BJ's visit, in her own words

BJ and her husband's whirlwind Japan vacation is over. They left Monday, and it's a good thing they did. I've been nursing a sick kid since then. Jude threw up on Monday and has been running a high fever with a nasty cough ever since. I'm making an appointment with the doctor today because he isn't getting any better, and we are going back to Paradise (Guam) this weekend.

With that said, BJ had this to say about Japan:

Japan is a very strange, but really cool place. There are just so many weird things about it - the public toilets (squatty potties! and some toilets have heated seats, bidets and a million buttons), Japanglish, which is written everywhere (on a box of coffee cake it said, "Don't you take a break a little?"), crazy clothes (just think Punky Brewster), dyed hair (from platinum blond to orange - even the boys!), and of course the food (yummy, but very different)!

We were able to do a million things while we were there! We visited Tokyo the first 3 days (lots to do there!), then went to the Plum Tree Park (where we were on TV!), sang karaoke, went to one of Weenie's elementary schools (where she teaches English), visited Mt. Mitake, went to a baseball game (on opening day!), and saw the snow monkeys just to name a few...

Check out this commercial, you can see it here...it's filmed in Nagano, Japan, and we went there on Sunday (and yes it was snowing!)

My husband and I were on TV. You can check it out here.

We were thankful we had no major mishaps! We adjusted to the time change right away, had awesome weather, no one was sick, we didn't lose anything, no earthquakes, plane crashes, etc. Princess had a blast at my parents' house. We missed her while we were gone, but it wasn't unbearable. We were prepared for it, I guess. I felt like I was in some alternate universe while I was in Japan, which helped! We also Skyped with my parents and Princess every day, and it was fun to see them on the web cam.

Staying with Weenie was nice because it felt a little more like home. Weenie was an awesome tour guide and gave us plenty to do and see, which made the trip pass very quickly and smoothly!

If you ever get the opportunity to travel to Japan, definitely go for it!