Two Maidens and a Pillow Fight

We love visiting the Abbey Museum Medieval Festival each year.

The girls always dress accordingly, this year with matching gown styles, in their chosen fabrics and trimmings. Braided hair and demure smiles transformed them into Princesses for the day.

Zeb donned his dragon decorated tabbard and his knight's stance.

We watched the jousting, the sword fighting, and the pigs roasting.

We played Medieval games, laughed at the puppet show and ate fudge.

Zeb played with his super-safe-sword-softie.

India bought a bow and arrow and fancied herself an archer.

Elara had a camel ride.

We loved it.

 

Winter Break Wrap-Up

Practiced: doing our own hair; and spreading our own toast
Read: A Thousand Splendid Suns; and Thor
Sipped: hot Chocolate; and fizzy apple juice
Created: person art; and presents for new cousin-on-the-way
Watched: Epic; and Bones season 6
Listened: Katie Herzig; and The Great Gatsby soundtrack
Played: schools (with the toys); and scuba diving school
Ate: okinomoyaki; and lazy breakfasts
Enjoyed: the petting farm; and craft morning with friends
Built: dinosaur playground;and  Lego cities
Cooked: honeyjoys; and crumbly fudge
Dressed: as superheroes; and Indians
Marveled: spiders building their webs; and rare sunny, blue-skied days
Organised: the boy room; and books by colour
Loved: time with each other; and non-fighting children.

Dragon Ball Z Me

If only you had an artistic sister who drew huge portraits of you to hang on the wall!

Actually, this poster size portrayal was the result of an accidental misunderstanding at the printers, but the talented sister part is real! 

Perhaps I have a Pixie-photo-family fear, but I am always reluctant to display family shots. 

 This image feels much safer, especially at this more reasonable size!

This sketch is a small reflection of some of our family interests, one image for each family member. It hangs next to a painting done by Elara at Kindy, and some of my favourite fabric (from the 1001 peeps range), framed.

When this artistic sister of mine was younger (and she is nine years younger than me), we would watch Dragon Ball Z (a Japanese Manga series) together. We would pretend 'power-up' and laugh at the extremely slow process of power transformation in the series. Receiving this hand drawn DBZ style birthday card, while I was in Japan, gave me plenty of birthday happiness!  This one is of my sister and I, surrounded by some of our shared loves (can you guess them?)

If you would like a quote for a portrait commission or to just drop over and give her some love, you can find her blog here.

Sly and Crafty

A rare spontaneous sewing day.

I decided to slip in something that wasn't a ballet bag, tablecloth, dress-up dress or other item on my to-do list. 

I made masks. Like a fox!

Sneaky, right?

The idea came from these gorgeous creations.

I let the girls choose their own fabrics and they both love them. 

And because I couldn't leave out my superhero boy, I changed the design slightly for his.

It's possible that stealthy sewing is one of my favourite kinds!

Trips and Tips for Tripping: Japan Day Nine and Ten

We rounded out our trip with a highly anticipated day at DisneySea. It is truly a spectacular place. While DisneyLand is cartoon-like and wonderful and fun, DisneySea feels a life-like dream. The attention to detail in the sets, buildings and rides is impressive.

Agrabah at the 'Arabian Coast' was bustling like a real Persian bazaar, with the majestic palace as it's backdrop.

Triton's Kingdom was like a dream for the kids with colours of the sea, exciting rides and Ariel, of course!

The Indiana Jones Ride was Elara's favourite.

I couldn't help but shut my eyes and stifle a scream on the (actually very scary) Tower of Terror! 

And if we'd had more time, we might just have stayed in the two hour wait line to see the new Toy Story attraction. Maybe? 

Our last day In Japan, and we do some shopping and savour the last sights, smells and sounds of our trip. It will be a long, overnight trip home to Australia. But we have had a wonderful, adventurous, together time that will always be remembered. 

Travel tip for trains and travel:

On our second last day in Japan, we were still having train and travel issues arise. As we had already taken the train to DisneyLand one week before, we thought we had our route sorted. But on this day a rail accident meant that all trains travelling on one line were cancelled or changed. As trains come into stations every two minutes, this would not cause a meltdown for seasoned Japanese commuters. But we had no way of knowing what was happening, which platform or train line to switch to, or just how to readjust our plans. We found our way in the end but were more than an hour later than we hoped. On the way home we arrived at our station, and got off on a platform that was new to us. We simply followed the flux of people, assuming we would arrive near the central, familiar exit. We did not. We surfaced from the subway and had to walk an extra kilometre to get back to the area of the train station that we recognised!

My advice would be to be familiar with the route lines and carry a map. Staying closer to the city or near a popular station will help you avoid too many line changes if you are doing a lot of travel. Our local station was the busiest station in the world! And finally, if things get stressful or complicated, take a taxi. They are expensive. It will be worth it if you are lost! Have a bit of money put aside in case.  

Trips and Tips for Tripping: Japan Day Eight

Train-train-cablecar-ropeway-boat-bus-train-train.

This was the travelling we had planned for day eight, a beautiful, full trip to Hakone to see parks, hot springs, pirate ships and maybe a glimpse of Mt Fuji. Coupled with a forecast of late-in-the-day rain, we realised that this trip would be too ambitious for our family of littlies. It just took a little adjustment and we managed an entertaining day much closer to 'home'. We began at the Ueno Zoo, which boasts none of the space or beauty or quality of Australian zoos, but was enjoyable all the same. 

They loved the pandas, monkeys and seals. 

(I loved the flamingos.) 

They had space to run. 

They ate terrible Zoo food.

They peeked over the shoulders of high school art students, sketching hippos and okapis.

They inspected the snake enclosures and called 'there it is!' to their siblings when they found one.

They had a good time.

In the afternoon we strolled through Ameyoko Street and browsed through stalls boasting seafood, shoes and sportswear. We are grateful to be only a few stations away from our hotel as the rain begins and stays for the evening. 

Travel tip on using money and shopping: Conversion to Yen is simple, as one hundred yen is approximately one dollar. We exchanged cash while in Australia, and this was easily the best way to access and use money. Our bank offered a decent exchange rate and minimal fees on their travel card, compared to using our existing credit card. This visa debit travel card was accepted at most shops in Tokyo. Withdrawing money from the card is not difficult, but finding at atm that accepts it, is.

My advice would be to take as much cash as you feel safe carrying, use your travel or credit card for large purchases, and find an atm where you can use your card before you are out of money, in case it takes awhile to find a suitable machine.