Jolly Japan and Ella’s Time There!

Helloooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I started writing this blog from Tokyo, Japan! Our first difficulty for this trip was getting seats on the airplane to Hong Kong, our layover. The airline, Cathay Pacific, had changed the type of plane we were flying on, and they also changed our middle-of-the-airplane seats to the last-stinky-row-next-to-the-bathroom seats. Aba had to sort it out, but we still ended up getting those seats. I finished a book that Gina had given me and started on another one, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, and I noticed that the movie of the book was on the airplane movie list! I’ll watch it next time. On our flight to Japan I mostly slept, and we landed at four or five in the morning. It was cold! Seriously! We were wearing long pants, a t-shirt, a thermal long sleeve shirt, a fleece long sleeve shirt, and a jacket, and it still felt like our chilly early mornings of trekking in Nepal! We took a taxi to our hotel to drop off our luggage because our rooms weren’t ready yet, and started walking around Tokyo. However, it was still five am so no one was awake=no stores were open=we were bored and cold. We found a place to drink some delicious soup (our first meal in Japan!) and after learning to use the large, complicated metro station and buying metro cards, we finally found an open coffee shop to take a break from our aimless bountiless meanderings through closed streets. During this time, we had also gone to a temple acclaimed as one of the best things to do in Tokyo, but I wouldn’t recommend it. The temple looked new and there was nothing interesting to do or see. After our reprieve at the cafe, we went to the finally opened-at-11 o’clock Cat Cafe that Troy had been looking forward to seeing. Let’s just say that it wasn’t what we expected and it was disappointing. We had expected a quaint little cafe with food and drinks and with cats just milling around, but what we got was very different. As soon as we registered for the cafe, a woman printed out a time card for us, therefore starting our ten-minute cat timer. After sterilizing and taking off our shoes and putting our bags and jackets in lockers we were let in to see the cats. Don’t get me wrong, they were beautiful cats, but they weren’t very playful and didn’t seem to like people. We basically just sat there and watched them because they didn’t let us pet them. We left exactly on time because, as their menu specifies, if you even go one minute over the time limit you have to pay for an extra ten minutes. As we left we noticed a small station with a coffee vending machine; their ‘cafe’. Oh! I forgot to mention; if you do decide to drink coffee, you have to finish it within your allotted time with the cats! It wasn’t for me.

We went to a really amazing (but really expensive) store with really amazing wares but a horrible name, Kiddyland, but didn’t buy anything because it was so expensive. The architecture in Tokyo is marveled, so we toured some of the most outrageous buildings (such as the Prada store). We went to our hotel rooms and met up with our cousin Imri from Israel. Again! Yay! His layover had been in Moscow, so his luggage had been ‘forgotten’ in the check-in process. The airport says they’ll deliver it on the next flight. However, he is amazing because he managed to bring us Crembo from Israel! After doing some homework, we all toured the Imperial Hotel designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, probably Aba’s favorite architect. It was beautiful.

After buying some new jackets at Uniqlo, we ate a dinner of 100% sushi.

Asher and I had never had sushi before. I actually didn’t mind it, but Asher hated the soy sauce and I think it might’ve ruined it for him. We took our first hot showers in weeks and went to sleep. 1  18-6-26 26-24-6 7-6-9… Asher and I woke early in the morning, careful not to wake Imri, and did homework. At ten am we left for breakfast, but all the restaurants were closed preparing for lunch! We rode the metro after buying tickets for a BULLET TRAIN to Kyoto and on the way an old woman sat next to me. I didn’t expect her to know English, so I was surprised when, in a very very soft voice, she started talking to me. She asked if I was a student here and who the men were whom I was traveling with and I introduced her to Asher, though he was shy. She told me I have a beautiful face, which I thought was very sweet of her.

We walked for a while once we got off at our stop, then made our way toward a digital art museum. However, Troy was navigating and he lead us to a power plant an hour away from the museum so we had to take the metro again. Troy!!! We arrived at the museum, but first, we stopped at a car showing. There were many highly futuristic-looking cars as well as fancy Segways and one seat motorbike cars. We also saw robots such as Toyota’s Kirobo Mini!, a talking, responsive, Japanese robot! Asher, Imri, and I also each tried a virtual reality simulation showing the newest safety features in Toyota cars, but we tried it because of its incredibly high resolution! It was amazing! However, it was disorienting to look down because where I expected my body to be there was only air; *shudder*.

We entered the digital art museum and were delighted by what we found. Rooms filled with various interactive or just plain beautiful artwork kept us in a maze of wonder. Asher and I stuck together, and my favorite rooms were one circular one with moving painted waves on the walls and another room filled with water lilies. After a time, Asher decided he had had enough so we looked for the exit. It was very difficult to find, but we managed to leave the exhibit, expecting Aba to be there because he usually zooms through museums. However, it ended up being another hour before Troy and Imri thought to look for us. During that time we had asked two staff member to use their phones, which they declined, and were approached to ask if we were lost. We also saw many interesting things; two hippies with ragged clothes and dreadlocks, pink glittery sneakers, silver glittery sneakers, clown shoes, (many pairs of) platform heels, high heels, siblings wearing identical clothing, friends wearing identical clothing, parents and children wearing identical clothing, a man with a blonde afro, and a woman with the oddest hair: her hair was naturally black, but she had dyed half of her hair blonde from a straight line down here scalp so if one were to see her from one side she would look blonde and from another dark-haired. She was like Harvey two-hair! We regathered 4-13-9 1 10-3-26 21-13-6-20-11-14-4-1-13-4-7-14-22 12-4-9 4-26 4-7-4 4-13-9 23-3-7-7-6-9, and then we went to the hotel to do homework after eating half a bowl of soup.

Imri’s bag had been delivered, so we now had five packs (25 sticks) of kabanos, three packs (24 helpings) of Crembo, two packs of fortune cookies, one bag of chocolate-covered vaffels (wafers), and one bag of Pesek Zman. Woohoo! After eating a few of these sought-after treats we clamored outside and explored our neighborhood some more. We went into the red light district where all the strip bars and whore houses are and then toured again. Asher and I didn’t feel like sushi again, to Troy and Imri set off to find gluten-free food and Aba and Asher and I ate at an excellent Italian place with many locals. We took blissfully hot showers and slept. The next morning we woke up early again and did homework. We rode the subway and came up next to a Subway restaurant (get it?!) We walked to a shrine with many locals praying, some of the woman wearing kimonos, and also many tourists. Some monks were praying behind a fence while people threw money at them for good ‘fortune’ (another pun!) We strolled out of the touristy area and snacked along the way on snitchel, grilled rice, and grilled chicken. We even did a loop to get Aba another giant snitchel! We made our way back into the main area of Tokyo and entered many Japanese toy shops. I saw a couple of things I would’ve bought, but everything was so expensive!!!

It’s insane! We looked into a pet store with tiny puppies in the window and saw that they were being ill-treated. The price tag for one dog was 6500 USD. We then went to the Shibuya Crossing, the busiest intersection in the world. There were throngs and throngs of people crossing the street when the light turned green, and when the light was red it was like a bustling mob preparing to attack!

Next to the crossing, there was a statue of Hachikō the dog. Every day Hachikō’s owner went to work, and every day Hachikō would meet him on his return at the train station. One day, Hachikō’s owner had a heart attack and died at work, leaving Hachikō at the train station. Hachikō came back to the station every day for the next nine years, when he died, waiting for his friend. That is why he has his own statue.

We rode the metro back to our neighborhood and ate sushi for dinner. We went to the hotel, took showers, did homework, and slept. The next morning we boarded the metro to Tokyo station where we ate a baguette and climbed aboard a bullet train! I was really looking forward to the ride, but after the smooth acceleration of the first five minutes I became so tired that I fell asleep. However, I would like to mention that the train actually felt as if it were gliding, it was so smooth!

When we arrived one-and-a-half hours later in Kyoto, Asher and I were refreshed from our respective naps and we walked to our hotel. We had only brought backpacks, leaving our heavy duffel bags at our hotel in Tokyo, so it was an easy walk. I did homework for about half-an-hour and then we walked around Kyoto. Kyoto seemed to be more chic than Tokyo, less of a big city and more of a fancy suburb. It could be described as the Paris of Japan! There were small boutiques filled with hand-painted fans or hand made leather bags or custom made chopsticks for great quality, and a large sum. Everything was so expensive! There were also many street-food vendors selling rice cakes, roasted shrimp, candy, and tiny octopuses! The minuscule octopuses’ heads were stuffed with a single quail egg, don’t ask me how, but they were so cute even though they were dead! I could just imagine them swimming around in the ocean, but then I was jarred back into reality every time I realized (again) that they were dead.

There were also enormous apples. I mean, they were ENORMOUS apples. One apple was roughly the size of Trixie’s head, they were so big! We went to a temple where paper fortunes were being sold. I mention this because people tied their fortunes onto some frames draped with string, so it was a very creative and original way to preserve them while making art.

