Rebun Island - Hokkaido

It was Obon last week and in recent years it has been stupidly hot. So... I got onto Google and found the coolest, as in temperature, place in Japan. And that my friends, are two small islands at the very north of Hokkaido. Rebun and and Rishiri islands.

Rishiri Island

It was quite a trek to get there, we flew from Hanada to Wakkanai, then took a bus from the airport to the ferry terminal. And then a 2 hour ferry over to Rebun where we were picked up by the hotel shuttle.

Rebun is the older of the two islands and has some incredible hikes and views. It is known for it's unique alpine flowers, many of which can only be found on this island. Due to the strong westerly winds and sea air the plants and flowers have evolved over time. 

Alpine flowers on Rebun Island

It's interesting that on western side of the island there are virtually no trees, there is no way to drive down the western coast and all the vegetation is very low to the ground. In the winter the winds blow all the snow over to the east so that is where you find the trees as they live to have the blanket of snow over winter.

We hired a guide, who happened to be the same guide for both islands, she is bilingual and great, we learned so much from her and she had a car so she could drive us around the islands. This is an important thing to note. Getting around the islands is hard, very few buses, rental cars have to be booked ahead of time as they are bought over from the mainland and taxi's are few and far between. 

Hiring a guide not only gave us insider knowledge but also a way to get around. Our first day we headed to the south of the island in the morning for some hiking and flower viewing.

The Cat Rock on Rebun Island

Our guide also told us we were having exceptional weather, that the islands are usually very windy, we just had a pleasant sea breeze! It was still quite hot and ended up covered up because of the horseflies, long pants are recommended as there is poison ivy all over the place too and some of the paths, although well maintained, are quite narrow.

Rebun has several hike routes available so the guide can adjust your trip to your levels. She did say that one of the hikes advertised on the company she works for says the longest hike is 8 hours, but it is a hard hike and rarely is it done in that time frame, so keep that in mind if you are booking something. 

Another advantage of having a guide is them knowing where to go to eat. Neither island has an abundance of eateries, on Rebun we went to a place fun by the fisherman's association, you can't just walk in, you need to book. If you are a fish lover, you will be in heaven but your wallet will be crying! Both hubby and son love fish, I don't eat it at all. Their meals were ¥6000 each compared to my chicken bowl which was ¥1300. 

Lunch from Kaisendokoro Kafuka

We all got excited to see seals basking on the rocks. I recommend bringing binoculars with you, and you are more likely to have seal sightings in the cooler months, we just got lucky. There are also sea lions that visit and are caught as a meat source. Thee are no farms on the island and so the majority of food is imported from the mainland, making it expensive. Ebi-kun tried the sea lion bacon, is tasted way too fishy for my liking. But if you know Ebi-kun, he will try anything once!

Sea Lion Meat and Basking Seal

The hotel... I think the idea behind this hotel is a romantic European vibe. Being European, it gave off grandma vibes, way too many teddybears and dusty fake flower arrangements for my liking. The meals were set with 2 times to choose from to eat. I asked for a non fish meals but I managed to get one fishy dish in every meal. That aside, the food was good, the guys enjoyed copious amounts of fishy stuff. 

They put on a drone show, not actually with drones, a video shown on a big screen of a drone flying over the island, as after dinner entertainment. And on our second night they weirdly stopped everyone mid meal to tell us there was a lovely sunset, so we could leave and watch it if we liked. Most of the people piled out and headed to the back of the hotel which has views over the sea. And a number of staff offered to take photos of the guests. Then we all returned to our meals. Weird!

We did get to see meteor showers at night and apparently you can see the Northern Lights in the colder months.

View from the cape

There was a small store a few minutes walk from the hotel but the opening times are not like the big city! Everyone we met was really kind and friendly which is a refreshing change after the hustle and bustle of Tokyo. It was much more laid back and slower paced,

If you are a stay up late, lay in, in the mornings kinda person, this is not the place for you. Both islands the breakfasts are served early, in Rebun the choice was 7.00am or 7.30am and dinner was at 6.00pm And everything closes early. Which forced us to take things easy and unwind. 

