It was a normal Wednesday morning, but pretty windy outside, so since we woke up early, we decided to go to the gym. After a short workout, we left the gym and smelled a little smoke outside. When we went home, we could sort of see some smoke in the distance. I get notifications on my Ring app, and others were talking about a fire out in Somis/Moorpark area. A few mins later, there was an update that the fire had jumped the 118 freeway and made its way to Camarillo. I downloaded a fire watch app called Watch Duty by then since I was starting to get worried.

Winds picked up, 20 miles, then 30, then 40. We were packing by 10-11am as some areas were told to evacuate. Anson packed our documents, and I packed various things like food, personal hygiene stuff, my scrapbook I made when we were dating, our sermon notes, etc. I didn’t exactly know what I was packing…what is most important when you think it will all be gone that day?

The fire made national news and a few people we knew from LA and the Bay Area reached out. The first was Anson’s dad. We evacuated to their house around noon. Our area was on a red flag alert and firefighters were going door to door telling people that they had to leave. Getting out of Camarillo was a little backed up but orderly. Thankfully, the power at our house was back on around 3pm and I was able to use the Ring camera to see that our neighborhood seemed like it was still standing. Even though we were told to evacuate, our neighbors in front were there that night. 

We stayed two nights at Anson’s parents’ place, but we didn’t want to overstay our welcome and also wanted to make sure our home wouldn’t be broken into, so we came back on Friday morning. There were some streets that had barriers to close it off, but we found other streets open in order to get back to our house. Found out later that our other neighbors to the back (former firefighter) and to the right never left. 

Almost 200 homes were destroyed in the fire. Most of them were in more remote areas, but Camarillo Heights was still the area hit hardest. Looking at the map, our house was about 2000 ft from the fire (less than 1/2 mile). I feel sorry for those who have lost their homes, yet thankful that our house did not burn down. We only moved here 4 months ago, so in a way, I didn’t feel like this house had many memories for us as I did about Foley, but it would still be a hurtful loss. Would we be okay if we did lose it? We are stewards of all that God has given to us. He can give, and He can take away. Thank you, God, for protecting our earthly home. Help us to not rely on our own strength as we have little control and know that nothing in this life will last. Pray that we will store up treasures in heaven and to know that on this earth, we are just passing thru. 

Uncle William, my dad’s younger brother, passed away at the beginning of October. I didn’t know him that well, so it was nice to hear about what he did in his life. He was a quiet man, but played the violin in a well known orchestra in Hong Kong, studied and was a social worker, became an engineer when he moved to the states, and loved and served the church faithfully for years as the Cantonese choir director. We attended his memorial on Saturday, November 2, 2024.

On Friday, Anson and I had lunch with his parents before we went over to my parents’ place to stay the night. This was so that we could drive them to the memorial and was a way for us to serve them (I shouldn’t get annoyed at this) since my dad can’t drive anymore and my mom is uncomfortable with driving long distances. We were already going to have a busy weekend since we were staying the night in Hollywood to attend David Foster’s 75th bday celebration at the Hollywood Bowl (too cold and bad sound quality), but I’m glad that we went.

The service was well run (wondering if Emily helped lol…loved the Porto’s after service). Tim K led in worship with Amazing Grace, the choir sang one song, there were 3 people who spoke about Uncle William (a choir friend, Irene (his sister), and Hanson (his oldest son), and Johnson gave a message. One of the things his father said was to his grandchildren to “be a Christian on the inside”. He seemed like a loving friend, husband, father, and grandfather. He already knew how he wanted his service to be held and wanted the gospel to be preached as his last act to have others hear about Christ. He was never outspoken during his time on earth, but he did not need to be in order to make Christ known in both his life and death. Farewell, Uncle William. I’ll see you later.

We checked out a few different churches while we were deciding on where to make our home church. We visited CCAC since that is where Anson’s parents go, but we knew early on that it didn’t make sense to drive an hour to church each week. We also went to New Life Church since it was my home church for a year before we got married and Aaron and his family go there. It is 30 mins away and is doable…but I think still a little far in order to maintain community. We visited Christ Our Redeemer PCA which is in Camarillo at the local high school. We had good conversations with Cal and Bora. Though not an absolute red flag the way they conduct service is not something we’re used to. We also visited Pleasant Valley Baptist Church which was really close to us (5 min drive?). I liked the worship and the preaching, and a couple was very nice to us and they also had small groups/Bible study after service. This was a semi-contender as it was a nice local community. It seemed pretty established and I wasn’t too sure how we would be able to serve.

Throughout our visits to different churches, we kept coming back to Chinese Christian Church of Thousand Oaks. We liked that it was a smaller sized congregation, the expository preaching style (Pastor Steve has incepted our thoughts), recognizable worship songs, and Elder Wayne was very friendly and gave us a tour on our first visit. Some things that I may need some time to get used to is all the women leading worship (not enough guys with ability or desire to lead?), not having to be a member in order to be part of small groups, etc. Pastor Tim is relatively new in his role as the English pastor, so I know that it takes time to grow into the role and have the church change when there have been things just done for years.

