JahBella’s Tokyo Adventure (Jul 2015) – Tsukiji Market and Hakkuhinkan Toy Park with Kids

Posted in Holidays, Japan, Travel with Kids by jahbella

When I told people that we were intending to holiday in Tokyo with the kids for 11 days, most were surprised and then skeptical. After all what was there to do in Tokyo with 2 kids under 4, besides the whole Disney thing and that definitely does not take 11 days. For those who are wondering or who are even considering Tokyo as a holiday destination with kids, I can assure you that we found some absolutely kid friendly stuff to do and were able to adapt some adult stuff to suit the kids. In fact we found a lot more kid friendly stuff than we eventually attempted.

Our first morning (after a full day flight and a good night’s rest) brought us to Tsukiji Market. Yes Tsukiji Market! 🙂 Joel and I really wanted to visit the fish market but were unsure if the kids could cope in that bustling, wet and chaotic environment. We decided that we did not need the ‘full experience’ of a fish market early morning auction but just really wanted to take in the touristy ‘retail’ market part of it.

We travelled relatively light with only a backpack that contained our raincoats, 2 toddler carriers as well as the spare clothes, diapers, pee bags and wipes needed by the kids.

We headed out pretty early and reached the Tsukiji Station at about 9am, from there it was a slow 5 to 10 minutes’ walk to the market. We actually took the longer route that morning because the rain threw us off and I couldn’t get my bearings despite having my Google Map in hand. I was too busy adjusting our raincoats and ensuring that everyone was as dry as they could be. However we did managed to take the shorter route when we came back a week later. 🙂

We chanced upon a ‘fast food’ joint near Tsukiji Market and stopped for a very early brunch during our 2nd Tsukiji Market visit

Simple kiddy sets and curry rice for Bella who discovered her love for curry rice in Japan

Simple kiddy sets for Bella who discovered her love for curry rice in Japan

Running out of cash on our 2nd last day and was saved by the Suica card (similar to our EZ-link card)

We finally got to Tsukiji Market and what is known as the Outer Market which is where all the retail touristy stuff take place. I was quite surprised that Jah and Bella were quite adventurous and were willing to try out random food that we passed.

Not so chaotic right?

Now what about this? :p

Mummy!! They sell jelly beans at the fish market! Can we buy?

Ice cream!!!!

Perfect for a hot day! Yes the 2nd trip to Tsukiji Market was blazing hot!

We taste tested Tamagos (egg) from random stalls (these stalls are a dime a dozen) and we were so intrigued by an old couple grilling huge scallops that we had to stop to try. It helped that the stall was well-sheltered and we could take our time to finish our piping hot scallops. Jah loved it so much that he slurped every bit of it including the ‘sauce’. In fact, he loved this new found taste and food so much that we had to later stop at another shop to order a second round. This time round, we had scallops in butter as well as large oysters that were super cheap. This shop was connected to a restaurant so we were able to order drinks and beer to go with our food and we stood around a huge barrels which acted as tables. Quite the experience for the little ones! In fact the reason that we came back a second time (aside from the fact that Joel and I wanted more yummy scallops), was because Jah and Bella loved it so much that they wanted to come back too! Who would have thought right?

Bella and her tamago

Aunty adding uni to our scallops! There were crab claws in there too!

Time to cook it!! Yummy!

Mummy can I eat it already?

Scallops! Oysters! Beer!

Savouring his scallops…we lost count of how many he had but we know he had most of our share

We proceeded to a random restaurant for lunch after, even though we were already quite full from all that snacking. This is supposed to be Sushi/ Sashimi restaurant paradise so I wasn’t leaving until I had my sashimi lunch. However our random lunch turned out to be really disappointing and expensive so I guess nothing to rave about here.

It was almost 11am by the time we were done with our early lunch and Jah was insisting that we proceed to something that he wanted to do. :p A toy shop visit! So with my Google Map in hand, we made it back to the train station and headed to the Hakuhinkan Toy Park at Ginza.

Hello Little Red Riding Hood

Say fish!

