While I guess people in Australia enjoy their xmas BBQ, in Fiji they have their xmas lovo and in South Africa the xmas braai … doing outdoor grilling in the chilly north is rather unheard of … but we did it anyway … after the fantastic lamb chop experience we had before at my dad’s place .. we just had to do it again … and pan frying was just not good enough
Great thing about this slightly blurry image: 3 generations of Nacken in one picture.
We wish all of our friends and readers a very wonderful festive season !!!
This is a placeholder for the upcoming holiday post …. but in case you already want to leave some holiday related greetings and comments .. feel free to do so here
Cheers … and go stuff your tummies !!!
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Not sure though who is trying to eat who
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… so we are on the road and not much time for writing … but at least a silly pic to spread holiday cheer.
Two nice things about the above pic: I have my beloved ‘slow response’ effect back, and we are now doing pictures in widescreen (16:9) … well … when it makes sense 
or none at all.
Hang tight .. I really hope that over the upcoming holidays I will find the time to fill a million gaps in the last few months and then prepare to report about our holiday trip to Japan!
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It was only a question of time … but he has now figured out how to use the cheese grater … and now I have to teach him when enough is enough …
This 4.90€ set at IKEA is actually pretty great … the containers come with lids .. and the grinding goes .. well .. as easy as if a 2 year old could handle it.
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This is a very rare treat … secret footage from the hidden undergroung agency known as ‘kindergarten’ .. at yesterday’s xmas party they showed a longer version of this .. and sure enough, I had to get my greedy hands on it .. re-edit it … change the music and such …
The most fun parts are the sing-alongs .. you can make out the last sung words (mani, piedi … ) sung by 00J .. and my guess is that this footage is actually over half year old (seems he is still in the pre-summer little kid class) …
While I am still all for installing webcams in the classrooms .. this has to do for now .. please enjoy!
Oh .. and I lost all faith in what youtube decides is a matching reference frame of the video .. so .. collage up there and youtube link to the video here.
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More text later
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I will write more later .. but you might get the idea from just watching the video … but there is a whole big story behind it … needless to say .. he loved it …
Is there a good word for these coin operated machines at supermarkets and malls ??? They should be forbidden !!!!
OK .. the full story on ‘Opening Pandora‘s Box’.
For the longest time I have maintened a strict ‘no putting coins in these rides’ policy … knowing that he, as my son, once he knows what these pleasure automatons are capable of, he will ask every single time in the future … And so it had be ok to let him look at them, touch them, sit in them .. but never did we put any coins in there ..
So .. on this blessed day .. as my wife tells me .. the drama was as this: Julius was happily sitting in a 2-seater truck (as depicted in the video) and was not expecting anything more to be happy … but some other kid with a coin happy mom was waiting and waiting .. so Julius had to leave .. and THAT was just too much for him (understandable) … he cried 10 rivers from what I hear (I was watching from a nearby store window, the arms full of red clothing needed for his xmas school thing next day), and then coin-happy mom somehow comunicated with Ritsu that Julius could be part of this 2 seat ride (yes, at that point we must have looked cheap, poor and cruel) …
Anyways .. after some initial seconds of scare … Julius loved it … and he even got an encore on a bigger outdoor ride …
I just fear that now … now that he knows that he canhave those things shake and wiggle if he cries enough … well .. that’s what I call a pandora’s box wide open … now he knows …. whaaaa
Julius has been to McDs a bunch of times, with varying results … usually he would rather inspect the cardboard boxes or try to lick off as much ketchup as he could get on a french fry.
I am not the biggest fan of fast food and McDs … but in the last 2.5 years it has proven to be an indulgance (and a blessing), especially when you have little kids … no one seems to care how your kid behaves and they often have playgrounds … today’s playground was pretty cool. Of course 3 – 9 years only, but try to make Julius stop. He was all over the place.
But I am most proud of him eating his first cheeseburger, the right way … like a big boy! He has eaten parts of it before … but this was the first time he was hands on and enjoying! (And eating at least 3/4 of it)
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Today we went to Alba, home of fantastic whines, the famous white Alba truffle and of course, Nutella.
But our main goal was visiting one of the many fantastic restaurant of the Alba / Langhe region, and we had a recommendation for Osteria Dell’Arco … and it was fantastic indeed. They belong to the network of restaurants celebrating the art of slowfood and the menu pointed out which items fall under this category.
We had Vitello Tonato to start with. While most of the time you get think slices of gray veal roast hidden under a blob of tuna mayonnaise, this was thinly sliced roast, still pink in the middle, with a subtle dollop of a tuna/caper/mayo creme … delicious.
For Julius we ordered one of the local pasta dishes (agnolotti ‘al plin’) and he ate the whole dish by himself.
Ritsu had the brasato al barolo (roast in a local red wine sauce), which was just great, you could taste that they did not drown it in some cheap red wine. And I went for a slow roasted piece of cute bunny rabbit (coniglio [grigio di carmagnola] all arneis), which also had a succulent sauce flavored by Arneis wine. (here a recipe in English)
The wines by the glass (a selection of 12 – 15 or so, besides a bazillion wines by the bottle) were served with the bottle at the table. Ritsu’s Nebbiolo d’Alba was full of flavor and my Blanc de Noir was equally nice with a hint of fruit.
Since the portions were ideal in size, we still had some space left for deserts. The panna cotta is easily the best I have ever eaten on this planet. rich and milky in flavor without being too heavy .. with pear and pieces of pomegranate and some amazing sauce. Ritsu loved her parfait al marron glaceé (butI did not get to try that)
For all this with water, wine and coffee we ended up paying 60.50€ … ok .. not your everyday lunch budget … but for that kind of food … wow. … we are already planning on going back.
They have a very interesting ‘menu della tradizione‘ offer for 32€ .. and if you want the wine add-on (different wines matched with each dish, 3 glasses) then you add only 10€ (although this includes the most expensive wine-by-glass @7€)
Some last words about the service: very nice to outstanding. We had a very charming waitress who not only spoke English, but also Japanese. No one had any problems with Julius running around, playing with the grisini, but he behaved overall pretty well.
After lunch we checked out the main shopping street of Alba, found an open clothing market, a fake singing Santa that had Julius mesmerized, nearly as much as a guy in a Godzilla costume trying to attract people in a showroom window.
I marveled most at the display of fresh truffles. Each in its little tray with a price tag on … ranging from 4€ (size of a peanut) to 283€ (size of a smallish potatoe) .. I read somewhere (probably that wiki link up there) that some over 1 kg truffle recently was sold for 100.000€ … crazy …
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No big secret that little kids love cheese .. it is salty, sweet and milky .. and as with ketchup .. they still don’t get the concept that only a bit goes a long way with the food (It took us a while to get Julius to actually eat his frenchfries with ketchup instead of just using it as a re-dipping device.
With cheese .. not so easy … he wants more on his pasta … more even when the pasta is finished … and when he gets his hands on the ground cheese containers … it goes all over his plate …
hey… at least it has calcium in it.
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I had no idea Ritsu is such an artist
As part of our drawing and coloring routine, Julius often asks us to draw something (actually a bit too often for my taste … he rather sees our results then doing his own creations … anyone read anything about that?) Anyways … this is a ‘random’ drawing that Ritsu did of Julius .. and I found it quite striking !
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