Out of the two islands, Rebun was my favourite, it felt kind of European with the alpine flowers and scenery, you could almost be in Switzerland in some areas and Ireland in others.  Plus you can't beat the view of the volcano of Rishiri across the way!

INFO

If you want to see the reviews of all the places we visited on the island, I'm a Local Guide on Google and you can see my reviews here.

Our guide is from Hokkaido Guide Service and her instagram is here.

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Lilliput Speakeasy Bar in Tokyo

For my sons birthday, we had a short break in Tokyo with a books and food theme. The Lilliput speakeasy style bar is almost next door to the Book Hotel we were staying in.

On the main street, this looks like a regular bookshop that specialises in kids books but at night... the front door is locked and the only way is is through the unmarked door around the back. Look out for this light, it's the only thing that marks the entrance, it's small and easy to miss.

When you enter, you come into a small whisky bar with a great collection of records. There are only a few seats available here, all but one was taken when we arrived. We were led by the friendly bar tender into a second room which looks like it is used for events. It was set up with tables and chairs and looked like it might be good for a book club or that sort of thing.

Finally were led into the bookstore itself.

The bar when you enter

At the back of the bookstore is a counter, which I think might be used as a cafe during the day. We were shown to a table and given a menu and table snacks (the snacks you get to justify the seating charge!) 

The menu is pretty basic, not a lot of choice. Beer, wine, a handful of cocktails and a few bar snacks. It's not the place to come for a meal.

We enjoyed just chilling with a drink and reading in a bookshop as the novelty.

You are allowed to wander and look at the books, they are all Japanese kids books, which makes drinking beer and cocktails in there that little more weird! I do love looking at the illustrations in Japanese kids books and we had a bit of a trip down memory lane as we found some of Ebi-kun's old favourites.

We had our own books in our bag, so we just whipped them out and settled in for a relaxing hour or so.

If you fancy a drink but don't want the vibes of a bar, or you are an introvert and want a change of scenery but still be able to stick your nose in a book with a beer, then this is a perfect choice.

There were other people in there but everyone was respectful and quiet, almost like being in a library!

When you leave, take you tab to the counter at the back to pay, and leave through the secret back door.

INFO

Lilliput Bar, Jimbocho, Tokyo

Read about our stay in the Book Hotel

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Stay in a Book Hotel in Tokyo

It was Ebi-kuns birthday last week, so we had a short midweek break. He is a book nerd, always has been, he'd rather dig into a good book that play computer games or waste time mindlessly scrolling on the socials.

His other loves are football and food. having just wrapped up the men's World Cup, I figured we had had enough football and focused on food and books. 

My goal was to fill the two days with as much of each as possible...

He has also seen an art exhibit in Harajuku he fancied going to and in a previous conversation talked about going to the big Maruzen book store in Tokyo.

He had been asked to participate in something run at a university in the morning, so we met up in at Tokyo station, had lunch then hit the book store. I left him to it and headed to the 4th floor which is all English/foreign language books and stationery. 

Once we had our fill and bought some books we headed up to Jimbocho, which is otherwise known as book town. We have visited here before, its nice to have a mooch around, there are some lovely shops but its not really a foreign tourist destination unless you read Japanese. 

The Book Hotel is close to the metro exit and if you need supplies, there are 3 conbinis a few minutes walk away to choose from.

In the lobby there are sofas and walls of books, the check-in was quick and easy, the staff were lovely. You need a hotel room key to use the lift which is a safety feature I approve of.

We had picked the white manga room and well... it was all white and filled with manga of all descriptions. The light from behind the bookcase at the bottom left is one of the bed nooks, also has manga in there and lights and plugs so you can recharge your phone etc.

There are plenty of amenities, green tea and coffee, kettle fridge and manga, did I mention the manga yet! They are pretty much all in Japanese, we found two English language ones. My husband had booked the room and there was some confusion (not the hotels fault) about the beds so we ended up with an extra bed in the room, which is what you can see in the bottom right. I don't think the room s designed for a long stay, more over night for maybe a night or two. 