We also saw a large dotted pumpkin sculpture inspired by Yayoi Kusama’s pumpkin sketches. She is a mentally ill artist living in a Tokyo mental hospital by her own choice, but every day she creates art at her studio across the street. She is now a very famous and influential artist.

Throughout our time in Tokyo, we have noticed that every restaurant has models of their food made of resin, so when we saw a fake food store sign inside a mall we had to check it out. Even though I collect glass animals, I also love anything miniature and/or realistic, so I loved these fake foods (they also had realistic fake food keychains).

On the way to an Irish Pub for dinner, Asher bought some shrimp and Imri ate some sweet potatoes. We did homework and went to sleep. After homework the next morning, we rode the public bus to a beautiful temple called the golden temple. As its name states, the temple is indeed golden. However, it also does much more. In the middle of a small pond surround by serene bonsai trees, the atmosphere created by its scenic background blends perfectly with the rich, but somehow still modest, temple.

We stayed at the temple for a time and then boarded the metro and rode to another, more famous temple;  the Fushimi Inari Shrine. You may not recognize its name, but you’ve probably seen pictures of this touristic temple. It is the one with the hundreds of orange gates! That’s right, but there are many many many more tourists in real life than in the pictures! We couldn’t even see five feet in front of us! However, we succeeded in climbing to the top through a bamboo forest and what we thought were small cemeteries.

We descended using a back exit so, so we accidentally walked through a residential neighborhood. However, our was a nice turn off events because we got to see some really cool architecture and signs. For example, I saw a ‘Beware of Dog’ sign in Japanese!

For dinner, Troy had planned on taking us to a well-reviewed ramen place, but when we got to the restaurant we saw that every single dish had pork in it! Therefore, Asher kicked out and we ended up eating at a phenomenal hamburger place called J.S Hamburgers. The hamburgers were delicious! The next morning, after another round of homework, we went to a garden villa that had to be the royal villa in the time of dynasties. The buildings were cool, I really liked how the poles were made of trees with the bark still attached, but the garden was truly amazing. Wonderful stone bridges connected the garden over a massive pound that used to be connected to the river and snack bonsai trees littered the property. There were rock paths throughout the garden and I even learned what they are called! Paths made solely of cut blocks are called formal, pays made from unshaped rocks are called informal, and paths made of partly formal and partly informal rocks are called semi-formal!

After the wonderful tour of the villa (by our VERY enthusiastic guide) (that was sarcasm, by the way), Imri took us to a comic museum. This was cool because there are many different manga styles of cartooning and we got to see many of them. They also had many different exhibits. I bought a cool looking Godzilla fan, but it ended up being bad quality. It was $16 USD.

Imri went off to look at some more temples alone and we did a bit of homework and then walked around Kyoto again and saw some great streets. I also sent a postcard to my friend, Una. We had planned to eat in a sushi place next to the hotel that Troy had found, but apparently, it wasn’t a sushi place… As it turned out, it was a national holiday and most local shops were closed, including restaurants, so we had to eat at a touristy sushi place. We did homework and slept. I remembered what Troy had said the night before, that “Japan is the Switzerland of Asia”, an interesting quote, when, the next morning we went to the metro after doing homework and took a train to Kyoto station. There, before boarding a bullet train, we realized that Imri had lost his passport. We called our hotel and they said that they had it, so we exchanged Imri’s ticket and he left to get his passport. On the train, I didn’t sleep, so I got to see a lot of the scenery. My favorite landscape on a bullet train so far is going over a body of water, it just looks wonderful. I read on the train and blogged, and then we arrived in Tokyo once again. We ate at the noodle restaurant next to our old hotel and then went to our new hotel and did homework.

When Imri arrived, we wandered around Tokyo and discovered the antique super expensive hip clothing district. I actually really like the clothes and probably would’ve bought some if they weren’t so expensive. We ate sushi for dinner and slept. In the morning we did homework as usual. Then, we got on the metro to Disneyland, Tokyo! This year is its 35th anniversary, so everything at the park is super jacked up. Also, it’s Tokyo! It had to be good. Over the course of the day, in Tomorrowland we rode Space Mountain twice, Star Tours: The Adventures Continue twice, Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters once, and Monsters, Inc. Ride & Go Seek! once. In Fantasyland, we rode “it’s a small world” once, Snow White’s Adventures once, Peter Pan’s Flight once, Pinocchio’s Daring Journey once, and the Haunted Mansion once. We rode Big Thunder Mountain once in Westernland and Pirates of the Caribbean once in Adventureland. We also ate very good ice cream sandwiches and popcorn and churros along with overloaded pizza (eggs, diced tomatoes, broccoli, meatballs, etc.) with a side of cheesy potatoes from Fantasyland’s Captain Hook’s Galley and Westernland’s Camp Woodchuck Kitchen’s smoked turkey legs. We saw a parade featuring dancers, a really cringy waving Belle from Beauty and the Beast, Mary Poppins from Mary Poppins, Hero and Baymax from Big Hero 6, and AERIAL-WIRE-FLYING Peter Pan and Wendy from Peter Pan. Hahahahahahaha!!!! Peter and Wendy were SO SO SO SO SO SO CRINGY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now, some specifics about some of the rides; Space Mountain is amazing. That’s it. I know that many people feel nostalgia for this ride, I know, for example, that it was the first major roller coaster that Aba ever rode, but I just love it for what it is, an indoor roller coaster in the dark with incredibly sharp turns, wonderful design, and thousands of stars! Star Tours: The Adventures Continue had good prospects, but we went twice and saw the saw the same film both times. Maybe we were just unlucky, but why did they have to replace Darth Vader’s old scene with Kylo Ren?! Also, apparently Asher’s a stowaway that Kylo Ren is hunting (his face flashed up on the screen when they said a stowaway was in the ship, haha). Monsters, Inc. Ride & Go Seek! was a good ride, but I just have one question: in the second to last room (where Sully is giving a sleeping Boo her own Monsters, Inc helmet), how did they get Boo’s room to appear in the door?! It doesn’t look like a screen and that wouldn’t work anyway because of perspective, but it can’t have been built behind the door frame because there’s nothing there! I need to know! Though Aba says differently, in my memory I have never ridden “it’s a small world”. Troy also wanted to ride it and, though Aba and Asher hated it and Imri was neutral, I loved it! It was technically bad, but it was such a cutesy sweet and well-executed idea that how could someone not?! Also, that song rocks. We rode Snow White’s Adventures, Peter Pan’s Flight, and Pinocchio’s Daring Journey and I thought they were amazing. However, I have been on these rides before and noticed that they were missing rooms and, at least in Pinocchio, rooms were out of order. Before I spent half an hour talking in a Texan accent like an announcer from a ride, we rode the ride: Big Thunder Mountain. The announcer was actually trying to sound like a Coloradoan because that is where the ride is set, but the set and posters with the word ‘Colorado’ on it made me want to send my friends a picture and tell them that I’d come home early as a five-second prank, but then I got a teensy bit homesick (but not really that much). I’m at the age where I didn’t expect to have fun at Disneyland, but I’m happy we went. It really was a great day! As we left the park, a projected party was put on the walls to celebrate the anniversary.

Like the tourists we were that day, we went to the J.S Burgers located in Tokyo. We sat down at a large table with a hidden ‘Reserved’ sign that a staff member pointed out to us. She made us wait in a narrow alley until she finally pushed three tiny round coffee tables for us. When we left, there were two people sitting at the large, six-person table. Sigh… After homework, we slept. In the morning, we did homework and rode the metro to an area next to some famous gardens. There, we walked around looking at shops and such on the way there. We passed through a Japanese cemetery known for its abundance of cats, but we only saw two (even though they were both really fat, so let’s say four… Maybe they ate the other cats?). The gardens inside of the property were beautiful. After that, we wandered into a fish market and ate at a sushi place. The different thing about the sushi place was that all the sushi was on a conveyor belt! It was quite the experience. We went to (finally) the Imperial Palace next. Though we didn’t get to see the actual palace (because the royal family still lives there), the gardens surrounding the place were astounding. Cherry trees just blooming and small bonsai trees along with ponds and bridges and multiple teahouses came together to form a wonderful setting.

We ate a sweet confection along with Matcha Tea in the traditional manner in the palace’s tea house. Strangely, the tea smelled like seaweed!

Imri returned some clothes to Uniqlo, then we went to the hotel and did homework. Aba and Imri did Bikram yoga, and Troy, Asher, and I ate burgers for dinner again. I had a crepe on the way back. Then we did homework. Tonight is our last night in Asia for this year’s world trip, I really enjoyed it and am happy that we got to end it with Japan. Tomorrow we are flying to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Goodbye, Asia!

Ella

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These are funny product slogans and ads that we saw!