We visited a few of their small groups: New Heritage (mostly retired folks), New Legacy (those w/ middle school to college aged children), and Semi Pro & Hungry (single and married w/o kids). We plan to visit CAMTO in the next month and that group mainly consists of those with young kids). It looks like we’re more comfortable being in Semi Pro as we like the discussions and teaching and it being more Biblically oriented rather than topical and it is easier to have conversations as it is a smaller group and doesn’t have as many disruptions where there are many kids. Regardless of which SG we attend, it does look like we have decided to make CCCTO our home church and have completed their 1st membership class last month. We’ll be taking the 2nd one next week and applying afterwards. Hopefully we will be able to serve and help the church.

Anson had to leave his company after his 3 months of working remotely. We knew that this was going to come as it has been the trend for tech companies to not let workers be fully remote anymore. Not exactly sure what I should blog about regarding this…should I talk about us going up to the Bay Area in October for his last 2 days? He had a dinner with coworkers and also ate with them for lunch on both Thursday and Friday and worked out with Frank both days. I ate with Emily (Lisa and fam stopped by) at Orange Square, ate at BJ’s with BWC peoples and caught up with them and Janet after she was let go. We also ate with Tracy at Google, with Uncle Tim and Aunt Helena (Little Saigon), and with Uncle Kenway and Aunt Susan (Mediterranean Grill House). We talked with people at church (Cindy, Jane, Ruth), and ate with Randy and Eva at Big Bites. But…seems like this paragraph is more about the week we went up rather than about Pure…instead, how about a list of things I would like to remember about his company of 11.5 years.

– Him randomly bringing leftovers home from the office (using waiter.com and Eat Club)
– When IPO’d, they gave him an IPad Air 2 (what I’m using to type this blog entry on) and an Apple Watch (which we gave to my mom).
– A generous amount of stock options as he was employee 115….they’ve grown to 4000
– Meeting him down at Le Boulanger for dinner before Janette’s small group on Castro
– Going on the weekends after church for snacks and studying
– Bringing church friends there to eat snacks
– The massage chair!!!
– Blueboard award that gave us a free sailing trip and annual passes to Great America
– For his 10 year anniversary, he received a Bose sound bar that retails for ~$400
– Various swag (shirts, jackets, cups, etc) he’s received thru out the years
– When moving to Santa Clara, we started carpooling to the office, and I would drop him off, go to GA for lunch, go to work, stop by GA for dinner, and bring to his workplace to eat there
– Very fancy Christmas party in San Jose one year, Anson going on a couple ski trips, cool picnic at Saratoga Springs, and two years at The Plex with good food, ice skating, and games.
– Even though they stopped lunch after moving, at least had a subsidy for the cafe. And yes, they downgraded some snacks due to inflation, but still had nuts, drinks, eggs, guacamole, cheese, yogurt, milk, teas, chips, etc. Thankful for fun times eating snacks!
– Walking around his company while he and Frank worked out/ran…he will miss his running buddy
– Anson working from home for a good amount of time cuz of pandemic…which made us realize what we should be working for
– Pure not letting him WFH anymore so that he can finally have a break 🙂
 
Anson’s had his ups and downs at work, but that is to be expected. Pure has given us much to be thankful for and I know he was glad to work with many people at the company. They compensated him well to the point where he has the freedom to do what he wants now. Thank you, Pure, for everything…

Wow, was my last entry just about our get together up in the Bay Area??? There’s been so much that has happened and seems a little overwhelming to write it all down 🙁 I guess I’ll try my best…

Our pod from 1-800-PACK-RAT was dropped off on Wed, 6/26, and it would be picked up on Tuesday, 7/2…this was NOT enough time to pack everything as we still had to work, do different last get togethers, bidding on a house, and mistakenly thought we could do all the packing ourselves. And to top it off, we had a heat wave come through and were packing in 100 degree heat. I sort of had a breakdown as things were just pretty hard trying to pack everything on Tuesday before the truck came to pick up all our stuff…yet, it wasn’t actually all our stuff as we had to bring a car full to Uncle Kenway’s place for them to store for the next few months. The plan is to pick it up (maybe) when we visit when Anson says farewell to coworkers in October.