One thing visitors to Japan might not know, if yo look at the left side of the photo below, there is a line marked on the floor, this is where you take your shoes off, leave them on the side of the door. The black things you can see on the room side are the slippers provided by the hotel. This is common practice in Japanese hotels. If there is no physical line, just leave your shoes as close to the door as possible and change into the supplied slippers.

Up in the loft there was another double bed and yes, more manga. Ebi-kun bagged this bed, I ended up in the nook and hubby on the third bed. We all slept well!

Unusually for a Japanese hotel, there was no bath tub but instead a sauna and shower! Not that we needed it considering the weather in the middle of the summer in Japan, lol. It was nice to have though, maybe we will visit in the winter next time!

There were plenty of towels, night wear, bathrobes and toothbrushes etc. 

One of the little extra touches that I loved was the manga welcome guide, explaining what you can and can't do. They ask that you return the manga to the place you picked it up from, I think it was organised in someway but not sure how. 

Usually when we go to stay somewhere, the hotel is really just somewhere to sleep but this place forced us to slow down and spend time inside (the air-conditioned) room and actually chill and relax.

We did go out in the evening to eat and visit a bookish speakeasy - more on that soon. And I picked up pastries for breakfast, the hotel doesn't do food. The check out is 11am too so we had a lovely relaxing start to the day.

What do you think? Would you like to stay in a book hotel? Let me know below, or if you have stayed in one and have recommendations, we'd be up for trying more places!

INFO

To make a reservation of find out more, you can check out The Book Hotel here.

Next stop Lilliput bookshop speakeasy bar

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Book Review - Boater by Jo Bell

Sometimes, when I'm trying to choose my next book, I get totally overwhelmed by choice. That's what happened on this occasion, for some reason Boater was one of my recommended reads on Everand (formally Scribd). 

It's not my usual type of book but after spending so much time walking along the canal when I was back at moms and learning a little about the bridges nearby, it had me intrigued. 

This is the bridge in question, it allows the horse pulling the boat to cross the canal without being unhitched from the boat. Clever!

Boater by Jo Bell

Well friend, I have to say the book is a delight. It's the authors story of how she ended up living and working on the canals, her romantic entanglements all beautifully woven and intertwined with the history of the canals and their influence on the Industrial Revolution.

Having grown in around the area where a good chunk of the book is set, I was amazed at how little I knew of the canal history and importance. Of course, we would have covered this at school but no doubt what my dry and boring history teacher told us back then, went in one ear and out the other. 

I have to say, it has made me a little prouder of the area I grew up in as it often gets the brunt of jokes and it's definitely not one of the prettiest cities in the world and it's significance to world history I feel is very much downplayed. 

I was also surprised to hear my village mentioned in the book, which is hysterical because it is not important or significant other than it being the source of the River Trent. Every year in the scouts we had to go and clean out and tidy the area around the source.

I listened to the audio version of the book, which is narrated by the author herself and she does a fabulous job. I usually cringe when authors read their own work as it is so badly done, but not this one.

By the end of the book, I felt that I too had travelled the UK on the narrowboat (mot a barge) with Jo, enjoying tea, biscuits and bacon butties. And I do wonder if I could adopt to a life on the water. At sea, that is a hard no, but even walking along the canal there is a lovely sense of peace even when you are just a stones through from a housing estate.

I also like the idea of just living with the bare essentials, clutter and accumulated 'stuff' drives me potty. But it also looks like a tonne of hard work, she doesn't go into much detail about how things like toilet situation works or doing your daily shop. So I did leave with even more questions!

If you are looking for an easy read, with spoonful of history, a cupful friendship topped off with a dollop of wit, then this is a great choice.

Boater - By Jo Bell Available here (aff link)

If I were to move back and took to a. life on the water, this is obviously this is the boat for me... Spotted on the canal near Congleton.

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Beaten but not down...

I often get asked when is the best time to visit Japan, and my answer is always the same. Anytime except the summer. June brings the rainy season, the rain isn't like the monsoons of India but it brings the humidity and it is that combined with the intense heat that makes summer in Japan unbearable.

