Hadrian’s Wall

Happy Columbus Day to you today!  Robert and Katya are home, but the boys are at school, since only Americans celebrate Columbus-hehehe.

Back to August for a moment…On our way back from Scotland, we made a short detour from the straight route, passing Glasgow and turning off at Carlisle towards Hexham (that’s point B).

The area west of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne is the general area where in AD122, Emperor Hadrian ordered to build the 118-km long Hadrian’s Wall. It marked the northernmost border of the Roman province of Brittania. It was meant to protect from the “barbarians” from the North.

Hexham is the sight of an ancient Roman fort—Housesteads Fort, built on a steep slope.

Kids just wanted to run around, I think they were pretty done with sightseeing of any kind of ruins.

Mark was doing some yoga moves.

And Robert was jus taking pictures of the bathroom.  This is a communal latrine. You can see on the picture explaining how it was set up centuries ago.

Robert’s dream is to go on a Hadrian’s Wall hike someday and cross England from one sea to another. It would be fun, right? (and hard).

Well, that is it for now (I know…this post was lacking any depth-haha). We have so much to explore in Great Britain still!

Cheers,

Lyana.

Scotland: Isle Of Skye

On Day 2 of our stay in the magnificent house, we decided to take a road trip to the Isle of Skye, the second largest island in Scotland.

It would have taken us three hours to reach Portree, the main city of Skye, so we decided that for the kids’ sake, we should drive inland to Elgol area, on the south side of the island, just to get a taste of what it’s like there.

The route from Drumnadrochit (our house) to the island took us first along the Loch Ness and then through the beautiful valleys west of Ft. Augustus.

I am used now to the fact that pictures do not express fully beauty of the scenery…

A stop at Eilean Donan was a must! 

A few kilometers before you cross the bridge to the Isle of Skye, you can stop at this beautiful place. It is considered to be the most photographed castle in Scotland. It was here that a few movies you might remember were filmed—“Highlander”, “Entrapment” with Sean Connery, James Bond’s “The World Is Not Enough” and “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”.

We did not go inside the castle, but let the kids play for almost an hour on the shores of the lake surrounding this place.

Just trying to squeeze in a few more pictures of the castle (I think this was the most photographed castle by the Watsons as well).

Ha! Look whom I found--Robert and Merrill, our photographers!

Yeah…this is what most of our family pictures look like. At least one of the kids decides to act funny (or look down). Oh well, it was still a cool place and we needed to capture that.

And here comes the second part of our journey.

After crossing the Big Big Bridge, we arrived at the Isle of Skye.

For some reason, the signs had to remind us about driving on the left side of the road. We are not sure why, but maybe some ferries come from further north in Europe, don’t know. Here is a sample of Gaelic for you though.

As we turned off the main road that dissects the island, we headed for Elgol, a tiny village in the middle of nothing. The cows and sheep were everywhere. And this particular cow was just fond of the “Passing Place” sign.

The road we were on, became a one and a half lane road….and then a one lane road. It was quite brave of us to be driving our big American minivans there.

After about 30 minutes of SLOW driving and looping around the lake in search of a picnic spot, we finally found a great place.

Somehow, simultaneously, 70% of our group decided that they need to use the restroom. Yeah, seriously. What restroom in the middle of the Isle of Skye wilderness? It had become almost comical when Robert had to go over to the grove of trees a little further from where we based our picnic and establish a fresh air bathroom—with toilet paper holder and even a log to give you a bit more comfort.  Yes, that experience was unforgettable.

We set out on a short hike, just to let the kids run around a bit.

Beauty was all around us.

And it was incredible how quickly the weather was changing—it was sunny one moment and five minutes later gray clouds were showing their face behind the mountain, then sunny again, and a drizzle moments later. 

After a quick hike, we headed towards the tiny village of Elgol. I am not sure how people living here survive driving such narrow, twisty and mountainous roads. All I do know that they have a beautiful scenery to enjoy every season of the year.

On the way back to the main road, we stopped by one of the lakes, just so that Alex could get his fix of “exploring” wearing his wellies.

We braved the wind as well.

 

Our kids could have stayed there for hours, actually. They love all this yucky gross spongy stuff.