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Tokyo, Kyoto, end of Asia, and more fun!!! by good ol’ Asher

HHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOO everybody on the other side of whatever it is you are viewing this off of! Today I would like to present to you my first day in Tokyo, Japan!!! So without further adieu, let’s begin this awesome thing!!! So first of all, we woke up at 9:00 am and immediately went to have crepes at the restaurant we always eat at in the mornings. However, they had a slight issue so we went to the very good burger place instead and I had a delicious pizza margherita there. It was sadly the last time we ate at that place and after that, we went back to the apartment, packed up the rest of our stuff, and then we headed off to the airport. After a long amount of security and annoying guards, we finally got to the gate and after a few hours of waiting, we left Bali and stopped in Hong Kong for a layover. While we had this layover, we had a delicious beef burger at a restaurant in the airport that was filled with old relics from previous flying eras like a Pan Am bag with the logo and everything. It was very cool and afterward we went on the plane and flew to Tokyo! When we got there, it was absolutely freezing and I was shivering the whole time I was in the airport until we got in the cab. Once we got in the cab, we drove to where our hotel was, but our rooms were not ready yet so we went out to have a delicious breakfast at a restaurant that served soup and deep fried chicken. We then explored some of Tokyo and even went to a Cat Cafe, where a bunch of cats were just lying around and the whole place was just a petting zoo. It was a real disappointment, but a couple hours later of touring Tokyo and one of our cousins from Israel came to visit us!!! It was Imri and his luggage was left somewhere in Moscow, so he didn’t have his supplies. It was ok though because we then went to a shop called Uniqlo where we got a lot of clothes and we tried sushi at a local sushi bar! It was a very fun first day and I can’t wait to see what awaits!

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOO there everybody on the other side of the thing that you are reading this blog post of off today! Today I am back with my second and very interesting day here in Tokyo and today’s scoop was about seizure-inducing museums and tiny robots! The oversimplified version of Tokyo’s greatness was explored today and I will describe all of our events in this blog post right now! So first, we went to the bakery we always went to(well, since yesterday) and I had a delicious chocolate doughnut!! It was pretty good and then we took the very complicated subway system to a square where we went to a very cool Toyota shop. In this shop were some very futuristic cars and even tiny robots! There was VR too which was way more high quality than in Vietnam and Ella fell in love with the little robots. We then went to a big museum right across from the shop and while we were there visited many different exhibits of sound, light, and mirrors that were very cool. However, after a while Ella and I left the museum and waited for an hour for the adults because of a comunication error that resulted in a lot of people feeling bad. Later, we went to a Godzilla hotel with a giant Godzilla in it and we had an Italian dinner to top it off.

WWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTT’SSSSS UPPPPPPPP everybody on the other side of whatever it is that you are looking at this off of today. I am back with another blog post about another day of exploring what Tokyo has to offer including some very good sushi and bizarre toys. So follow me on this cool journey through whatever this is as I explain today. So first things first, we woke up and then we immediately went to the train station to go to another part of town where we went to a bakey and got food. It was good and after that we started to tour the city a little bit more and went through a complex train system. While we mostly saw cool shops, we also saw a lot of shrines including one for a dog whose master died at work and the dog kept coming to the train station to see if he would arrive. It represents loyalty and many films have been made about the dog. Today was also the most crowded day because there were so many people everywhere and crossing the street was very dangerous because there were so many people. Later, we saw a shop that had very old disks and toys that were pretty cool to be honest and super weird as well. We saw animal-human hybrids and anime figures that were very revealing and inappropriate. It was a cool place though and after that we had a very delicious sushi dinner. It was very good and we prepared for the long journey ahead of us tomorrow.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII everybody on the other side of the thing that you are viewing this off of today! I am back with another super duper awesome blog post for you today about a very cool bullet train ride to Kyoto, where we will stay for the next three days! So anyways, we woke up today and after about 2 hours of doing homework, we immediately started to pack up our things and after that, we left with a heavy load of all of our supplies. We walked down to the subway station where we took a train ride to another train station where the bullet trains were kept. Once we got there, we went on the most magnificent train I had ever seen in my life. The inside was like that of a plane, but much comfier and way bigger and the train itself looked like a rocket ship. The train then took off and although it didn’t feel like it, we were moving super duper fast. The buildings whizzed by us and I strangely fell asleep on the train only to wake up when the train stopped. We got off the train and then we went to our new hotel where we settled in and then went out to explore more of Kyoto. We saw many cool shops and we even went to a small temple where we saw a geisha and a very cool looking pumpkin that was humongous!!! We then saw a lot of people walking around and we went to an Irish pub for dinner and I had a burger that was actually good. It was a great night here in Kyoto and I can’t wait to explore more of it!

WWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTT’SSS UUPPP everybody that is waiting for today’s super awesome blog post about our last day in Kyoto! So today I am back with another super duper cool blog and I hope that you all enjoy it because I wrote this on a train! Yes, I literally wrote this blog post on a train. After waking up in the morning and doing our daily homework, we went to a place called the garden villa where we saw a bunch of cool teahouses and nature all around us. There were lots of animals including cranes, which I haven’t seen in this trip at all, and even a little grey cat that looked a lot like Bruno! All the cats I see on this trip look so much like Bruno and it kills me. The nature all around us was very cool as well and there was so much green everywhere that was flourishing with beautiful flowers. After that, we went to a descent comic book store that had a lot of cool stuff in it. There was a ton of Godzilla merchandise and there were comics from DC, Marvel, and even more companies that I have never heard of. The comics there were also pretty good and there were lots of them there that I didn’t even know of. Anyways, that place was cool and later for dinner we had delicious sushi and our last day in Kyoto was great.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOO again everyone on the other side of whatever it is you are viewing this blog post off of today! I am back with another cool blog post about our return to Tokyo and our fun day here. Today was mostly a packing up and doing homework day, but it was still very fun regardless. So, with that in mind, let’s begin today’s blog post entry! When we woke up today at 7:00 am, we did homework for 1 hour before starting to pack up our belongings and heading off to the subway station. Just like the way we came to Kyoto, we took a train ride to the station where the bullet trains were kept and then we got on one and left for Tokyo! Personally, I actually like Kyoto better than Tokyo because of all the fun stuff there and all of the vastly varying lifestyles we saw. It was so fun and the hotel room was also very cozy and traditional to Japanese culture. Anyway, once we got to the hotel we unpacked all of our belongings and then we went out to re-explore Tokyo for the rest of the day. The whole area was very exciting and we even got to see the Godzilla from the Godzilla hotel roar!! We had a delicious vegetable soup for lunch and more good sushi for dinner. Today was jam-packed, but it was very fun.

WWWWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTT’S UPPP everybody on the other side of whatever you are looking on! I am back today with a very exciting blog post about my fun day at Disneyland!!! Yes, we got to go to Disneyland! Anyway, it was very fun today so let me tell you all about it know! So first, we woke up early in the morning as usual and then we got on a train that was going to Tokyo’s Disneyland. Once we got there, the place was humongous and once we got to the entrance, we waited for 20 minutes before getting in, which shows just how busy that place is! Once we got in, we started off by going to a very famous and awesome roller coaster called “Space Mountain”. It was very fun because there were many twists and turns that were very intense but very satisfying to experience. It was dark also inside the building, so it added an extra sense of awesomeness. After that, we went to a Star Wars related ride called “Star Tours” and it was very cool because it felt like VR except that it wasn’t. It was watching a very cool movie while the place we were in moved from side to side, making it feel extra real. To add to the good stuff, it literally had very cool looking robots for props, so it was very Star Warsish! After that, we went on more fun rides including a Buzz Lightyear ride where we blasted evil robots and a Monsters Inc. Ride where we got to spot monsters! Later, we went to many more rides including a Pirates of the Caribbean ride, which was very cool because the animatronics were so real! We also went to a bunch of other rides too, but those were the main ones. It was a very fun day in Tokyo and a wonderful experience on our trip!

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII everybody on the other side of whatever you are looking on right now! I am back today with another blog post about the last day here in Tokyo, Japan! Yes, today was sadly the last day of a wonderful experience here in Japan and beyond that, all of Asia!! So, please listen to the last blog post about Asia as it will be my last. So first, we did homework early on in the morning and it was fine, but after that, we went down to the train station where I got a delicious piece of bread that was overdone with salt. It was fine, but it wasn’t what I was expecting at all. After we got on and off the train, we went to a cat cemetery that was SUPPOSED to be a cemetery with tons of cats roaming around in it. In reality, though, there were literally only TWO cats and they were just sleeping and staring at us with empty expressions. I mean, it was a pretty big let down, but what came next wasn’t. We went to the Imperial Gardens, which were outside the emperor’s palace and were majestically architected. When we got there, there was so much crafted nature that it looked absolutely stunning. Later, after we went to the emperor’s gardens, we went to a teahouse and while we were there we ate a delicious cake and had some delightful green tea. The rest of the day was touring small shops, returning clothes at Uniqlo, and eating sushi off of a conveyer belt, which was quite fun. While we sat down at the restaurant, a conveyer belt with food kept spinning and we took food off of it! It was so cool and I have had the absolute best time in Asia!!

