2018 Japan Vacation, Day 14 - More Anxiety, and a Day in Shibuya and Harajuku

Back in Tokyo, we had planned to spend a relatively low-key day in Shibuya and Harajuku. Kai and I had gone there with Kai's grandfather last week, but my wife had spent that day with girlfriends and hadn't gotten to go to those prime shopping districts. And as we wanted to get some omiyage (souvenirs) for some folks back home, we decided to head back there.

We had a relaxed time at home but as the time to head out for the day drew near, Kai's anxiety kicked up again.

He was still worried that he would catch Mom's cold, even has my wife was feeling better herself. Kai claimed that his body ached and his nose was starting to run even though I saw no evidence of that. He asked to have his temperature taken even though his forehead did not feel hot at all. The thermometer confirmed that he did not have a fever.

As he continued to express his anxiety over getting sick, my wife told him that he could stay home all day with his grandparents while she and I went out. She didn't want to hear his complaints all day. Kai said he would stay home.

I was pretty sure that he wasn't really sick and that whatever ill feelings he had were all in his mind so I encouraged him to go out with us. I told him that he would feel better if he went out and did something instead of staying home and just being on his iPad all day. I told my wife that if he did not feel good, I would bring him home.

And so he went out with us.

We started out in Shibuya and he asked that we stop at a drugstore to get him a throat spray.

He didn't particularly like it, but it made him feel better that he was taking some medication to ward off a cold.

We went to the mall behind Kai and my wife in the following photo, and found a few things for folks back home.

It was another hot day, though in the shade and when there was a breeze, it didn't feel too bad. Maybe we are getting used to the heat.

In Japan, you often see people walking with umbrellas on hot, sunny days. Not only does the shade from the sun help them feel cooler, but the Japanese tend to value light-colored skin for themselves as opposed to the tanned look that many Americans prefer.

We met a friend of my wife for lunch at Maisen, a restaurant in Harakuku that specializes in tonkatsu (breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet). The pork was really good!

After lunch we all went to Anywhere Door, a place that serves cone shots.

The cones are coated in chocolate (or white chocolate), and you can choose to have it filled with coffee or, in Kai's case, a melon ice.

Kai liked it very much, but my wife described this as an Instagram place, meaning that the food looks better than it tastes.

We spent a little more of the afternoon walking around Harajuku and then Ikebukuro before heading home. Kai didn't get sick and admitted that he had a better time than he would have if he sat home all day. He seemed more relaxed and wasn't obsessing about getting sick.

For dinner, we went to a kaitenzushi restaurant.

The sushi was great, but Kai's anxiety returned.

All throughout dinner, during the walk home, and after we got home, he constantly expressed worry that he was getting sick.

"I feel warm, Dad." His head did not feel warm at all and when we got home the thermometer confirmed that he did not have a fever.

"My throat feels funny, Dad." Hard to know what to believe when he is this anxious.

"I need some Vicks, Dad." I explained that there are medicines to help prevent you from getting sick (like Airborne) and medicines you take after you get sick to relieve the symptoms. Vicks is more of a treatment, not prevention, and you shouldn't take it if you're not really sick. Kai didn't care, he still wanted it.

"I'm feeling stress about getting sick, Dad." He's feeling stress? What about me?

We have our last big day tomorrow. Hopefully he won't be like this all day.

2018 Japan Vacation, Day 13 - Dealing with Anxiety / Back to Tokyo

We left our condo in Chatan at 8:30 this morning. Our flight wasn't until noon but with the horrendous traffic and our poor experience with the rental company when we arrived in Okinawa, we wanted to allow plenty of time to get to the airport to make sure we didn't miss our flight. As it turned out, we needed the extra time as we had a very stressful time at the airport.

No, there was no problem with the rental company or with the or airline or with getting through security.

My wife is coming down with a cold.

And that made Kai stress out.

As you may recall, my wife got sick over our Spring Break vacation and then Kai got sick. With my wife starting to feel sick now, Kai was certain that he would be next.

At the airport, Kai went on and on about how bad things happen in Okinawa. And how he is so stressed out. And how he has so much anxiety in Japan because he cannot understand the language. And how he feels like he wants to see doctor because he can’t handle all the stress.

I tried to talk to him calmly to have him calm down. I told him that Mom and I were there for him so he didn’t need to worry about not understanding Japanese. That he was fine and that he might not get sick. That the stress was self-created and it would only increase his chance of getting sick so he just needed to take deep breaths and calm down.

Of course, none of that made a difference.

Kai continued to be be upset, at one point laying down on the floor in the airport.