This stuff was just weird:).

Here are our lonely minivans, very comfortable, but a bit too big for driving on Scottish rural roads.

Driving back did not take very long—maybe because I was driving. Everyone had a great time, and we were sad this was our last day in the area. That’s the end of Day 5 in Scotland.

Feumaidh mi ruith (“I must run” in Gaelic).

Lyana.

Mark and I, Tokyo style

It’s time to blog!!  Yes, this is Rob.  And let’s just say “It’s about time!”

No doubt you read Lyana’s post about our trip to Tokyo for UK visas back in May (click here to read it) and she set me up perfectly at the end.  Well, now it’s time to play catch up. 

The trip to Tokyo started out with Lyana, Mark and me on Tuesday.  After applying for our visas (and then having some fun around Tokyo together) on Wednesday, Lyana took the Shinkansen back to Misawa, while Mark and I stayed behind for a night of father/son party time in Tokyo.

The first thing we did was go to “Children’s Castle”, which is a multi-story children’s play place surrounded by towering Tokyo skyscrapers.   This is one of the places that charges an admission fee (the one I would have preferred to visit was damaged in last year’s big earthquake, so it’s closed for repairs . . . still.  This one’s OK, though.  Unfortunately, the outdoor roof track was closed, which is the best part (bikes and scooters and such).  But there was of course WAKU WAKU LAND!!

On another floor was the music room with lots of drums and other percussion instruments for kids to play with.  When we arrived in this room there was a group performing children’s songs and a couple dozen kids with their parents sitting on the floor around these drums.  We sat in the back and tried to keep up, but as we hadn’t a clue what they were actually singing, we left until the show was over. 

When we returned, we put on a show of our own. 

We probably spent a good two hours there – would have been longer if more of it was open – and that was enough.  We were just having so much fun together, it didn’t matter what we were doing.

Eventually we made our way back to the hotel.  I picked up a small pizza from the café downstairs, put in a movie, and we had a pajama movie night (one of Mark’s all time favorite things to do). 

The next day we hit the ground running – literally.  There’s a beautiful wooded park just up the street from The New Sanno hotel.  We played on the toys.

We hiked the many trails, up and down the hills.

And took in the natural sites, all in the heart of Tokyo.  Oh, and Lantern was with us through it all, too.

In fact, here’s Lantern and Mark posing in front of the LDS temple, just across the street from the nature park.

And here’s the inseparable duo next to the spaghetti map of the Tokyo subway system.

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I enjoy taking pictures just about everywhere I go, and I like to think of myself as a decent ‘family’ photographer.  But sometimes, I just can’t seem to get the right perspective.  Enter Mark, the budding child photographer.  I gave Mark the camera (securely wrapping the strap around his wrist), taught him how to ‘point and click’, instructed him to “take pictures of everything” and then we were off – me pushing him along in his stroller.  What we ended up with were simple, real-life Tokyo photos from the perspective of a 3-year old child seated in a McClaren umbrella stroller.  Here are some of my favorites.

GALLERIA:  PERSPECTIVE OF A 3-YEAR OLD IN TOKYO

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I think Mark has a future in photography – at least until he’s out of the stroller.

Ah, that stroller.  No easier way to traverse the streets of Tokyo.  We were just passing the time, now.   In that twilight zone after checking out of the hotel but too soon to go straight to the train station.  So we ( I ) decided to explore.  We went to the Tokyo station, but instead of hanging out in the dungeons, waiting for our shinkansen, we just left the station, hoping to find something interesting.  And we did.  A bridge. 

Which then led to the Imperial Gardens, which we couldn’t actually enter, but they were pretty from the outside.  Here also demonstrates the advantage to strollers.  When it’s time to take a picture just park the stroller, step back a few paces and shoot, you’re done.

Of course it’s always nice when they (Mark and Lantern) decide to get out of the stroller for a change.

And it’s even better when a passerby agrees to take the photo for you.

And then it was time to go . . . back to Misawa, that is.  This is the restroom ON the train.  Far cry from those lavatories you see on the airplanes.  The Japanese know how to go in style.

No matter how much fun the trip is, we are always happy to get home to Misawa.  Mark . . .

and Lantern.

Rob