Cat Cafe in Tokyo!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMEEEEEEE
Look at all those gates!!!
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Disney Castle guys! Fun day!
Awesome teahouse experience!
Godzilla attacks!!!!!


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BALI, BEST OF THE WINTER BREAK!!!

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYY! I am back today with another super duper awesome blog post for you today about the last few days here in sunny Bali instead of the really large and long Vietnam. So listen up for a brief summary of my time here in Bali including cooking, boiling sand, and a very merry Christmas indeed! So today, listen up for a brief summary of my time here in Bali so far! So first of all, I will tell you about how each day usually goes. So first of all, we wake up every day at 11:00 am(YYYYYYYEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSS!!!!) and then we usually swim in our 100% chlorinated pool, and then we go to eat at a restaurant and chill at the apartment for the rest of the day. The pool itself is very nice because it is only for us and it is a tiny bit large, so it was very fun to be in. On our first day, we went down to the beach to see how it was and the sand there burned my feet! It was so hot, but we got off of it safely and we watched movies for the rest of the days here. Later, we had Christmas and we called our families everywhere and even watched a Shrek Christmas special! It was a very fun time here and I even cooked food for the first time since South Africa! This trip has been very fun.

WWWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAATTTT’SSSSS UUUUUUPPPPPPPPP everyone patiently awaiting another awesome Bali post because it is going to be the last one in forever! I am back today with another super cool blog post describing the end of our winter break, great guests, and some very excellent food and treats. So buckle in today because today’s blog post will be super awesome and a summary of what’s been going on lately. So since the last post I made, we have had a very special guest come join us in Bali for a few days named Gina, who is Troy’s sister!! She is from Minnesota and was supposed to have her son, Zach, come over as well but he couldn’t come because his passport expired. Anyway, Gina came over and we had lots of fun together over the past few days here in Bali, such as meeting even more friends together! Firstly though, on New Years there were tons of fireworks in the sky and they were so loud and colorful. It was a very cool night and a few nights later we met our neighbors from Boulder here in Bali! Their names were Ling, Josh, Ethan, and Tamara and they came here to Bali to see what it was like also. We had fun together at the beach but they unfortunately had to leave to continue a trip of their own. A few days later we met some new friends of Ofer’s that lived in Bali and we had a nice lunch with them. About a day later Gina left us and our last few days in Bali were very cool and mostly quiet to say the least. This is my kind of place though and I hope we do more of this sort of thing.

Merry Christmas!
An entrance to a secured area. It looks very cool.
Group photo!
Swinging on the beach!


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Ella’s Days in Bali

The next day was Aba’s 50th birthday!!! Happy birthday, Aba! After sleeping until 11 am, we walked along the burning hot beach and the warm water was so inviting that I wanted to jump in with my clothes on!

We had a blissfully lazy day, but our time swimming in our villa’s pool is one of the highlights of my year so far. Troy went into the water first, and he couldn’t manage to lie down on the rubber raft! He kept tipping over or flailing or just plain sinking, and even though Asher and I tried to help him, he wasn’t able to succeed until Aba helped him!!!!!! We, on the other hand, were all able to get on the raft the first time with no difficulties. We played and swam in the pool and had a wonderful, wonderful time until dinner.

Troy had made reservations for a restaurant and we ate a very nice meal there. We gave him a pop-up card of a ship that we had bought in Hanoi decorated with some pressed flowers and leaves that I found, then we returned home and I gave Aba his present. I left it waiting for him under our tiny Christmas tree, and he was thrilled with the yoga mat sling I had woven for him! I used __ colors and made __ __ inch lengths of Chevron-style braiding. As you know, this took many many hours to make, so I’m very glad he liked it. After watching Prison Break, we went to sleep at midnight. We woke up at 11 the next day as well and I didn’t leave the house until dinner. It was such a profoundly lazy day that I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything like it before. I finished an extraordinarily well-written book called Mistral’s Daughter which I highly recommend, and after starting to read an Agatha Christie book I decided to swim. Asher and Troy joined me in the pool after giving Asher a haircut, but I stayed in long after, just floating on the raft. The jets under the water propelled me around the pool and I might have actually fallen asleep. I took a shower and, still in my towel, slept on a pool chair until it started raining. I brushed my hair and got dressed and then we went out to dinner. As we watched Prison break again, Dad called and we talked for a while. I also got to talk to my Nana and Grandad, Connie and Martin Efird. They were worried about us since they had heard about a tsunami in Indonesia that had killed at least 222 people that day. However, that Tsunami was in Java and Sumatra and we were in Bali, so we didn’t even feel the earth tremors. After blogging, we went to sleep at midnight again. The next few days were spent very leisurely. I read, swam, watched TV, and worked on Dad’s Christmas present for the majority of the time. Speaking of which, we had a very quiet Christmas. We cooked a delicious meal at the villa and watched TV, but we had a great time.

The next two days were spent much the same, very relaxed, but on the third day Gina, Troy’s sister, came to visit us. Gina lives in Minnesota with her family and designs and sells fashionable Barbie outfits online, a pretty sweet job if you ask me. Her son Zach was also supposed to join us, but his passport expired so he couldn’t make it. Gina is also a very laid-back person so we spent the majority of her time here by our pool.

New Years came and went. We ordered a cake which Troy, Aba, and I ended up getting food poisoning from and Aba and I walked along the beach to see the fireworks. There had been audible fireworks every night for the past few days, and as we were in Bali, while Aba and I strolled an illegal dun firework fired on the beach whizzed along the sand and fizzed out about four feet from Aba! I also called my friend Selene to wish her happy birthday. Even though I’m 100% certain you aren’t reading this, happy birthday, Selene! Within the next few days our neighbors from Boulder, Ling, Josh, Ethan, and Tamara Wurman, came to visit us. They had also been vacationing in Bali! We swam in the trash-filled ocean and ate lunch, but then they had to leave for the airport. The next day we went to lunch with Aba’s yoga instructor from the Bikram studio in Bali and her family, but other than that we did very little; reading, swimming, watching TV, working on Dad’s Christmas present, drawing a very detailed map for the history project Troy gave us.

We toured the island in a car one day, but the driver didn’t understand us so we didn’t see much.

We also went to see another aerial play in which I volunteered. It was good, but the best one I have seen so far (not including ‘O’ in Las Vegas, cuz that ones the best) was in Vietnam.

Gina left on the fifth of January and we were sad to see her go. She was a lot of fun to have around. Once again, the next few days were the same. Asher bought Dad a Christmas present that I think he’ll love and I figured out what I’m making Troy for his birthday and his anniversary for meeting Asher and me. I rode on a motorbike with our friend, Ayu, to send my friend Una a postcard. We are just about too depart for the airport (we’re flying to Tokyo!), so I’ll end this here. Kon’nichiwa, Tokyo! 7-6-6-11  7-3-11 7-3-3-3-3-3-11!!!!!

Ella

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Ella Says, “Bye, But Now Bali!”

Hi! The next day we woke up early and drove to Hanoi. Our French-speaking driver picked us up and, for coffee, dropped us off at a large statue-and-other-touristy-stuff store. We drove until we reached our apartment for the next five days! We got to ride an elevator to the ninth floor of a building, our temporary home. When the owner unlocked the door and we walked in, I saw two bedrooms and a bathroom, and nothing else. The rooms were nice but very plain, so in my mind I was like ‘ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…’ We climbed the stairs to the tenth floor and found a kitchen, dining room, and living area. Phew! I continued working on Aba’s present until we decided to walk around. We went to a market and got Vietnamese stickers and stuck them to our faces because the AFF Championship was playing in Hanoi between Vietnam and Malasia. Therefore, the people were very excited.

We ate a warm taffy coconut biscuit sandwich thing, which was amazing, and got to watch little kids drive around in tiny army tanks and old woman dancing. We decided to come back for dinner in order to see the reactions of civilians in accordance with the game but, after buying some fresh egg noodles, stayed home and watched tv (a bit of The Greatest Showman) instead because Aba and Troy were tired. The next morning we got up at nine o’clock and made our way to Ho Chi Minh’s Mosuleum to see his embalmed apparatus after discovering that Vietnam had won the game. We had to stand in a really really really really really really long line and had two stand in rows of two, keep our hands out of our pockets, and have to be silent at the end (meaning that we couldn’t giggle when uniformed guards marched while swinging their arms coordinately). Awwww!  Seeing Ho Chi Minh was kind of weird because he looked real, but also fake. I don’t know, it was just odd. I felt a little bad, though, because his wishes were actually to be cremated.

Asher ate a donut on the way home and then I worked on Aba’s present while watching Moulin Rouge. We went out by the lake like the day before and I ate another thin coconut biscuit taffy sandwich.