Kai obviously has a severe issue with anxiety. It is part of his disability. I want to help him, and it is so frustrating when nothing I say or do helps him, and sometimes just elevates his emotions more.

I tend to be a very logical person, and like to deal with others in a rational manner. But there seems to be no talking sense to someone in this state of anxiety.

At some point in all of this, it dawned on me that in our haste to pack up and get to the airport this morning, we again forgot to give Kai his medication. The most important of these is supposed to address his anxiety.

We had put Kai’s medicines in our luggage that was already checked in. My wife went to speak with the ANA airline personnel to see if they could still retrieve our bags for us. It took awhile, but they were able to retrieve our luggage and we gave Kai his medication.

We also gave him some over-the-counter medicines my wife bought the day before for her cold. More than anything, the psychological effect of taking a cold medicine seemed to make the biggest difference in getting Kai to calm down.

As time passed and Kai calmed down, he talked about how he gets very upset when he is anxious. He said that he likes going on vacation with us but he gets very upset when he is worried about the bad things that might happen.

So, we have some things to work on until our next vacation.

* * * * *
We got bento for lunch. My wife and I got maki rolls made with spam and eggs.

I also got some rice crackers made with squid and taco seasoning as well as mango juice.

Everything was good!

The flight itself was smooth. Kai, calmed down now, enjoyed his iPad.

When we landed in Tokyo it was hot - 98 degrees with a "feels like" temp of 114!

I'd say the heat calls for ice cream! We had one last Blue Seal that is very popular in Okinawa. My wife and Kai got tapioca drinks while I had a frozen mango drink.

We caught the bus from the airport and it was 5:45 by the time we got to my in-law's place. It had taken all day to travel back home.

We stayed in for dinner, ordering pizza from Domino's. We got one made with yakiniku beef as well as a more traditional meat lovers with pepperoni.

We capped off the evening watching the Aomori Matsuri (summer festival) on television.

This festival features vey colorful floats constructed of painted washi paper over a wire frame and take an entire year to design and construct.

The floats often depict gods, historical or mythical figures from both Japanese and Chinese culture, kabuki actors, and characters from popular TV dramas.

The floats are pushed along the street by human power, weaving back and forth, and spinning around for the crowd.

We probably will not make it out to a matsuri on this trip, so we got a taste of one this way.

2018 Japan Vacation, Day 12 - Okinawa Peace Memorial Park, Okinawa World

One of the places that my father-in-law and I particularly wanted to visit in Okinawa is the Peace Memorial Park.

During World War II, as the American forces defeated Japan throughout the Pacific, Okinawa was the last stepping stone for the Allied forces before a potential assault on the Japanese home islands. The resulting battle for Okinawa lasted 82 days and was one of the bloodiest in the war, with over 200,000 casualties from both sides.

One part of the park as memorials donated by each of Japan's 46 other prefectures.

In the following photo, you can see the Peace Memorial Museum in the distance on the right.

The "Cornerstone of Peace" is a collection of large stone plates with the names of all fallen soldiers and civilians, regardless of nationality and includes Americans.

The park is right on the ocean.

We then went inside the museum and learned about the Battle of Okinawa.

Over 200,000 people died including over 100,000 Okinawan civilians, 65,908 Japanese soldiers, and 12,520 Americans, among others.

From the tower atop the museum, we could see all of the peace park.

After seeing the peace park, we went to Okinawa World.

A theme-park that is centered around Okinawan culture, it reminded us a little bit of the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii.

Our first stop in Okinawa World was to see a snake show. The show was not very impressive, but we did get to take the following photo afterward. My wife wanted to sit in the middle so she wouldn't have to touch the snake with her hands.

Also part of Okinawa World is the Gyokusendo Cave.

It takes about a half hour to walk through the cave.

It can't compare to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico that awed us last year, but it was longer than expected and Kai enjoyed it.

It wasn't quite as hot today as it had been, but we still enjoyed refreshing fruit juices. Kai and I had dragonfruit juice, while my wife had one made from bitter melon (goya) which is quite popular here.

The last thing we did at Okinawa World is see the Eisa dance show of various traditional performances of Okinawa. This was my favorite part of the park.

On the way back from Okinawa World, we thought we would go to a nearby beach to give Kai one more chance to get in the water before we left the island. However, we had a hard time finding the beach that we had planned to go to. Since it was also raining heavily, I thought it was best to just head back to the condo.