Even though we brought stuff to Uncle Kenway’s, we still had two car loads full and had to push our date to move down by one day since there was still so much to pack and Anson wanted to leave the buyers a clean the house. On that day, July 4th, I looked over our house, swept one last time, pulled some weeds from the garden…and cried the whole time. This has been our house for 10 years and had many memories in it. We’d been in the Bay Area for our whole married lives, and leaving this place and all our friends was definitely sinking in 🙁

During this time, we were also looking over houses in Camarillo on redfin. We had met a real estate agent, Regena Ryan, at an open house when we came down in April, and she had been helping us look for places while we were selling our Foley house. She was the one who noticed this house even before it came on market listing at $1.295m. It was single story, 2700sq ft, slab foundation for one room to be Anson’s gym, big kitchen with smart fridge, a beautiful backyard that I’d actually want to spend time in (gotta learn how to use a hot tub!), in a good neighborhood, 1 mile from Ralphs and .5 miles from the park. The only bad thing is the location since Foley was close to many stores and the library, which was a reason why we bid $1.25m…site unseen. Sellers had bad experience with selling this way, so they wanted us to see the place and wanted their original price.

We drove down to SoCal and stayed over at the Wongs’ house for one night, then went over to the house on Friday to see it with our own eyes (Regena had given us a virtual tour which didn’t count to the seller), and put in our same bid but with a fast closing. We thought we were in a pretty good position since we could offer all cash. Anyways, we drove to my parents’ condo and stayed for 2 nights, where we found out that our offer was accepted! Hooray! We went to New Life on Sunday 7/7, had economical lunch there for $3/pp, hung out with Aaron’s family, then went to Wongs’ place for dinner. While packing up, found out that the inn we were going to stay in had their front office close at 10pm, so we wouldn’t be able to make it to check in. We ended up staying for the night (which Anson’s mom was happy about).

I had booked us a month’s worth of hotel/Airbnbs for the month of July…didn’t know we would get an offer accepted so quickly. Our first week, 7/7-7/13, was at Bella Capri Inn in Old Town Camarillo. The 2nd week, 7/13-7/21, was in a Santa Rosa Airbnb, and the 3rd week, 7/21-8/1, was in an avocado orchard in Camarillo 1.5 miles from the house we were buying.

At Bella Capri, the room was pretty small and only had one desk with both Anson and I having to still work remotely. It was nice to walk around Old Town Camarillo at night. This was during their heritage week and they had carnival rides, food trucks, and various musical/dance performances. We also had to go to the house to be there for the various inspections (home, sewer lateral, and termite). I also had to create accounts for SoCalGas (gas), Southern CA Edison (electric), and City of Camarillo (water, sewer, garbage). We also got not great news that a forklift damaged our container pod, so they had to transfer all the contents into another pod. Joys of moving…

At our Santa Rosa Airbnb, it was owned by a retired couple (Gary and Mary) who forgot that we were going to stay this week haha, but everything was set up already. It was a spacious place with a dining room, kitchen (though the stove was outside), and bedroom. We had much more space to work and lounge. The only knocks on this place were probably the sink that would randomly make noises on some days and ants as the property was in nature. On Sunday, 7/14, we visited CCCTO for the first time, where we met Wayne, an elder at the church, Steven (a deacon), and Gary (SG leader) along with many other people. People were very welcoming and it was nice that there was lunch after service.

Throughout our Airbnb stay, Mary gave us those various fruits and even included a bottle of wine to celebrate us buying our house. We closed escrow on Tuesday, 7/16! We met with Regena in the morning on Wednesday where she gave us the keys to the house. We took a picture with Regena and our new house before the tent went up and the fumigation process started. I met up with Gina at Panera on Thursday since we both had the free drinks promotion and had brunch. The tenting was removed on Friday, 7/19, and our container pod was dropped off same day.

We packed up and left our Santa Rosa Airbnb on Sunday 7/21. We visited Christ Our Redeemer PCA church in Camarillo. The way they conducted worship was something that we weren’t use to (communion, reading of passages, etc). It’s not to say it was bad, but just different. We met Cal and Bora there and talked a while with them. They’re very into pickleball and their daughter goes to CCAC. Not sure if we’ll be going to this church, but hopefully, we can hang out with Cal and Bora again and get to know them better. After church, we checked into our next Airbnb hotel in Camarillo Heights that was situated in a working avocado orchard! We were able to self check in and Sterling, our host, answered questions via chat. The place had a full kitchen, two tables, Netflix access, and a separate bedroom. The only knock was that it did not have air conditioning.

