Month: October 2024

October 26, 2024

Mason’s first Judo competition.

He was a little nervous, but not overly to be honest. There were hundreds of athletes there of all ages. Mason was in the youngest group and he had the first match of the entire tournament.

Before his match Mason sat peacefully in his chair while his opponent viciously warmed up. That worried me slightly, but in hindsight this kid knows when to turn it on and turn it off. So, I will just continue to keep my mouth shut and let him do it his way.

Once the match started, both Mason and his opponent smiled at each other while hand fighting and then Mason turned up the gas and got a Ippon (threw of the other little guy on his back, an instant win in Judo).

In his next match, he won by holding his opponent down for 20 seconds, but then lost his third match, which I don’t really know why – it seemsed like it was just going on for too long, so the referee just randomly picked a winner. Mason ended up winning a silver medal! (But honestly, his highlight of the day was just hanging around with his friends and playing.)

October 12, 2024

Our eleventh anniversary trip to Tokyo. We left Seoul very early in the morning on Saturday and left Mason with Grandma! (Sorry Mason). I love the parking at Gimpo, driver is there at passenger drop off and valets your car to the parking lot for us.

We stopped by our normal airport restaurant, and I had some Taco Bell. Once we arrived, customs did take a little while to get through, but it wasn’t awful. We were lucky enough to catch a train that was just departing to Tokyo, and it was a nice ride in – a little over an hour to Shinjuku Station. The weather was perfect. October is the time to visit Tokyo. 

We immediately had sushi and the freshest beer of my life. We spent the day walking from Shinjuku to Shibuya – and it was a fantastic walk. We hit multiple sushi shops throughout the day.

We did momentarily get separated on the busy streets of Shinbuya and HK’s phone was in my bag – so a few tense moments – but we reunited and regrouped. 

We hit an Izakaya, then beef barbeque and another Izakaya. We also shopped at a huge Pokémon store and Mason was able to pick the stuffed animal he wanted through video call. Our hotel (video check-in) did not have big rooms, but it was very modern and clean. Noodles and more sushi in the morning before heading back to Seoul.