We ate at a restaurant, but our waitress wasn’t good and she didn’t remember to order mine and Troy’s food, so we didn’t eat. We went to the theatre and saw Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse. Let me just say, it was awesome! Sure, it wasn’t perfect, but it was actually incredibly well done! I highly recommend it. In addition, they included a dedication to Stan Lee!

I ate some grilled corn and we walked home. On our way, we saw a flash mob in action and some old women line dancing. I was reminiscing about the flash mob because last year, my friend Summer and I had organized and choreographed a flash mob to Michael Jackson’s Beat It, but no one practiced but us… We ended up not doing it because you can’t have an intricate flash mob with only three people (another girl, Maya, showed up for rehearsal, but she hadn’t practiced before). In Hanoi, there was also a little girl building a really tall tower out of Jenga blocks that reached above the crowd’s heads. I blogged and went to sleep. 26-24-4-26  13-1-10-24-26, 1 18-6-26 26-24-6 7-6-9. Therefore, I didn’t get very much sleep. We woke up and ate a breakfast of pomelo and mango, then walked the city again. We stopped by some train tracks going directly through a neighborhood, then went to the Hỏa Lò Prison, more commonly known as the Hanoi Hilton. This is where Vietnamese soldiers were kept during the French war and where American POWs were kept during the Vietnam War. This was interesting to see, but not really noteworthy.

After lunch at a place called Chops, a very nice restaurant where we rediscovered Asher’s Legendary Sandwich design, I crafted and ate a dinner of noodles. We watched a few episodes of Weeds and saw the end of Interview With a Vampire on tv. I forgot to mention, my grandmother, Savta, had an accident and injured her eye so she was supposed to have an operation that day. However, because of two emergency operations, it was rescheduled to Wednesday. I also forgot to write about another long travel blog that I found called Earth Trekkers. The family writing it went on a 13-month year-round trip in 2014 and 2015, but the reason I’m mentioning it is because of their ‘About’ page. I find it eery that the dad, Tim, is like Aba (a dad, “the sherpa of the family”, a triathlete, trekked the Everest Base Camp with his family); the mom, Julie, is like Troy (manages the blog, a photographer, recently quit their hospital job, started the blog “as a way to keep friends and family updated” during the trip); the son/brother, Tyler, is like Asher (was a “very reluctant traveler”, likes being comfortable, loves drones and YouTube, is learning Spanish); and that the daughter/sister, Kara, is like me (“got the wanderlust bug at a very young age”, is “naturally adventurous and open to new experiences”, “the most eager to leave everything behind for a trip around the world”, is homesick). It’s weird, right?! Asher started playing depressing music on his computer when I showed it to him because he saw that they were sponsored by National Geographic and NBC! The next day was fun because we walked around the city a bit more, but it was uneventful. We ate at Chops’ sister restaurant, Durty Bird, and I nearly finished Aba’s birthday present.

For dinner, we ate at a local restaurant but were reminded of Thailand because of all the people selling stuff. However, there was one guy in a Santa Claus outfit selling Christmas merch, but his toy sack had the Vietnam flag on it so I had to take a picture! It was awesome!

We finished Weeds that night, amazing by the way, and watched the first episode of Prison Break, which I was already starting to love. Savta’s operation would be the next day. The next day we went to the mall! It reminded Asher so much of the United States that he felt homesick. We ate some pastries at the food court and found the bakery Tous Les Jours, the bakery with the delicious chocolate cupcakes in Saigon that Asher loved so much, but they were out of the cupcakes. Asher and I laughed at all the weird ads that can be found in malls, but at the supermarket, we were saddened to see a bucket full of tied-up live crabs. They were looking at us, and one who was flipped on its back was frantically kicking its legs in the air. Asher and I tried virtual reality for the first time (well I did anyway, Asher had tried it in a show-and-tell at school once), and I thought that even though it wasn’t the best quality it was still cool.

We ate lunch at Chops again and by the end of the night I only had to put finishing touches on Aba’s gift and I started on Asher’s present. While Asher had his Spanish lesson, I studied using some videos that Dad gave me. I like them a lot and they’re really helpful! I forgot a lesson with my tutor, Martha, last week and she hasn’t responded to any of our messages, so Aba says she doesn’t want to teach me French anymore. However, even though I liked her, I’m okay with this because I’m actually starting to learn more now. Savta’s operation was a success, though it took a bit longer than expected, so yay! We blogged and went to sleep after listening to Wicked a little! We woke the next morning and Asher and Troy sat on some benches by the lake while Aba and I searched for some string stores we had seen the day before, but we got lost and it took a while to find them. We joined Asher and Troy at the lake, but we had to share our bench with this kind of creepy lady. She was wearing all grey and black and her hair was one giant dreadlock that I’m not even sure was real. It was also black and grey! She wore beady dark grey glasses and half of the time she stared at us and the other half she slept sitting up. It was weird… I wrote two postcards for my friend Una who collects postcards, one from Vietnam and one from Cambodia (I’d forgotten to write it in Cambodia but I still had the postcard), and two postcards for my Hebrew teacher in Colorado and her two kids. I used to babysitt them and they have a special place in my heart. We went to the post office and had them mailed, then ate at Chops. 4-23  1 5-17-3-23-23-6-9 26-24-6 23-26-17-6-6-26, 4 12-4-13 3-13 4 12-3-26-3-17-7-1-15-6 14-3-3-15-6-9 12-6 21-11 4-13-9 9-3-18-13 4-13-9 26-24-6-13 14-3-3-15-6-9 12-6 1-13 26-24-6 6-22-6 4-13-9 14-1-5-15-6-9 24-1-23 14-1-11-23. We tried to find our way to the train tracks we had seen a few days before, but we got lost and missed the train. However, because we got lost, we found ourselves in a dog-roasting area. Asher covered his eyes, but I saw the dogs on barbaques and spits, their gleaming white teeth contrasting sharply with their crisping skin. Their tails were still held erect from fright. We went back home and I worked on Asher’s Christmas present. We blogged and settled in for our last night in Vietnam. In the morning we woke up early and ate breakfast in profound silence. The air was lacking the sounds of the children attending school in the building next to us! After checking out, and after the owner literally counted the plates in the kitchen to make sure we hadn’t taken any of them, we got in our long-awaited-for cab and drove to the airport. The only thing to mention about the three-hour flight to our layover in Singapore is that there was a screaming toddler incessantly kicking the back of my seat! We had departed late from the gate so we also landed late and only got a glimpse of the Singapore airport. I wish we had been able to spend more time there because it looked pretty cool. During security, an irritating Indian woman confiscated two of Asher’s math compasses and then delayed us even longer by unpacking our bags over and over again. Another staff member had to come looking for us and told us that the gate was about to close and that they had already been holding it for us, but the woman still wouldn’t let us leave, so we had to check our bags. We ran onto the tube connecting the plane to the terminal, but there was a line. They hadn’t even opened the doors yet!

After picking up our duffel bags, we were driven to our villa, where we were greeted by a woman called Ayu. She showed us our private pool, two bedrooms, kitchen and dining room, and extra room. The place was very nice. It was only lacking a good living room. Aba was surprised by a poster Troy had designed for him of Trixie and Bruno and fruit and flowers for his birthday, and we all smiled to see rose petals in our bathtubs.

We took a night swim and showered, and now we’re blogging and will go to sleep. I know Asher and even Aba tired of being in Vietnam for so long, but I sincerely enjoyed it and had a wonderful time. Now, rest!

1  18-1-23-24  22-3-21 18-6-17-6  24-6-17-6!

Ella

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The final scoop of the Vietnam stuff

HHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO everybody on the other side of whatever screen you see this page on! I am back today with another super duper awesome blog post for you about more times of driving around Vietnam, awesome sights, and the water-pour that was going on this whole wet day! Let me explain to you everything in this awesome blog post today! So first of all, today was mainly just driving around, so when we got out of bed and started driving around, we drove for a few hours and then we stopped at the main attraction of the day, which was the king’s palace in South Vietnam. Yes, we crossed the Demilitarized Zone and we went back to what was South Vietnam, which was cool actually and it had a familiar landscape to what I’m used to. Then, we went to the King’s where there was an entire kingdom until France took over it in the 1800s. The place itself was actually very cool looking, but there were too many tourists and it was pouring so hard that the grounds were flooded and the throne room floors and ceiling were LEAKING. Not a very good situation to be in. So we toured around and saw the emperor’s two thrones and the royal grounds, but it was overcrowded and wet so we left early and we saw a mini temple inside the palace ground, which was cool. After that, I had a delicious treat called a chocolate pearl in a nearby cafe and then we stopped at our hotel. For dinner, I had one of the best pizzas in my life and it was exceptionally good. It was a grey, wet day but a very fun one in my opinion.

HHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOO everybody on the other side of this screen waiting to hear my super duper awesome blog post for today! I am back with another spectacular blog post for you today about less rain, great food again, and even more things along the way, so please strap in an enjoy the ride because I am going to tell you about today’s blog! So first and foremost, we got up and after about an hour, we got in the car and drove off to our next location. The scenery around us was very cool and after about an hour and a half of driving and a little bit of sleeping, we got to our next location that looks very promising. Why though? It wasn’t raining finally! This whole trip has been rain, rain, pour, rain, etc. since day one of the Vietnam abroad experience! It gets very annoying to put up with all day and I just can’t stand it anymore. After we got settled in the hotel, we decided to tour the town some and we saw lots of cool stores and cultural diffusion around us. We even saw an Irish pub, which was very weird for that area, but it was still cool to see. We then got back to the hotel and did a very long math finals preparation, which sucked. I then had a delicious burger for dinner and it was very good and one of the best in Vietnam. We had a short, but fun day today and I can’t wait for tomorrow.

HHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOO on the other side of whatever device or paper or book or whatever thing that you are viewing this thing on today! I am back today with another awesome blog post for you today about our stay-in day here in this nice town and the “dry” amusement park experience. It was actually really wet, but I tried to go for a pun, so please forgive my “dry” sense of humor! Yeah… sorry about that. Anyway, here is my post for you today and I hope that you enjoy it! First, we woke up and shortly after, we realized that we woke up 20 minutes late😱😱😱😱😱!!!!!! We have never been late in our time here so waking up late like this was something to be worried of. We desperately scrambled down the stairs after five minutes of preparing, only to find out we were to have breakfast, so we did the routine for nothing despite being late. We finished breakfast though and after the whole thing cleared, we drove to a cable car station, where we embarked uphill to Sun World, the totally non-rip-off amusement park of Disneyland and Universal Studios combined. Once we were in the cable car, it was pouring rain all around us and we ascended into a gigantic cloud that made it impossible to see outside. We then went to what I can only describe as a circus tent that was filled with people. There were two cos players dressed like the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz if he wanted to be the king of France. They were literally silver in a king and queen’s garbs and that was very weird for me. We then took another cable car to the main attraction, which was indoor and contained a variety of rides, which 80% of them were cheaply made and bad. We were on this very bad horror ride which was 10 seconds long and we were just in a car seeing some cheaply made props. Another was a full 360 degree 3d room with a very scary dinosaur animation because it was so cheaply made.  Once we finished that though, there were a bunch of other bad stuff and we even had a power out!!! For ten minutes!!! This is an example of how bad the rain was that day and once we left that attraction, we went to a very creepy wax museum with figures that looked like they were from American Horror Story. We left that one spooked and went to the most promising part of the park, which was the bridge supported by stone hands. It was very cool looking, but kind of dull because it wasn’t real. We left the park on a weirded note as our shoes were filled to the rim with water and we just did homework for the rest of the day. Well, that was my ‘amuse’ing day today and it was soaking with excitemt.

WWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTT’S UUUUUUUUUUPPPPPPPPP everybody on the other side of whatever it is you are viewing this off of. I am back today with another super cool blog for you today about a relatively short, but exciting day here in Vietnam. So anyway, today was fun but uneventful really so I will try my best to describe it. Well, here you go and please enjoy my blog post today! First things first, we woke up at 6:00 am in the morning so we could take a shower because we couldn’t do it yesterday. It was bizarre to be honest and immediately afterward, we went to have a small breakfast with some fine foods. We then went upstairs to take a math final for class, which wasn’t interesting at all, but I finished it and now I’m home free of homework! Well, except for Spanish and some other stuff… but still! We then drove 34 minutes to our next stop at a place called Da Nang, which was very cool looking and we stayed in our new hotel, which wasn’t so cool looking. We toured around for a bit and we even got to see the very new film Aquaman, which just came out!! It was fine, but after that we went to dinner and our short but cool day here ended.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLOOOOOOOOOOO everybody on the other side of whatever it is that you are looking at this from! I am back with another awesome blog post for you today about an awesome boat and airplane ride that happened on a very cool occasion. Anyway, here is my blog post today! So first, we had to wake up at 6:00 am again, which is getting very boring at this point and we drove to the airport. Once we got there, after getting checked in and stuff, we got on a plane and flew for an hour to get to another location and once we got there, we then got a really nice driver to drive us to a doc, where we would take a boat to travel to an island! The boat was very big and was only for us, which is my kind of flow on a trip like this. We then embarked for two hours in the cold to the island although they did try to sell us pearls, which were probably fake. We saw many cool rocks around us and the nature of the place was fascinating. Once we got to the island, we went into a cave like the ones a few days ago, but this one seemed more fake and wasn’t very enjoyable. We then embarked two more hours back to the car where we drove to the hotel and had a refreshing dinner. Tomorrow, we will go to Hanoi and our backpacking experience will end for now!

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOO everybody on the other side of whatever it is you are looking at this from. I am back today with another cool blog post for you today about our ascent into Hanoi, the final part of our experience here in Vietnam and some exciting stuff along the way. So first, we drove for a few hours most of the day to a small statue garden, where coffee there was 3x as expensive as it was anywhere else! The statues were cool and there were lots of tourists there, which was weird but after that whole thing we left and drove all the way to Hanoi. Once we got there, we were introduced to our new apartment for the rest of our time in Vietnam that was actually very cozy and refreshing. It was like our room in Saigon but 10x better in every way. We then took a detour around the town and saw a bunch of Christmas-themed stuff and coincidentally the day we got to Hanoi, the final soccer playoffs were happening there between Vietnam and Malaysia!!! It was very exciting to see as people were going nuts and there were campaign signs everywhere. We had dinner a little while later in our own apartment for the first time in a while and we watched some of The Hobbit: An unexpected journey to top the day off. Today was very exciting and was the beginning of the end.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOO everybody on the other side of whatever it is that you are reading this off of! I am back today with another blog post for you about our day tour here in Hanoi, my personal favorite animated movie of all time, and a preserved body of one of Vietnam’s most influential leaders. So, follow me on this awesome journey of today as we jump into this awesome blog post, and without any further adieu, let us begin! So first, we woke up today at 9:00 am, which was a huge reliever because it was such a reasonable time to get up and after getting set up, we went to Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum! It was creepy to be honest with you, but he looked like he had died yesterday, which was really demented in its own way. I guess that was the point, but then we moved on and toured a lot of what Hanoi had to offer. We then went back home to have some downtime for a few hours and later on, we went to see Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, which I now consider to be my favorite animated film of all time! It was so good and very creative!! We went to sleep afterwards and ended our long, but fun day here in Hanoi.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOO everybody on the other side of whatever it is you are reading this off of! I am back today with another short but fun blog post for you about a prison and a walking day around Hanoi, so please enjoy! So first off, we traveled through most of Hanoi after waking up and we stopped at an old prison that was used for Vietnamese prisoners back in the day when the French ruled over Vietnam. There were tons of run down and terrifying cells in that prison with its own guillotine! You know, that thing the French cut off people’s’ heads off with… *gulp. So after that, we went onto some old train tracks where we took cool photos and had a great burger nearby. It was actually the best burger I’ve had since South Africa and after that we went back home and had a fun time there for the rest of the cool day.

HHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOO everybody who is looking at this post today on whatever time of day that it currently is wherever it is in the world where you are right now! I am back with another blog post for you today about another walking day here in Vietnam and some great, almighty chickens. So, without further adieu, let me begin this fine blog post for you today with a cock-a-doodle-doo and let’s get into this! So first of all, we woke up at 9:00 am this morning as usual lately and then we started to explore the bustling town of Hanoi after getting dressed and stuff. As we were walking around, we saw lots of shops with the same old stuff including: Cheap toys from China, clothes that make people look like they have an ego bigger than their brain, TONS of Christmas merch, and many other stuff that scale from hairdryers to cat accessories. It is basically the same stuff over and over again, but after a while we reached the sister restaurant of the restaurant we went to yesterday(Chops), but this time this new place was called Durty Chicken. With a “u”, so yes I did not make a typo. There were rubber, squeaking chickens all over the place that were very fun to honk and the chicken there was over the top amazing. Really, it was the best I’ve had in Vietnam and one of my all-time favorites on this whole trip! After that, we just went home to have downtime and then we went out to have dinner, where we were bombarded with the same sellers offering us the same things over and over again. Today was a chill day, which I like a lot.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLOOOOOOOO everybody on the other side of the item of choice you have chosen to view whatever this is off of today in time! I am back with another super duper awesome and probably short blog post for you today about another day of touring Hanoi, but this time the mall and the horrible traffic that awaited us there. So anyway, here is my blog post for you today and I hope that you will enjoy it as you have with the previous blogs of mine. Which you hopefully did enjoy, right? I hope you did because it is a part of my daily routine now and I’m always really tired when I do it, so here is my late-night blog for you today! So after the usual routine and stuff, we actually got in a cab for the first time in days and drove to a mall on the outer edge of Hanoi. The whole experience there was very fun and we saw a lot of different stuff there including an ice skating rink with people ice skating every on it! There were tons of bakeries everywhere and one of the most interesting parts of the trip was the virtual reality we tried there! We put on VR goggles and did two VR adventures, which weren’t very good but a start for the future to come. On the way back to the apartment, we ate lunch at chops and there was a massive row of bikers blocking the streets and made it impossible to move, so we got home like 20 minutes later than was planned. After that, we ate some spaghetti and then we went to sleep. Today was very interesting and it was very fun.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOO everybody on the other side of whatever it is that you are looking at this off of today! I am back with another cool blog post for you today about our final day in all of Vietnam, airport madness, and midnight swimming! Join me on this fantastical journey because today was one of the most interesting days on this trip. So first of all,  we drove a little while to the airport and everything was in motion once we got there. People were running around and we were scrambling to get through all of the annoying security that awaited us up ahead. I really don’t like security because we have to wait in such long lines and do absolutely nothing until we are called and checked. After security, we got held back because of literally ONE of my math tools because it was remotely sharp! These people are just so infuriating and once we got on the plane, I was both glad and sad to leave the wonderful country of Vietnam. We stopped in Singapore for a layover, but we were late and we barely made it onto the plane with no time to spare. It was crazy intense and our bags had to go into the cargo hold because we were so late. We eventually got to Bali, which was a huge relief and once we got to our new apartment, there was a giant poster of Trixie and Bruno!!! We even took a midnight swim in our 100% chlorinated pool which was very refreshing!!! We went to sleep and couldn’t wait for the next day.