Time for the Toy Store! Yay!

Tsukiji Market Trip – Mission Accomplished

Oh yes I have to share that we survived this trip by using the Google Map on my hand-phone. I used to print out hardcopy maps and pre-indicate the routes we would take. But the real-time GPS map came in very very handy! Of course you also need an internet connection which was no problem for us because we rented a wifi dongle from Changi Recommends. I love technology! :p

By the time we made it to Hakuhinkan Toy Park (It was a really long way *sweat*) It was almost 12pm and there were levels and levels of toys at the Toy Park so needless to say the kids were occupied for quite abit. There was even a car race track that you could pay I think approximately $1 to $2 to play for about 15 minutes. The kids loved it and wanted to go many times over.

Oh wow..where do we begin?

Choose a car..pay for your game and race away!

Bella could not resisit a few rounds too!

Jah having an absolutely tough time…

We eventually left Hakuhinkan Toy Park at about 2pm with our hands quite full and our pockets quite empty! :p So you have been warned! We also had to take a cab back to our hotel because there was no way I was going to struggle with cranky kids, tons of shopping bag and multiple changes at the train station. So yes if you decided to risk it and enter a toy shop like Hakuhinkan Toy Park, please be prepared to pay for a cab ride ‘home’. We paid about $60 for a 15 minutes ride from Ginza to our hotel (Hilton Tokyo Bay). We used one of those cab fare estimator website to prep ourselves so that we wouldn’t faint at the cab charges when we got to our destination. :p

More of our kid friendly Tokyo Adventure coming up soon…

In the meantime, you can read about…

JahBella’s Mummy

22Oct2015

When Adaptability becomes Complacency

Posted in Our Thoughts, Parenting decisions, Uncategorized by jahbella

It’s been a tough couple of weeks with the haze plaguing all of us for more than a month now and Jah and Bella getting HFMD right in the thick of it all. I think people who know us, would understand how terribly torturing and difficult it is for us to keep the kids at home/ indoors on weekends. Yes, we are that crazy family/ parents who head out at 9am every weekend so that our kids can burn off some of their energy.

So we were absolutely looking forward to the haze leaving us by end November as earlier estimated. However with the new forecast coming in at Dec/ Jan or even as late as March next year, I can’t help but feel really frustrated. After all, there is really only so much ‘sneaking around’ the haze that we can do.

Taken last Sunday when we ‘snuck around’ before the haze got worse . Jah and Bella have been absolutely cooped up in the days leading to this.

We used to pre-plan activities that the whole family can look forward to for the weekend. But now we wake up every Sat and Sun hoping to see PM2.5 levels below 100 and then we would rush out for some quick outdoors before ushering everyone indoors as the numbers start to climb (usually within 1-2 hours). Yes PM2.5 below 100 is our family’s internal threshold and while this usually means that the psi is well below 100, we prefer to be kiasu/ kiasi at least over this issue.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not so much a post to rant about the haze and to talk about how we have adapted our lifestyle to having the haze around. Rather with the haze looking to stay for a while, I am worried that we are becoming too adaptable. By we, I really mean all of us.

I know we teach our children to be adaptable and to react and change according to the situation. And in this situation, I think adaptability means perhaps getting a purifier and making a habit out of switching it on or carrying your n95 mask in your bags and wearing it without the fear of looking like a fool because no one else is wearing it. That to me is the extent of adaptability we should undertake. However being adaptable should not equate to being complacent.

Do you recall how only a month ago, we would ‘panic’ at the sign of the psi/ pm2.5 going above 150. Now some of us don’t even bat any eyelid. Yes some would say what a bunch of complainers and whiners. That is another argument for another time.
We should be adaptable but we should not accept walking around in the haze, unprotected as a normal way of life. We should not allow our kids to run around in a park when the levels are clearly unhealthy.

The reason I bring this up is not because I’m some perfect human being/ parent who can keep my kids indoors with no problem at all. I understand the pains and frustrations. The reason I need to say this now is because I too struggle and I too find myself slowly allowing myself to be complacent.

