Three days ago, we arrived in Hakuba! Hakuba is a village in Japan. Its really cold here, and we have been skiing! Its really good skiing here, with lots of powder! I love to ski, and it is so fun! It is like a small town here, and its pretty tiny, but awesome. We have been eating pretty regular stuff, but on the mountain we have been eating more traditional stuff like ramen and katsu, which is like schnitzel. We also celebrated New Years. Skiing here is good, there are a couple different mountains we went to, like Happo 1, Hakuba 47, and Tsugaike Kogen.

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We arrived in Tokyo very late at night on December 26. We began by taking a bus from the airport to downtown Tokyo and, eventually, making our way to the hotel. We did not check in until 11pm. We were all very tired and hungry. We went to a restaurant that looked very “interesting,” but we did not have very many options because it was so late. When we walked we first noticed that the restaurant was full of adults who were all smoking. Amelia and Michael had never seen anyone smoking inside…let alone an entire restaurant full of people. It was shocking.

We were brought to a table and told to take off our shoes. We were sitting in a booth that was sunken into the floor. We ordered “chicken jumble,” pickled cucumbers, friend chicken, and some sort of chicken soup. The “chicken jumble” was not very good. The “jumble” included chicken cartilage and the internal organs with very few pieces of chicken meat that we typically eat in the United States. This was very surprising and not very appetizing. The fried chicken was really, really good! The pickled cucumbers tasted like they were pickled in sea water – not good at all! The chicken soup was okay, but there was not a lot of it. We did not go to bed until after 1 am.

The next morning we took the subway to Shibuya Crossing which is the busiest intersection in the world. There are multiple streets that meet up and pedestrians can cross when all the lights for the streets are red. Pedestrians can cross to any street during this time. There were a lot of people walking around! Around Shibuya Crossing there were a lot of stores and restaurants. You could buy everything from a miniature dog to an iPhone or a Louis Vuitton purse! There was also music playing, constantly, everywhere. It seemed that the sound system only played Into the Unknown from the Frozen 2 soundtrack. Needless to say, we are sick of that song! We also visited a cat cafe while we were there. Amelia and Michael really liked the cafe, Lauren and Heath did not. The cafe had a lot of cats of all different varieties and types. The kids were able to feed and pet the cats, it was definitely an interesting experience. After this we took the very comprehensive subway to the Meji-jingu Shrine. This shrine was built to honor Emperor and Empress Meji. We walked through a large park to get to the Shrine where we washed our hands, as is customary, and prayed. It was very cold out, so after the Shrine we got coffee and headed back to the hotel to warm up and get more layers.

After a short rest we went to Roppongi Hills, which is another neighborhood in Tokyo. We went to the top of one of the tallest buildings and saw some beautiful views of Tokyo at night. The city is humongous! The ticket to see the view also included a train museum and entrance to the Mori Art Museum. We absolutely loved the museum where we saw designs and ideas of futuristic cities in light of global warming. It was very cool. After this we went to dinner, which was luckily very good!

The next morning we did some additional sight seeing then got on a bullet train headed for Nagano, Japan. Mom was a little too anxious and accidentally rushed us onto the wrong train (correct platform, though!). We realized her mistake almost immediately and jumped off at the first stop so that we could properly board our train that, luckily, stopped at the station we were at. After a really nice, and quick, train ride we arrived in Nagano for a week of skiing in Hakuba.

From Michael: We had Christmas in Port Douglas, Australia. It was really fun. Santa came and we got lots of presents. The food was really good. We had cinnamon roles and mince pies for breakfast, a sandwich and potato chips for lunch and pork roast for dinner. After waking up, we opened out stockings and had breakfast. Then, we went to the beach for the whole day! After that we came back to our room and swam for another couple of hours. Amelia: Christmas was awesome! I got stuff in my stocking like lip balm, a stuffed koala, a gingerbread man, and 2 Red Sox hats!

Today we had so much fun. We took a tour of the Daintree rain forest. First, we got on a bus to  a boat where we took a tour through the lake, which was beautiful. Then, we drove to a little trail where we did a hike through a part of the rain forest, seeing all of the beautiful plants and animals, then came back to the bus, where we drove to an animal sanctuary, where we fed wallibes! Then we came back in for lunch, which was a yummy barbeque! Then, we went for ice cream, where we tried all sorts of tropical flavors, then we went swimming! We also tried fruit native to Australia, which was so good! Then, we went to a swimming hole. Lastly, we went to a beach, where we walked to a cool lookout!

Yesterday was so fun. We visited the Great Barrier Reef, and we snorkeled. It was amazing. There were so many different kinds of fish, and they were so many different colors. We snorkeled for 1 hour, then chillaxed on the boat, which is actually like a floating thingy. Then we went back to the hotel. The Barrier Reef is so pretty, its unbelievable. Also, since we are away from home for the holidays, we decorated our hotel room! We put up lights, and our stockings! I really like Australia, especially its climate! Its always hot and sunny, a LOT different than Seattle’s climate!

Yesterday was so fun. We arrived in Port Douglas and went to the beach. The water here is so warm and awesome. We also found a hermit crab. We named him Herman.  He is now free in the ocean, happily swimming, probably. It was really cool to see him. He only came out of his shell a couple times, but we loved watching him. Our hotel here is really cool.  It is right in front of the pool, which is really fun to play in.

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Yesterday we explored Sydney some more! We started the day with breakfast in a REALLY cool place called The Grounds at Alexandria, and it was so yummy! The place was actually a bunch of resturants and little stores and it was cool! The whole place was Frozen 2 themed, and they even had fake “snow” falling, which was just foam. Still, it was fun. We then took some time to explore Darling Harbour, which was very fun. Darling Harbour is a cool place filled with boats, resturants, and even a big playground/splash pad/ wading pool!

This is Michael. Then we went and got pizza in a neighborhood called The Rocks, with Brad Bowling, our friend. Then we went to an awesome gelato place called Gelatissimo, and it was really good. I got chocolate strawberry and raspberry, and Amelia got lemon sorbet and coconut!