Tokyo, Here we come!

A year flies by, and summer vacation is here again.

Cola's awareness and expectations for travel are getting higher and higher.

At first, when we asked her if there was a place she wanted to go, she would answer "whatever." Now she still says "whatever," but she has a "but" or "can we": "But I want to go to a place with an amusement park" and "Can we go to the desert again?"...

Great, she's starting to express her own needs.

I've always hoped she would be a person with her own opinions and ideas. So I consciously let her make many decisions herself.

Among the cities she knows, the three of us discussed the destination for this trip together.

She mentioned Dubai because she wants to see the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa.

I mentioned London because it was the city I once dreamed of most.

Dad mentioned Tokyo and the Maldives. His reasons were all because he thought Cola would love them.

After综合考虑 the distance, safety, entertainment, and shopping,

The three of us agreed:

Here there are two major Disney parks, fulfilling all of Cola's expectations.

Cola successfully finished first grade.

This is her first summer vacation in her school life. I can feel her joy.

I know she is very happy, but her first year of campus life wasn't entirely smooth.

Cola is really not good at managing her belongings. Even now, we often lose things. I remember at the beginning of school, she lost eight pencils and two erasers in one week. Or her eraser would be broken into small pieces by a classmate... On this point, I still don't know how to change it completely. As long as we lose fewer things, I'll be Zen about it.

Because she is slow to warm up, I was once quite worried about whether she could handle relationships with classmates. It turned out my worries were unnecessary. She is indeed slow to warm up, but she has her own way. Now she has good best friends, good classmates, and they've even set up their own group chat and arranged weekend get-togethers. See, was I unnecessarily worrying?

Of course, there were definitely times when she ran into trouble. Once she got 100 points in math, and the teacher gave her a small toy as a reward. But a classmate liked the toy so much that she asked Cola for it multiple times, and eventually Cola gave it to her. However, when she got home, she was glum and told me she was very unhappy because she also really liked that toy.

I comforted her first—it was really a pity, since she earned it with her grades and it was a gift she liked. After her emotions eased a bit, I told her: When doing things, you need to think it through first. The toy is yours, and you can decide whether to give it away or not. If you don't want to give it, you have to refuse directly. If you give it, you can't regret it. Everyone must take responsibility for their actions.

She asked, "If I don't give it to her, will she stop playing with me?"

I asked her, "Are you sad when you don't play with her now?"

"Then why do you care if she doesn't play with you? If she stops playing with you because of this, you can go play with other classmates."

"Since you've already given the gift, don't think too much about it. Next time you encounter a similar situation, Mom believes you will handle it well."

The school required them to play shuttlecock in PE class, so Dad gave her 5 yuan to buy one at the sports equipment room. The next day when she came home, the 5 yuan was gone, but she hadn't bought the shuttlecock. Dad asked and found out that a classmate had taken the money. Cola asked for it back, but the classmate didn't return it, so she let it go and didn't pursue it.

Dad told her: Money is something you can't just take casually. A classmate shouldn't take yours, and you shouldn't take others'. Taking someone's money without permission is wrong and absolutely not allowed. Tomorrow morning, go find that classmate and tell her, 'You need to return the money to me. I've already told my parents. If you don't return it, I'll go to the teacher, and the teacher will notify your parents too.'

The next day, the child handled the matter well on her own and even told me that the classmate quickly returned the money.

Growing up is something that requires a lot of courage. In this process, every day brings new challenges, new things to learn, and new attempts. Yes, the road of life is winding. Take it slowly and steadily.

I remember I once wrote about whether to push kids (the 'tiger parenting' issue). Actually, my thoughts haven't changed. Whether to push and how much depends on the child's understanding and acceptance.

But one thing I have to admit: as she grows up, I need to accept that she is ordinary. Don't impose your own selfish hopes on your child, like hoping she becomes a top student, gets to piano level 10, gets into a 985 university, or achieves great career success...

Hope is necessary, but I hope she can become the person she likes to be.

This hope is actually not easy and sounds a bit vague.

But I can't find a better word to describe this hope. I just want her to be herself.

We make plans that I think are helpful for her. We give her more encouragement, accompany her in learning, and make sure she doesn't feel alone from the start.

Cola loves reading, which makes me very happy. This year I made a list of the books she read: 289 books. Whenever she has time, she reads. Of course, because I didn't properly intervene in her reading time and posture, she ended up needing glasses at such a young age. The genes for eyesight weren't great to begin with, and we weren't careful about that.