And yes, it's definitely getting worse. When Ebi-kun was a kid, there was always a posse of kids hanging out on the street having water fights and other summer high jinks. There are still kids living on the street but it is too hot for them to be outside.

This week, most of the week it was 38℃ with a 'feels like' temp of 44℃. It's brutal out there!

We used to do a lot of ice cooking and ice digging but these days I think I'd move it to the bath rather than the yard. I miss those days or squeals and laughter as the kids played as I worked.

Anyway, all of this to say that I am very grumpy because it too darn hot! I lived in Jerusalem for a time and it was hot there but the heat was dry, whole different ball game!  And because my daily walks have been scuppered I've taken to the treadmill, but I have to say, it's really not that much fun.

When I bought it I had this bright idea of using it as a walking desk, convinced I could MacGyver a set up... which I did, it lasted all of 2 minutes before I almost fell off, narrowly avoiding a serious injury. Thankfully none of this was caught on camera so you can just use your imagination!

After retelling the tale to Ebi-kun he went into fits of laughter "What were you thinking, with your lack of co-ordination?" He managed to squeak between guffaws. 

Ok, he has a point!

So the treadmill moved upstairs and my walking is down to a minimum. <sigh>

It is one of the drawbacks of working from home I suppose, at least I don't have to do the train commute anymore, squashed in the Takasaki - Tokyo train with hundreds of sweaty salarymen, also not my idea of fun!

I usually escape back to the UK for a chunk of the summer, but not this year. I'm in the process of organising the Celebration of Life for my mom in September, so I'll be flying back then - assuming the war in the Middle East hasn't taken a turn for the worse. 

I haven't quite got back into the habit of updating daily but I do have to say, it's so refreshing to just sit down and write again without the pressure of SEO and all that tech nonsense. 

Having Ebi-kun at home for the summer is great too, not only for the company, he is a joy to chat with. But he also loves cooking, last night we had carbonara, made from scratch, including the pasta. Top notch, giving myself a pat on the back for getting the kid in the kitchen from a young age!

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quince

To bring you up to speed, this year has so far been a roller-coaster. 

My mom, who had COPD took a turn for the worse in February, so I dropped everything and took the next flight back to the UK. I ended up staying for 2 months, helping my brother sort out care options and getting the house in order, decluttering, sorting paperwork and whatnot. As well as keeping up with my work. Which fortunately, I can do from anywhere. 

Oh yes, and a few days after I landed, that orange idiot in America declared war on Iran which meant flying back through the Middle East - my usual route was a hard no and all the flight prices shot up.

In the end I had to leave because I had a medical appointment and needed a top up of prescription pills which I couldn't get in the UK.

Not long after mom passed away, in her sleep, peacefully, for that I'm grateful for. She had had enough and just wanted to 'pop off' (her words), she wasn't going to get better so it was for the best. But still hard.

She hadn't wanted a funeral so that side of things was fairly quick and easy to deal with, I'll be going back in September - assuming I can due to the war. And we'll have a celebration of life then. 

My original plans had been to go over in June for my brothers wedding but that all got scuppered. My youngest brother is a bit of a Viking hippy, love the earth type of guy. He is looking for land to buy to start his own farm and homestead. 

I didn't want to buy a gift that was just going to clutter up the house, and decided on a couple of trees so he could plant them on his land when he gets it. I know he has a few fruit trees already and didn't want to get them something they already had. So I had to put my thinking hat on.

I decided weird was the way to go. He loves learning about plants and so when I stumbled upon the medlar tree I knew I had a winner.  The other one I found was quince, which you can make a great jelly from to go with cheese, always a winner in my books.

I ordered the trees and then painted some quince fruit to make into a card, I tried medlar fruit but well, if you read the line from Shakespeare below you'll understand why it wasn't really suitable for a wedding hard! Lol.

For thousands of years quince has been a symbol of love, marriage and fertility. It was a favourite of the Greek goddess Aphrodite! The ancient Greeks gave quinces to newly weds as a wish for happiness and prosperity. Clearly a better gift than an airfryer!

Medlar trees on the other hand...

