The Fun Part of the California Trip!

We landed late on a Thursday night, as we took a late afternoon flight so that we could both work that day. We crashed at a hotel near the airport around 2am, and then slept in the next AM. Our first stops on our first full day there, were our usual haunts...

Chipotle, Del Taco...and of course...

...a trip to the first (of two) trip(s) to Daiso! We love Daiso, as Ryan can get his fix of tons of Japanese snacks, drinks, school supplies (he got practice hiragana notebooks), etc.

Then we hit up the La Jolla Westfield Mall, where Ryan only found one thing, some PacSun shorts from Nordstrom (for school). Right after that, we checked in to our hotel in Encinitas. Rich got us a mini-family suite, so that we'd have a kitchenette (which we um, really did not use) and more space. There was a little living room area, kitchen and separate bedroom, which was nice.

Since we wanted to make it an early night, we had dinner at 5pm at a place Ryan requested nearby for sushi! I had Korean bibimbap, as it's not available in our small town anymore. 

The next day, our second full day, was the karate tournament. But after a trip to Trader Joes to load up on goodies to take back home, later that night we had an amazing dinner in downtown Encinitas at an Italian restaurant with Rich's brother/sister in law (who also attended the tournament with us). I didn't get a picture of our meal, but we did grab ice cream afterward at a legendary shop, with a line a block long (with thankfully, a fast moving line) to get ice cream! It was well worth the wait, we got a sampler with four different flavors to try!

The next day (really, only our third full day there), we were able to accommodate Ryan's two requests on the trip- ice skating and hot pot! While we waited for the rink's open skating time, we took Ryan to a few more stores (another Daiso/H Mart) to grab a few more snacks for the trip home.

And boy did we strike gold with Rich's choice of the ice skating rink! If we've been to about a dozen places around the US/a few other international cities, this was, by far, the most enjoyable rink we've ever been to! They had a live DJ, disco lights, etc. It was awesome!

My job at every rink, as the non-skater, is to spectate, not turn into a human popsicle and capture spectacular pictures! And thanks to Ryan's master plan, we were able to all defrost together at an awesome, urban, trendy shabu shabu tabehodai restaurant right after. Although I've had Korean BBQ/grilling out before, it was my first time having hot pot in a restaurant, as I've only ever had nabe/shabu shabu at friend's houses.

I was so impressed at the experience, and had a great time! There was also a Korean snow station, in addition to the vegetables/seafood bars (the latter of which is off limits due to allergies for 2 out of 3 of us, unfortunately).

It was such a gift to be able to have this experience with Ryan, as he was craving it, and there are not currently ANY restaurants in our town that offer hotpot or shabu shabu anymore. Both closed up during COVID at some point. There is also no Korean barbecue restaurants anymore either, a huge bummer considering we live in Asian-friendly Hawaii...

Later that night, after a second trip to Trader Joe's to get more chocolates and treats for family/friends...we had dinner at Rich's two childhoods friends (who got married to each other!), and I failed to get any pictures, again! But Dawn cooked up the most amazing Mexican fare that we devoured, and Tom, her husband, kept us well entertained all night until we had to drive back down to San Diego to our hotel near the airport.

We had a 5am wake up call to catch our 7:30am flight, and all went very smoothly for our journey home. We managed to avoid all of the summer travel chaos that many travelers have been experiencing this summer, not once, but twice. We feel very very fortunate to have traveled safely (no COVID!) and on time.

I don't think we have a clue when our next trip will be, but in a perfect world, Japan will reopen and we will head back there before the end of the year... Ryan has been wanting to go again for years, and now that he's formally studying Japanese with a tutor and is enrolled in Japanese 101 at school next month, this would be a wonderful motivation for him.

I believe he was about 5 on his first trip there in 2013 (when he had a Shinkansen obsession). We stayed in Kyoto, Osaka and Nara, and got to visit his cousins.

Our second trip with him was quite a few years later, in 2018, when he was about 10. In February, we went to the Hokkaido Snow Festival and Tokyo with my parents. And then a few months later, Ryan and I returned for a second trip to Kyoto for language school in the summer, where we got to see his cousins again. We also met up with my BFF here in Kona, Yuri...in Kyoto.

So he has not been back to Japan since the summer of 2018, four years ago. He would say it's more than time! He has a strong interest in going there for college IF he can take four years of Japanese in high school...so on our next trip, we hope to visit a few international college campuses in Tokyo and Kyoto. His interests (karate, taiko) certainly seem compatible with living in Japan someday, and I do hope his dream comes true... Funny how different our lives have been. In middle school, I wasn't even sure how I'd ever be able to pay for college in state, much less go out of state, or out of the country.