Seriously, we got many surprising looks from people in Australia after telling them we were celebrating our 10-year wedding anniversary. They would look at me suspiciously, then at Robert. And then I would add more fuel to the fire and tell them we already have three kids too. I know…we are still very young. Young and crazy considering the fact that we just took off for a week to Australia and left our kids behind (yes, I was worried about them although I knew they were in trusted hands).
By the way, this is Lyana writing. I think I’ll have to mention it now from the very beginning. Some people told me they would be reading one of our posts thinking it was written by me and then at the end it would be signed by Robert, and the whole post would then seem even funnier. Anyway, I am sure you can tell from the way we write who is writing, can’t you?
So….we had the best wedding anniversary ever! First stop—the beach. I love the ocean. I love just sitting on the beach for hours and reading a book/snacking/drinking…in the shade though. Sunbathing is not what I am after, although I know it makes people look good.
That day, the weather was extremely windy! Air temperature was around 82, low humidity, water temperature was around 23 Celsius (74-76 F? right?). The wind didn’t stop us. We still ran as fast as we could into the water—it felt all right as long as you were not out in the wind. The scenery was beautiful! And because it was a weekday, kids in schools, the beach was empty. 
Do you like my new hairstyle? No, really. That’s what I would like to do with my bangs every day, but they just don’t hold up to the humidity in Misawa.
After we got home, changed and ate a quick lunch of leftovers from our huge dinner before, we hopped on a bus and went to Smithfield Shopping Center—a good size mall with supermarkets.
I was craving fresh fruits….I received a price sticker shock—bananas-$14/kg, grapes-$13/kg. It seemed that only mandarin oranges and kiwis were a fantastic deal. We still bought some strawberries and one apple, although they were pricey. We also bought some chocolate “for the trip”—some of my childhood favorites that I cannot find on base (“Mars”, “Bounty”, “Picnic")-haha. We also got some savory snacks since we didn’t want to pay for our meals on the plane.
Oh, and I got three new shirts/sweaters at this one Australian shop! Since they have put all their winter stuff on sale, I bought for a very Lyana-approved price. And now I can say that I have a sweater from Australia
The culmination of our day came at dinnertime. We went to this famous restaurant Blue Moon. Usually, you have to have a reservation o get in—so we made a reservation well in advance. One of the bonuses of staying at a very inexpensive apartment is an ability to order whatever you want, not paying attention to price, when you go out to eat (Remember, Australian food prices are expensive even compared to Japan).
I know, I know…another posed picture. We just wanted to save it for our posterity—with the date in the corner and everything.
This restaurant’s menu was like a book—a lengthy story, explanation, details about each item. It was quite fun to read, actually. For an appetizer we ordered one of their specialty dishes “deep fried oysters”. The only other time we ever tried oysters was when we were in Paris for my cousin’s wedding. Sorry, Olia and Christophe, they are still not our favorite-hahaha. But this deep fried kind tasted really good (yes, I know it’s bad for you).
For main course, Robert order chicken under hollandaise sauce with veggies, and I had crocodile with hollandaise sauce over risotto. Holy crocodile! It was the most delicious meal ever! Cannot express in writing how much we loved that food.
That’s me trying to look kind of suspicious about my dish.
And this is my crocodile dish with Robert in the background.
And rich chocolate mud cake with ice cream was a fantastic way to finish our fancy dinner.
Early next morning we woke up, packed up our stuff and ran to the beach. One last time.
This is the view from our balcony—as you can see, truly 60 meters to the beach-haha.
And just for fun—lush greenery outside our window.
We had a shuttle pick us up at 11 am. The whole time when we were packing, I kept remembering my friend’s Emily's story about her adventures at the Cairns airport on the way back. I forgot to mention we loaded up on some toys for kids at Kmart (yes, they have Kmart and Target there) so that’s what was making me nervous we’d have to pay extra charges for luggage. But we “passed” the inspection.
At 8 pm, Japan time, we arrived to Tokyo, got our luggage. Thankfully, we had eaten all our fruit, so we didn’t have to be shoving anything down our throats like we did when we arrived to Australia—all fresh fruit/food has to be quarantined, i.e. thrown away or eaten in front of the quarantine bin in our case.
We caught Skyliner back to central Tokyo, took a subway to New Sanno and relaxed in a familiar environment. Unfortunately, we had to leave early in the morning to catch our Shinkansen back to Misawa.
The kids were so happy to have us back! They did great (since my friends only disclose positive details)! Thank you so much for all my friends who watched our kids. We had the best trip ever!
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