Are gloriously old trees that refuse to do things the normal way. (Which seems fitting if you know my brother). Their fruit has to go through a process known as 'bletting' before it becomes sweet enough to eat. And the old romantic William Shakespeare preferred to call it open arse fruit! Make of that as you will.

So yes, keeping it weird and in the family. Nothing new there.

We also decided that we'd get a tree for mom and bury her ashes under it, perhaps a cherry blossom as they were always in bloom for her birthday. I think she would have liked that.

Stay creative!

Jo xx

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Here's to the rule breakers!

Well Hello!
It has been a while...

I know personal blogging isn't as cool as it used to be and I have my work blog still going over at jojoebi.com but you know, I miss old school blogging.

Where I didn't have to worry about SEO and AI and all that nonsense. I used to be such a prolific blogger, often blogging daily or at least several times a week but then all the techie crap came and sucked the fun out of it.

So I was thinking, maybe I'll just pick up here again, waffle like I did back in the beginning and forget all the annoying 'rules'.

This blog started out as "A bit of this and a bit of that" because I just wanted to share what I was up to and not niche down or be in a labelled box - yes, my punk vibe still going strong. So, I'm going back to that. I'll write when I feel like it and about whatever comes up. 

If you fancy coming along for the ride, all the better. If you are reading and still blogging, let me know in the comments so I can come and check yours out too. I do miss the old blogging community. I really wish Google hadn't done away with Google reader, I feel that was the downfall of the simple blog culture.

Here is a very brief update for anyone who used to read and stumbled back...

• Ebi-kun was homeschooled for junior high the went to a hybrid school in Japan called N-school for high school
• He is now studying for a degree in dietetics in Hungary and loving it, he wants to be a football dietician.
• I set up the 193 Little Adventures Club and create a new printable pack for a different country every month. I love it, it's so much fun and I have learned a lot!
• I still run a version of Wonder Moms although the current iteration is more about accountability and staying on task, we have a small and tight knit community and I really enjoy hanging out with the group. 
• I lost my mom in the spring, she had been very ill so it wasn't unexpected but still really hard when you are the other side of the world. She didn't want a funeral so we are having a celebration of life in the autumn. I'm not really looking forward to going back tbh. We also lost ji-chan last year and baa-chan is in the hospital, also very poorly. All in all, not a great time.
• I fell off the sewing wagon, I still have a cupboard full of fabric and a lovely machine but sort of lost my mojo, maybe I need a fun project to get going again.
• Last year I went on an epic adventure with my bestie Di, who had won money for a holiday on a radio competition. We visited Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, there was a lot of laughing, exploring and silliness, it was very much needed.
• My little brother got married in the summer, I couldn't make it back but I did enjoy researching and finding his present, I'll share that in the next post.

That's it for now. I have to go and face the awful heat as I need to print some bits out and we no lonbger have a printer. Hey-ho it's off to the conbini I go...

And I will leave you with one of Japan's great mysteries, what kind of animal is this... ?

Stay creative!

Jo xx

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Have you landed in the right place?

This is just quick update, in case you landed here accidentally.

This was my original blog started in 2007 and I have kept it (but not really updated it) because there are a lot of useful posts hidden in the depths.

Where you can find me now - on a regular basis is blogging at jojoebi.com. Where I'm still blogging about Montessori and helping kids learn at home but also expanded to helping moms get more done, bringing my productivity coach know-how to the blog.

If you have got kids in the 4-10 year old age range then 193 Little Adventures might be of interest to you, this is my passion project, helping kids to learn about the world.

If you want to connect, @jojoebi on Insta is for the productivity, time saving side of things and @193_little_adventures for the kids stuff. If you do follow, shoot me a message and say hello!