Kai got extremely upset in the car. He complained about the weather, and kept repeating how he did not like Okinawa, that nothing ever goes right for him, and that he wants to kill himself. I tried to tell him that he was making a big thing out of a little thing, that things weren't so bad, and that there's no point getting so upset about the weather. But I should know by now that there is no reasoning with him when he is like this. He just got more vocal and it was extremely frustrating to hear him be so negative. It again sucked the joy out of the day and I wondered if it was worth it to go on these types of vacations with him.

When we got back to the condo, the rain had stopped so my wife offered to take him to the nearby beach. I was in no mood to go with, but was glad that he came back a happier boy.

For dinner, we went to a yakiniku restaurant where we again got to grill our meat. The beef came from Ishigaki Island, which is another island in Okinawa prefecture and is famous for its beef.

The beef was pretty good, but it did not compare to the Hida beef we had the week before in Takayama which remains the best meal of our vacation.

We wrapped up our last night in Okinawa by going back to the American Village to ride the ferris wheel.

Unlike the ferris wheel at the Tokyo Dome, there was no karaoke on this one. But it was still a fun ride.

Tomorrow we head back to Tokyo and most of our day will be spent traveling.

2018 Japan Vacation, Day 11 - Ocean Expo Park and Kouri Island

It was a rainy morning as we went about an hour and a half north of our condo in Chatan to the Motobu Peninsula. My father-in-law is doing all of the driving here in Okinawa. (I would have a hard time with the GPS navigation which is in Japanese, and my wife and I are not familiar with driving on the reverse side of the road.)

Our first destination was the very popular Churaumi Aquarium. We have been to some great aquariums back in the US, so we weren't especially excited about visiting this one in Japan. But we thought it was a good rainy day activity.

Jellyfish are always among Kai's favorites at any aquarium.

He also enjoys hands-on exhibits, here touching starfish.

This aquarium is not among the largest we have been to, but has a nice variety of unusual fish.

There is a giant lobster in the next photo.

And here are more jellyfish. It was nice to see Kai taking a lot of photos here; usually he only takes screenshots of Pokémon or other similar things.

While all of the fish we saw were interesting, the star attraction here are the three Whale Sharks, the largest fish species in existence.

The aquarium has a gigantic tank for the whale sharks, rays, and other fish. The enormous acrylic windows allow a breathtaking view.

There is even a place where the tank extends overhead so you can see the fish from below.

I love the following shot of one of the whale sharks swimming by.

Kai enjoyed the hands-on exhibit where he can feel sharks' teeth.

And this one of a fetus of a great white shark.

The stomach of the fetus gets swollen due to all of the food it feeds on in the uterus, but gradually gets smaller as it grows. When born, the pup has a similar shape to the mother.

The following is a fetus os a spotted eagle ray.

The following photos shows the view off the coast outside of the aquarium.

The aquarium is located in Ocean Expo Park, which also has a Native Okinawan Village. The rain had subsided so we walked to a few of the houses in the village.

The first house was the largest, as it represents the house of the village leader. An Okinawan woman served us green tea and talked to us about Okinawa.

This next house is representative of a house of a farmer. They were forbidden from using tile on their roofs.

There is a separate structure for sleeping...

and for cooking...

We took a break for lunch just as heavy rain resumed. Okinawa is famous for a particular noodle dish with pork so we all tried it. As this was only a quick-service version, it probably wasn't as good as it would be at a restaurant, but I thought it was tasty.

Here's a photo outside the aquarium as we are about to leave Ocean Expo Park. The park also has a botanic garden, but the weather wasn't conducive to seeing it.

Instead, we drove to nearby Kouri Island which is said to be one of the most beautiful spots in Okinawa. From photos we saw online, this view of the bridge to the island is a prime photo spot on a sunny day. Unfortunately, the sea was dark and gray when we were there rather than the bright aquamarine in the pictures we saw.

On the far side of the island is Heart Rock, which is why the island is referred to as the “Island of Love.”

As the rain had subsided again, Kai and I waded out to the Heart Rock and surrounding areas. Kai enjoyed getting into the water and we saw numerous sea urchins, star fish, and a few small bright blue fish in the tide pools.

We got back to the condo late in the afternoon. After showering and resting for just a bit, we headed back to American Village for dinner. This time we went to a place that served a variety of Okinawan food.

After seeing the pigs feet in the market yesterday, we wanted to try it.

It tasted okay but it is mostly bone/cartilage and there is not much meat to eat.

Kai enjoyed the pork ribs more.

The service here was very slow and we had to wait forever for the fish. It was butter yaki red snapper.

After dinner, we went to Blue Seal, an ice cream establishment found all over Okinawa for some ice cream. Kai had sugar cane flavor and loved it.

Nothing like ice cream to wrap up the day.