This cool dragon bridge shoots out fire!!
During the final soccer game which was being held in Hanoi; The exact same time we were there!!!
The black box behind us is Ho Chi Minh’s moseleum.
Durty Bird Restaurant in Hanoi! Great chicken!


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Ella’s Happy Trip to Ha Long Bay

Hey! The next morning we drove for a few hours in the car. On the road, though I had researched it and heard about it, I saw a dog in a cage on the back of a motorcycle being transported to a restaurant for meat for the first time. The motorcycle was a kind of dark pink, and the dog’s fur was burnt orange; almost the color of my own dog’s, Trixie’s, fur. It was a large, short-haired dog that could barely stand up inside its small, rain-soaked, confines. It took a while before I could think of anything but that dog… I wish I couldn’t imagine what is happening to that poor thing now, but I can. We kept driving until we almost reached our hotel. There, we got out of the car and bought tickets to tour an underground village made during the war. The people who had lived in it had been inside of it for six years. It housed 600 people. We headed over to a movie area before touring, but the movie was just ending so we decided to watch it after touring the tunnels. A group exited the theatre, and what do you know! It was the group with the old woman that Asher had skipped past by the caves the day before! We all followed a guide, by that time it was pouring rain, and entered a museum. There, we saw pictures and artifacts from the town. One stood out to me; a black and white picture of a line of infants on the bottom of the cold tunnel floor in woven baskets. It was the nursery. Another picture that was just kind of funny was one of a cow in a bomb shelter, they had made the cattle their own shelters! The guide showed us a picture of some of the inhabitants of the tunnels and pointed out one child. It was her father. After looking at large ventilation holes, we entered the tunnels. I could hardly stand in the cramped, one-way, passages. The walls seemed to be of a red stone, but on closer inspection were revealed to be clay. As we walked, water poured onto our bodies. Soon after we came in, a man from the old woman’s group went back out because of claustrophobia. We saw the meeting room, family bedrooms, maternity ward, bathroom, toilet, and two freshwater wells. It was surprising to see freshwater because the tunnel was underground and close to the ocean. We came out of the tunnels soaked and enlightened. 600 people had to live with this for six years worth of monsoon seasons. After leaving the movie early because it was boring and uninformative, we ate lunch with a local family. There was a really cute puppy there with her father!

We drove to the hotel and worked and watched another Vietnam episode. Luu drove us to dinner and we were surprised when he brought out a cake! He had heard us talking about Aba’s Hebrew birthday and had gotten a birthday cake! The cake was actually quite good, nothing compared to Aba’s homemade cakes, of course, but I was surprised they even had cakes in the rural village.

We lit Hanukkah candles for the eight night of Hanukkah, the last night, and watched two episodes of Weeds. Then, we blogged and went to sleep. The next morning, we woke up and I weaved in the car until we got to a palace, though we had stopped to eat pomelo along the way. We were in Hue, the previous capital of Vietnam from the time when it was a monarchy. We toured some of the palace rooms, but it was pouring rain and it was leaking inside.

We had a small snack at a coffee shop and drove to the hotel. We worked until dinner, at which time it was still raining. We ended up eating at a military-themed restaurant, which was hilarious. We walked back to the hotel in the rain and took the first real HOT showers we had had in Vietnam. It was great. I weaved until bed. The next day was uneventful. We drove to the next town and, after walking around for a bit, did math homework. That night, I stayed up until midnight and finished Troy’s Christmas present! The next day was much more eventful. Asher and I accidentally slept in because we had set our alarms for the wrong time. We ate a satisfying breakfast of fruit and eggs and then Luu drove us to the Sun World Ba Na Hills amusement park. This was a park that we had originally heard of because of a beautifully designed golden bridge held up by two large ‘stone’ hands. When we arrived at the park, it was pouring rain. It was raining harder than any other of our rainy days in Vietnam, so it was really raining! We rode the longest cable car in the world up to the park. People say that going to the park is worth it if only for the cable car, not that we could see it. The clouds, mist, and rain fogged up the windows and swallowed us in white and grey. However, it was very long and Aba even started to get claustrophobic. We went into a circular room with passages to different areas of the park. As we waited for the rain to die down, it didn’t, we had some fresh mango ice cream and chicken hot dogs. We made our way to an indoor gaming area where we went to a number of attractions. We saw two 3D movies, the ‘Penguin Express’ and ‘The Little Dino’. They were, well… THE LITTLE DINO. *cringe*. We also went on a spinning ride which was fun as well as one of those drop towers, though Aba didn’t do it and Asher was terrified. Asher and I shared a cart during a ghost shooting game, which was fun, but we were severely disappointed by the haunted Dead House. There was nothing there! It was very sad. We did some other activities and there was a power outage for about ten minutes, so we were in the dark. There was a claw machine with a pink-blood-crying bunny in it that I wanted to try for, but none of the token machines worked. If anyone actually comes here, you’d better win me one!

There was a wax museum, too, but everyone looked horrible! Also, did you know that Marilyn Monroe had six toes?

We went to the bridge as it was still raining and foggy, so some of the effect was lost on us.

We had a bit of trouble navigating back to the car, but Luu drove us back to the hotel and we said goodbye to him. He’d been a pretty good guide after all. We did homework until late and then blogged and went to sleep. We woke up early in the morning and took showers, then proceeded to do a hundred-point math exam. Still in the morning, we drove to a city called Da Nang, which houses the airport. We stayed at an old-looking but wonderfully designed and decorated hotel. There were patterns of bamboo and wood artfully placed along ceilings and walls, which was a nice relief from the plain white walls in other hotels and guest houses. We walked around the city and I saw a cool retro art store that I liked. Then we went to see DC’s new Aquaman Movie. DO NOT WATCH IT. STAY AWAY! IT WAS A TOTAL BUST!!!!!!!!! Seriously, if it wasn’t DC I would’ve walked out of the theatre! It was completely cliche, the director ruined the plotline, the acting was bad, and the storyline was terrible, as were the costumes! We anger-raved about the movie the rest of the day, even though Asher loved it, and watched the last episode of the Vietnam TV show. Today, we woke up early and skipped breakfast. We drove to the airport and flew to Ha Long Bay. There was a complication with baggage weight and we had to move some of our stuff around and buy another bag (?!), but we arrived with no other problems. Apparently, on the flight, some millennial was flirting with Aba and Troy, but I didn’t see it (I was reading). Ask them to write about it! This is a family blog! Riot! I want to hear more about this story too!!!! Anyway, our driver was a little late picking us up, and we arrived we realized that he doesn’t speak English, only French. On the drive to a harbor, I was going over some French phrases and conversation starters in my head, but I didn’t actually talk to him. Because of a miscommunication, he accidentally drove us to a touristy pearl farm when Aba and Troy asked to go to a coffee shop, but then we went to the marina. We proceeded to enjoy a four hour boat ride in Ha Long Bay, and it was beautiful. Mountainous, small, green, rocky hills rose up in the ocean past the horizon. It was very peaceful, and I enjoyed the ride immensely.

While we ate in the cabin of the boat, a woman tried to sell us some pearls and bags and fans and whatnot. About a minute later, a woman who had been watching took the exact same products and acted as if we had never seen them before! She tried to sell them again! We also saw a cave, but it was boring and touristy, so I won’t even write about it. We got to the hotel and watched a few episodes of Weeds, then ate dinner (with chocolate fondue for dessert!) and blogged, which is now! Goodnight!