To get free access to the 193 Little Adventures Curiosity Files (new printable added each week) CLICK HERE

Where we are with our homeschool journey

Term time starts in April here, we took August off so this is where we are this September:

• ⭐️ Core subjects (Grade 3 Junior High): Maths, Japanese, and Science using Study Sapuri (in Japanese). He also uses Khan Academy for maths because he doesn't like the Japanese math teacher.
• ⭐️ English: He reads daily, works through a workbook together with me, and is doing a creative writing class on Outschool this term.
• ⭐️ French: After 300 days of Spanish, he decided to switch to French! He does daily lessons on Duolingo. Once he has the basics down, we will look for a conversation class.
• ⭐️ Humanities (High School): He is about halfway through those, so he will continue with them in Japanese using Study Sapuri.
• ⭐️ Game Theory: He has gotten really interested in this over the last couple of months. After researching it, we signed him up for a course on Coursera to go deeper (research in Japanese, course in English).
• ⭐️ Culinary Arts: Still a favourite! He is working through all the chefs on MasterClass and experimenting a lot in the kitchen (mostly English).
• ⭐️ PE: Aikido twice a week, climbing 3 times a week, plus home training to build muscle for climbing.
• ⭐️ Coding & Robotics: Lego Mindstorms EV3 with Zkai, alongside live lectures and classes debating various topics (Japanese).
• ⭐️ Occasional classes: With JUNEC (Japanese).
• ⭐️ Art: I signed up for an art course on Domestika and he has been joining in.

I think that is it! Looks like a lot, but some of these are just once or twice a month. He is enjoying being able to pick and mix whatever he wants to study and learn at his own pace.

Ebi-kun is happy. I would say the only downside is that he doesn't see his friends so much now—we knew this would happen and unfortunately, there are not many homeschoolers his age around.

We have developed a routine: he does the bulk of his studying in the morning while I work. We stop for lunch, and after eating, we watch a TED talk or Masterclass. Then we go bouldering, do something together, or he works on a project. In the evening, he meets online with his mates to play games and hang out—normal teenage boy stuff!

And that is it.

I've been missing the blog, so I plan to pop by more often. I miss just sitting down first thing and banging out a blog post! TBH my work blog is a lot of work—I have to consider keywords, SEO, the right titles, and all that jazz, which really sucks the fun out of things!

So over here it will just be my rambles and rants, like the good old days!

If you are reading, please drop me a comment, I'd love to re-connect with my old followers.

Keep being wonderful,
Jo

Homeschool Update...

To be honest, I haven't got much to update about!

So last time I talked about filling the forms in at city hall. That is about it really. We haven't heard anything else, which does have me a tad worried—you know how much the Japanese love red tape and bureaucracy!

Ebi-kun told his class teacher that he was going to homeschool for junior high. At first, sensei was OK: "If that's what you want to do." But then a few days later he said to Ebi-kun that he didn't think it was "allowed" and that he had to go to school. Hubby has explained all the rules to Ebi-kun in Japanese so that he can answer all these types of questions which no doubt will come up in the future.

Last week the 6th graders were going for a tour of the junior high. Any kids that are not going to that school were allowed to go home instead. There are a handful of students that will go to private JH schools and of course, Ebi-kun. I had to go and pick him up, so whilst the rest of the kids are touring the school, we went for ice cream #homeschoollife!

We then popped to the supermarket so he could pick up the ingredients to cook dinner. I'm telling you, I'm loving this already!

The other thing that has come up: Ebi-kun currently goes to football school once a week and wanted to continue, but there is no JH age class. On Saturday he had a make-up class, so afterwards I suggested we do a very un-Japanese thing and ask if they can let him join a class next year (the year starts April).

We had a long chat with the coaches and explained what was happening and why he couldn't join the JH team. We had to explain a bit about homeschooling and they were absolutely lovely about it.

They suggested he join a class for the next couple of weeks which is a higher level than the one he is in now to see if he likes that kind of training, and they would talk to the head coach to see about him being allowed to join a class or if there is enough interest to start a JH class.

They said that they really wanted to support us and would try and work something out.

Ebi-kun was chuffed to bits, so it's fingers crossed now that they are good to their word and do work something out.

Ebi-kun will keep doing his aikido and he has been trying the bouldering club out too, so I think if we can keep the football in the mix he should have enough to keep him busy out of the house (and me!).

I will keep you posted on what happens next—it's very much a see-how-it-goes type of adventure!

If you are homeschooling too, let me know!

Jo