I need to to remind myself that this should not be a new norm for us and especially our children. We should learn to be adaptable during these months and hope that the end comes sooner rather than later but we should NEVER be complacent.

JahBella’s Mummy

15Oct2015

Bio Oil – Skincare Product [Review]

Posted in Media Invite, Reviews by jahbella

I pride myself on being pretty low maintenance when it comes to skincare, hair care and the likes. Or at least I like the idea of it all but I am really too lazy to see it through. So yes you will find my bathroom scattered with different skin care or hair care products that I eventually ‘forget’ about, after several uses. :p

However the realities and signs of ageing has definitely crept up on me and my skin no longer rejuvenates or renourishes itself as quickly as I would like to.

So when I was asked if I wanted to give Bio Oil a try, I jumped at the chance. After all, it claims to improve the appearance of scars, stretch marks, uneven skin tone, aging skin and dehydrated skin. All of which I can put a big fat tick beside! Never mind that I’m the ‘too lazy to apply products daily’ kind of person, we will still give it a try because I need help!!! :p

When I first tried Bio Oil, I was alittle skeptical about using it on my face. After all, applying an oil product on my face, just didn’t seem like such a good idea. The thoughts of greasy T zone and clogged pores immediately came to mind. So I started off with applying Bio Oil on my arms and legs.

I started using Bio Oil around the time that we moved house and somehow our new environment (though in the same country) was causing a lot of dryness to my skin. Bio Oil to the rescue! In fact I even used it on Jah who suffers from eczema on the inside of his elbows/arms. The dryness in our new environment was causing his eczema to flare up a lot more and I was just uncomfortable controlling it with his prescribed medicated cream every day. I thought that he would be resistant to the use of ‘oil’ but he was very pleased with this new little ‘nice smell’ oil. Yes that is what he calls it because it smells fantastic!! In fact he would sometime request for me to apply it, just so that he can smell it AND he ALWAYS has to take a whiff of the opened bottle before application. To be fair, it really smells very very nice and this is coming from someone who is pretty sensitive to scents.

Super nice fragrance and lovely colour 🙂 Happy stuff!

As the days/ weeks past in our new place, my face started drying up as well. Seeing how Bio Oil rescued Jah and myself from the horrible dryness on our arms, I decided to go out on a limb (no pun intended) and use it on my face. Bio Oil claims to be non-greasy, hypoallergenic, ideal for all skin types including sensitive skin and won’t clog your pores, and I have to say that its claims were true. There was no oily residue after application even though the oil starts off very ‘oily’ and runny when poured out. The oil was quickly absorbed into the skin and I did not experience any clogging of pores.

So if there is 1 skincare regime product that JahBella’s Mummy will consider using on a daily basis and on the kids, it will be Bio Oil.

Bio-Oil is available in three sizes and is available at all leading pharmacies, selected departmental stores and hospitals. It retails at the following prices: 60ml – SGD $15.50, 125ml – SGD $$25.90, 200ml – SGD $35.90. For more information, visit bio-oil.com.

Next up! To try Bio Oil on my motherhood ‘battle scars’ – my stretch marks! 🙂

JahBella’s Mummy

Disclosure: JahBella received a complimentary bottle of Bio Oil for the purpose of this media review. No monetary compensation was received and all opinions are my own.

8Oct2015

Where to Stay with Kids in Tokyo [Hilton Tokyo Bay Review]

Posted in Holidays, Japan, Reviews, Travel with Kids by jahbella

After the tough decision of having to decide which flight configuration and flight timing would work for us, I had another dilemma looming in the horizon..where to stay in Tokyo?

Here are some of the options we had and the rationale/ pros and cons behind each one.

Stay at a Disney Hotel for 11 days.

🙂 Minimize the need to move hotels and keep us really close to Disney on the 4 days we were intending to visit (perfect for going back for afternoon naps!)

😦 Visiting Tokyo on the other 7 days would be a hassle, with multiple train stops and at least 45 minutes travel time each way.

Stay at a Disney Hotel for half our trip and move to a city hotel for the other half.