But reading cannot stop; we will continue this good habit. Mom is so, so gratified, because Mom herself is not a big reader. I know that not reading has many downsides. Someone once said: Where footsteps cannot reach, words can; where eyes cannot reach, words can. Reading is a bridge to the unknown world, opening our horizons and guiding us to explore this infinitely vast world.

Travel memories are beautiful—created together by the family. Only by seeing more of the world can you know how big it is. If the meaning of life lies in pursuing happiness, then apart from traveling, few other activities show the passion in that pursuit.

Let's be curious, explore, and love together!

Here we come!

The seven-day, six-night Tokyo itinerary is divided into three parts:

Three nights at Sheraton Tokyo Bay

Two nights at Izu Inatori Ginsuiso

One night at a Ginza hot spring hotel in central Tokyo

Flight tickets were booked in early April: ¥8,800 for three people round-trip on Japan Airlines. In hindsight, if we had booked in March, we could have saved ¥1,400.

Hotel costs: Sheraton three nights ¥4,500; Izu Inatori Ginsuiso we stayed in a Japanese-style room and a suite—Japanese-style ¥1,500 per night, suite ¥5,500 including dinner, so total ¥7,300 for two nights; finally the Ginza budget hotel ¥1,400 for one night.

A special recommendation among the hotels is the Izu Ginsuiso hot spring suite. ¥5,500 is not cheap, but it's actually not expensive among famous hot spring hotels in Japan. Soaking in the hot spring facing the sea, meeting your dreams head-on—you'll feel everything is worth it.

I have to mention Tokyo's Ginza—it's truly a shopping paradise. The hotel we stayed at, Ginza Super Hotel Premier, had an absolutely prime location.

The hotel entrance is right at the subway station, and you can go directly to Haneda Airport in one stop. Shopping and dining are all readily available.

Day 1: Our flight was at a little past 5 PM. Considering we would arrive in Tokyo at 9 PM and the hotel wasn't far from the airport, we booked an airport transfer for ¥440. It saved us the trouble of carrying luggage with a child.

After checking into the Sheraton smoothly, we were still hungry. On the plane, Cola had been sleeping the whole time and hadn't eaten. We decisively went downstairs to find food, but the hotels near Disney have no convenience stores. However, in the lobby of the Hilton next door, there was a 24-hour Lawson, which was very okay.

Day 2: We got up at 8:30 and went to the hotel for a buffet breakfast. We ate our fill and headed to the park.

Today we went to Tokyo Disneyland. We were extremely excited from the morning, and Cola kept screaming with excitement.

The weather was bad in the morning—it rained—but perhaps because of that, there weren't too many people. The longest queue was about an hour. We didn't see the 120-minute waits that are common at Shanghai Disney. The rain stopped completely by noon.

We bought fast passes for a few rides. Spending money paid off—it felt great seeing others queuing in the summer heat while we breezed through. I comforted myself that the money was well spent.

We stayed at the Sheraton Tokyo Bay, which is very close to the Disney resort. There is a monorail right outside the hotel, and the hotel also has a shuttle bus. But because Cola wanted to ride the monorail, we bought a two-day pass.

We stayed until closing. On the monorail back to the hotel at night, just two stops, both father and daughter fell asleep, sleeping so soundly.

Day 3: Continue with Disney—today it was Tokyo DisneySea.

We watched the fireworks, exhausted my last ounce of energy, and successfully completed the Disney itinerary.

I thought, thank goodness, it's finally over.

Day 4: Today we are heading to Izu.

There is a station near Disney called Maihama Station. From there, you can take the subway to Tokyo Station, then transfer to the JR line directly to Izu Inatori. But the whole trip takes about three and a half hours.

We took quite a while on the road. We woke up naturally, had breakfast, checked out around 10 AM, and left for Izu around 10:30.

Around 3 PM, we finally checked into the most anticipated hotel of this trip: Inatori Ginsuiso.

The next morning, I got up at 4:30 to watch the sunrise.

Having breakfast here—isn't it especially healing?

Look at our room, facing the sea.

Day 5: Matcha-colored Mount Omuro, Jogasaki Coast.

Today was tiring. Waiting for the train.

Day 6: We returned to Tokyo.

Day 7: Got up early to stock up on supplies, then left at 1 PM for the return trip.

End of the summer vacation trip.

With that, we are very happy to have completed this journey again.

Next year we will continue to move forward. See you then!