A postcard from Nara

I am grateful to report that our little fam arrived in Japan safely. We spent our first few days in Nara before we transitioned to our time in Okinawa.

It has been two years since our last visit to Japan, and so much has shifted in our lives since then that I had a little difficulty figuring out how to plan for our trip. Traveling with 12 and 15-year-olds is so different from traveling with younger kids. Add jet lag to the complexity, and it’s almost impossible to have anything planned for four of us with different interests and sensory capacities. So, Frido and I decided to have as few fixed plans as possible and make the most of the early morning time (always works for west-bound jet lag), taking it easy in the evenings.

I chose Nara for our first few days in Japan based on its proximity to Kansai Airport (KIX), our entry point from LA to Japan, as well as the traditional aspect of the city, contrary to other large and more modern places like Tokyo. I was hoping that the smaller scale of Nara would be a welcome change for our kids, offering them a more authentic experience of Japanese traditional culture, even with jet lag and the cultural adjustments they need to make every time we visit Japan.

Now that we transitioned from Nara to Okinawa, I think of the last few days in Nara as a delightful thread of serendipity. Some of the highlights included our time with deer in the park, making an early morning visit to quiet temples that I knew would have been very crowded by midday, meeting up with Kei in Kyoto, and hiking in an ancient and sacred forest, which were by far our favorite moments.

In between, we thoroughly enjoyed our cafe time with books, journals, and a good iced matcha latte (so much easier to do now that the kids are older!), serendipitiously walking into an embroiderly store with plenty of Sashiko projects to choose from as well as hitting a Gachapon store with more enthusiasm than our 100 yen coins can hold.

The way we travel mirrors the way we aspire to live in the canyon - a few planned elements with lots of open time and space around them, as much downtime as possible in nature…, and a willingness to use our creative process to pivot the direction as needed. We were not always perfect at it, and we did experience moments of complete meltdown due to the heat, humidity, and jet lag, all at the same time. (It was a challenging combination.) But, we also had a lot of fun winging it and creating the flow and pockets of jems that felt like our family.

I hope your July is starting well, and I can not wait to send another postcard to you from Okinawa:)

A few moments from our time in Nara.