🙂 Minimise travel time on a day to day basis

😦 Lose one entire day when we change hotels and we would have to visit Disney over a weekend and battle the crowds. [Read about our tips to surviving Disneyland Tokyo with kids]

Stay at a City hotel for 11 days

🙂 Easy travel for most part of our 11 day holiday

😦 Almost impossible to go back for afternoon naps on our 4 Days at Disneyland and lose out on a lot of the Disney experience

So which would you have chosen?:)

We eventually chose Option 1 which I know is probably not the most popular choice but we really cherish our naptimes :p (well rested kids = happy kids = happy parents) So yes we chose to struggle on most days and manage our itinerary within means.

We ended up booking a room at Hilton Tokyo Bay which although is not an Official Disney Hotel (The Disney hotels are connected to either Disneyland or Disney Sea) but it was fairly well-connected by a monorail line which served the Disney area (think our local LRT).

The hotel provided a free shuttle service to the nearby Bayside monorail station. We would usually take the shuttle bus to and from Bayside except at night when it tends to get really crowded. For those peak times, we would opt to take a nice slow 5 minutes stroll to our hotel.

Disney Shuttle to Bayside Station from our hotel

With Mickey design and interior

Jah enjoying his front row seat everytime we took the Disney shuttle

Bayside monorail station would bring you to 3 other stations – Disneyland station, Disney Sea station and the main Maihama Station which would connect you to the greater Metro lines. The monorail takes about 15 minutes to complete an entire loop so it was really convenient and fast!

We bought a 3 day monorail pass which gave us unlimited rides (only adults need to pay)

The Disney monorail

Enjoying the view of Disneysea while enroute to Disneyland

All smiles for Disney!

The hotel also provided a direct shuttle service to Maihama Station for those who are heading out to the city. This was how we travelled out to the city on the other 7 days. This is also where you would find Ikispiari Mall, where we settled a lot of our meals when we were not heading out to the city.

Maihama Station

The Hilton Tokyo Bay had several room types – 1 of which was the Happy Magic Room. The Happy Magic rooms are situated on their own level which was decorated in a Magic Forest Theme. It was a real treat for the kids and they would ‘greet’ the little dragon 3D holograms found near our lift lobby every time we took the lift.

The room we had was really awesome for 3 main reasons. The room was HUGE compared to many of the city hotels in Tokyo and honestly even Singapore!!! Yes, we had 3 queen sized beds put side by side and so we didn’t have to squeeze or worry about rolling off the bed. There was also ample playing space for the kids and our huge suitcases.

Huge Happy Magic Room!

Wondering what to do with themselves in this big room

There were little tricks in the room to entertain the kids, like a magic mirror and a giant key to unleash the ‘magic’.

Magic Mirror and his princess friend

We also enjoyed our 180 degree sea view which offered us a glimpse of Mount Fuji on a nice clear day.

Brother and sister enjoying their seaview in the mornings

View of Mount Fuji from our room

While the hotel does not offer room service, it does have a well-stocked convenience store where we would purchase our daily beverage and snacks replenishment. They also have a take-away deli which sells hot food, pastries and desserts, and they offer room delivery for an additional 20% charge. This was how we settled our dinner upon arrival and the food was pretty decent (tasty spaghetti bolognaise, curry rice, kiddy bento). The photo doesn’t do the food justice because I was too famished to take a good shot :p We ordered from the deli every time we were too lazy to eat out and the kids even requested to go back to the hotel for the deli food on a few occasion. 🙂

Well-stocked minimart at our hotel

Our hot food upon arrival..takeaway from their Deli

While it was really quite a hassle to travel out to the city from the hotel (for 7 days!!) Reality was a lot tougher than what I imagined in my head :p That being said, I would definitely still choose to stay at this hotel, the next time we visit Tokyo Disneyland (unless of course we decide to stay at the Official Disney Hotel 😉 )

The Hilton Tokyo Bay is a real value for money hotel especially if you book early..:) (Think $300 a night vs $900 a night!) It is after all a Hilton right?

JahBella’s Mummy