24-6-22, 11-6-6-11-23!

Ella

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The Vietnam backpacking bonanza collection

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOO everybody today on the other side of the screen waiting to hear another exciting blog post from me! I am back with another rad blog post for you today about the celebration of Aba’s hebrew birthday and the stormy rain, the windy winds, and the underground tunnel network which help the Vietnamese during the Vietnam war. So without further ado, let’s get into this blog post, yay!!! So, because this morning was the usual old get into the car and drive until we get there, I’ll just cut to the chase because that was the most interesting part of today. So we drove for 2 hours in the car and then we reached a place that was home to a complex tunnel system during the Vietnam War. The dad of the guide at the place was actually born in the tunnels, which was pretty cool to me! So we met her and we also saw some people from the Paradise Cave, so we decided to take a joint tour together. We went to check out some of the tunnels and it was actually a very complex structure that served as smart and a very good home for the villagers whose’ homes got bombed. There was a medic room, double bedrooms for villagers, gathering areas, and even bathrooms there that actually made it feel like it was an underground village that was hidden from the enemy(Which it was, but still)! The entrances were hidden from view and the structure itself had 13 distinct entrances, so villagers could slip in and out as they needed too. It was lit by candles and there were ceremonies held each night, which showed just how happy and creative the Vietnamese were. After that though, we drove to the hotel and after resting for a few hours, we drove to the hotel as it was pouring rain and then after a few hours to ourselves, we drove to dinner and celebrated Aba’s hebrew birthday!! We had an amazing cake that was OD(Overley delicious) and after that, we went to bed on a happy note. Also, it was pouring rain at the underground village too, so the floors were literally flooded and gave us a sense of what it was like back then to live in a place like that.

Happy 50th Birthday Aba!

HHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO everybody on the other side of whatever screen you see this page on! I am back today with another super duper awesome blog post for you about more times of driving around Vietnam, awesome sights, and the water-pour that was going on this whole wet day! Let me explain to you everything in this awesome blog post today! So first of all, today was mainly just driving around, so when we got out of bed and started driving around, we drove for a few hours and then we stopped at the main attraction of the day, which was the king’s palace in South Vietnam. Yes, we crossed the Demilitarized Zone and we went back to what was South Vietnam, which was cool actually and it had a familiar landscape to what I’m used to. Then, we went to the King’s where there was an entire kingdom until France took over it in the 1800’s. The place itself was actually very cool looking, but there were too many tourists and it was pouring so hard that the grounds were flooded and the throne room floors and ceiling were LEAKING. Not a very good situation to be in. So we toured around and saw the emperor’s two thrones and the royal grounds, but it was overcrowded and wet so we left early and we saw a mini temple inside the palace ground, which was cool. After that, I had a delicious treat called a chocolate pearl in a nearby cafe and then we stopped at our hotel. For dinner, I had one of the best pizzas in my life and it was exceptionally good. It was a grey, wet day but a very fun one in my opinion.

HHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOO everybody on the other side of this screen waiting to hear my super duper awesome blog post for today! I am back with another spectacular blog post for you today about less rain, great food again, and even more things along the way, so please strap in an enjoy the ride because I am going to tell you about today’s blog! So first and foremost, we got up and after about an hour, we got in the car and drove off to our next location. The scenery around us was very cool and after about an hour and a half of driving and a little bit of sleeping, we got to our next location that looks very promising. Why though? It wasn’t raining finally! This whole trip has been rain, rain, pour, rain, etc. since day one of the Vietnam abroad experience! It gets very annoying to put up with all day and I just can’t stand it anymore. After we got settled in the hotel, we decided to tour the town some and we saw lots of cool stores and cultural diffusion around us. We even saw an Irish pub, which was very weird for that area, but it was still cool to see. We then got back to the hotel and did a very long math finals preparation, which sucked. I then had a delicious burger for dinner and it was very good and one of the best in Vietnam. We had a short, but fun day today and I can’t wait for tomorrow.

HHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOO on the other side of whatever device or paper or book or whatever thing that you are viewing this thing on today! I am back today with another awesome blog post for you today about our stay-in day here in this nice town and the “dry” amusement park experience. It was actually really wet, but I tried to go for a pun, so please forgive my “dry” sense of humor! Yeah… sorry about that. Anyway, here is my post for you today and I hope that you enjoy it! First, we woke up and shortly after, we realized that we woke up 20 minutes late😱😱😱😱😱!!!!!! We have never been late in our time here so waking up late like this was something to be worried of. We desperately scrambled down the stairs after five minutes of preparing, only to find out we were to have breakfast, so we did the routine for nothing despite being late. We finished breakfast though and after the whole thing cleared, we drove to a cable car station, where we embarked uphill to Sun World, the totally non-rip-off amusement park of Disneyland and Universal Studios combined. Once we were in the cable car, it was pouring rain all around us and we ascended into a gigantic cloud that made it impossible to see outside. We then went to what I can only describe as a circus tent that was filled with people. There were two cosplayers dressed like the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz if he wanted to be the king of France. They were literally silver in a king and queen’s garbs and that was very weird for me. We then took another cable car to the main attraction, which was indoor and contained a variety of rides, which 80% of them were cheaply made and bad. We were on this very bad horror ride which was 10 seconds long and we were just in a car seeing some cheaply made props. Another was a full 360 degree 3d room with a very scary dinosaur animation because it was so cheaply made.  Once we finished that though, there were a bunch of other bad stuff and we even had a power out!!! For ten minutes!!! This is an example of how bad the rain was that day and once we left that attraction, we went to a very creepy wax museum with figures that looked like they were from American Horror Story. We left that one spooked and went to the most promising part of the park, which was the bridge supported by stone hands. It was very cool looking, but kind of dull because it wasn’t real. We left the park on a weirded note as our shoes were filled to the rim with water and we just did homework for the rest of the day. Well, that was my ‘amuse’ing day today and it was soaking with excitement!

Dino attack at the amusement park!

WWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTT’S UUUUUUUUUUPPPPPPPPP everybody on the other side of whatever it is you are viewing this off of. I am back today with another super cool blog for you today about a relatively short, but exciting day here in Vietnam. So anyway, today was fun but uneventful really so I will try my best to describe it. Well, here you go and please enjoy my blogpost today! First things first, we woke up at 6:00 am in the morning so we could take a shower because we couldn’t do it yesterday. It was bizarre to be honest and immediately afterward, we went to have a small breakfast with some fine foods. We then went upstairs to take a math final for class, which wasn’t interesting at all, but I finished it and now I’m home free of homework! Well, except for Spanish and some other stuff… but still! We then drove 34 minutes to our next stop at a place called Da Nang, which was very cool looking and we stayed in our new hotel, which wasn’t so cool looking. We toured around for a bit and we even got to see the very new film Aquaman, which just came out!! It was fine, but after that we went to dinner and our short but cool day here ended.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLOOOOOOOOOOO everybody on the other side of whatever it is that you are looking at this from! I am back with another awesome blog post for you today about an awesome boat and airplane ride that happened on a very cool occasion. Anyway, here is my blog post today! So first, we had to wake up at 6:00 am again, which is getting very boring at this point and we drove to the airport. Once we got there, after getting checked in and stuff, we got on a plane and flew for an hour to get to another location and once we got there, we then got a really nice driver to drive us to a doc, where we would take a boat to travel to an island! The boat was very big and was only for us, which is my kind of flow on a trip like this. We then embarked for two hours in the cold to the island although they did try to sell us pearls, which were probably fake. We saw many cool rocks around us and the nature of the place was fascinating. Once we got to the island, we went into a cave like the ones a few days ago, but this one seemed more fake and wasn’t very enjoyable. We then embarked two more hours back to the car where we drove to the hotel and had a refreshing dinner. Tomorrow, we will go to Hanoi and our backpacking experience will end for now!

Good luck sleeping tonight with these wax figures!!!


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A Few Favorite Photos and Moments from our Around the World Adventure!

Ofer, Troy, Asher and Ella travel the world.  Here are a few of my personal favorite photos and memories.  Enjoy!

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Ofer, Ella, Asher and Troy recommend Ken Burns’ documentary found on Netflix about the Vietnam War.

Ofer, Asher, Ella and I have been watching this ten part documentary series on the Vietnam War as we travel The length of Vietnam from South to North.  This series is quite an education for all of us and we have learned so much about the history of this war.  We highly recommend it!

A beautiful Scene somewhere on the Ho Chi Minh trail as we travel Northward.

Every American should understand the good, bad and ugly of the Vietnam war including the politics and social and cultural consequences both at home in the US and in North and South Vietnam during this “struggle” as it is sometimes called.  We feel so fortunate to be here while we learn about this significant part of history.

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