On Monday 7/22, Aaron, Anson’s parents, and Lauren’s parents all came to help us move our items from the pod to the house. Auntie Esther mom made a bunch of food for lunch. It was very nice of them to help us unpack since we were first thinking of hiring movers cuz of our bad experience packing, but it wasn’t necessary since we are just taking our time unpacking (now still :). During that week and the next, we traveled between the Avacodo Acres Airbnb and our house since it was nice to enjoy some comforts in a fully furnished place especially when we were still working remotely, so we took our time to enjoy the Airbnb (it was also fully paid for…oops, at least the interest on selling our Foley house paid for part of our stays…yay for high interest rates!). I had made Anson get another credit card and it was pretty easy to hit our minimum spend with all the moving costs. I’ll write another blog on all the costs cuz…accountant 🙂

During this time, we signed up for a local gym (Fitness 19….we were previously at this gym in the Bay Area), and got lifetime memberships costing $400 after a month of being a member…guess we’re committed to this place! So far, I’m liking the Friday Zumba class! On Friday 7/26, we met Aaron and Lauren for a dinner of Costco sushi we brought and Aaron making spaghetti, pizza, and chicken wings at their campsite in Point Mugu (south of Camarillo). Aaron makes a pretty good fire, and it was nice to catch up and try to be closer to family (Aaron mounted our tv as a surprise for us!). Eventually, we figured that it was getting a little unnecessary to travel from one place to the other. We had to be there to meet the termite repair guys and for the delivery of our dining table set, so we cut short our Airbnb stay by one night so that we could focus more on unpacking and making this house our home.

We were asked if we wanted to have a big farewell party, but that isn’t really our style…instead, we had a various hangouts in order to have a more intimate gathering and for it to be more personal.

F 5/3 – lunch w/ Minnie: Costco food, had Eataly and salad from Dave’s Hot Chicken
Sa 5/4 – dinner w/ Paul & Julie: Beef Kabobs, Chinese food, Tiffany’s chocolate chip cookies
Sa 5/11 – last official meeting for Family Fellowship
Su 5/11 – Church open house for new building, had Mister Softee ice cream
W 5/15 – Ryan and Steph: they brought El Pollo Loco and we showed them the house and Steph’s old room
Sa 5/18 – Anson ran with Yang at Rancho, rope climbing with Joe & Wilson, then farewell dinner w/ Uncle Kenway and Aunt Susan’s family: Kirin Chinese Food at their house
Su 5/19 – picked mulberries from Jada’s tree
M 5/20 – dinner w/ Tracy at Google, came back to the house and picked loquats
Tu 5/21 – dinner w/ Ruth & Albert & Richard & Michelle: El Pollo Loco, turkey loaf, salad
Th 5/23 – dinner w/ Jerry & Vivian: Vivian made such great food! Really good discussion about living the Christian life…
F 5/24 – Emily came over to see the house after getting used books for Caleb, Anson & I did our last annual hike at Mission Peak
Sa 5/25 – Anson worked out w/ Spartan, then brunch (steak!) with Tim and Irene, played w/ girls
M 5/27 – picked up Paul from Amtrak station…we have an Amtrak station?!?!
Tu 5/28 – dinner w/ James & Char: gyros and salad and birthday cake!
W 5/29 – dinner at Chef Chu’s w/ Lusan, Ruth, Albert, Randy, & Eva
Sa 6/1 – bento takeout and eat at Kwoks’ before driving down to Monterey
Su 6/2 – Anson’s Spartan event in Monterey, lunch at Butter House with RBF peoples, then walk to Old Fisherman’s wharf, Cannery Row, and Lover’s Point
Sa 6/8 – Family Fellowship Farewell at Leongs’ house: potluck! Good memories since use to meet there
Su 6/9 – Last church lunch: counted money with Cindy Chang – most intimate discussion
Sa 6/15 – KBBQ Service Auction: Jeff & Eleanor hosted us and Vivian & Yang
Su 6/16 – Father’s Day pho lunch with the Yeh’s
W 6/19 – Pho lunch w/ Susanna, dinner w/ Kenny: made salmon
Th 6/20 – Anson had vegetarian dinner with Dave after work
F 6/21 – Lunch w/ Lien at The Habit before last health exam at PAMF
Sa 6/22 – GEN KBBQ w/ Tracy, Anson w/ Maciek and me w/ Sam walking on Castro Street: good talk 🙂
Su 6/23 – Moomo Tea w/ Nathan & Andrea, Worship Team Farewell lunch at Albert’s
M 6/24 – Dinner with Jean & Brion: good discussion about family as they age
Tu 6/25 – Last day in the office…I will miss talking with Jennifer and getting free lunch 🙂
W 6/26 – Swung by BWC to say goodbye after the 1-800-PACK-RAT container was dropped off
Th 6/27 – Poke w/ Emily on Castro Street, free music event w/ Ruth, Emily, Janette, Derrick, & Kevin
F 6/28 – Dinner w/ Hong: made the last of the chicken breast, salad, and brown rice
Su 6/30 – Saigon City lunch w/ Aunt Helena & Uncle Tim
M 7/1 – Lunch at Dish N’ Dash w/ Uncle Kenway & Aunt Susan

Our house is officially in contract! Wednesday, 5/22, was our deadline for buyers to submit their offers at noon. Susanna was going to review with us all the offers at 6pm. Little did we know that there would be more things going on behind the scenes…

We initially thought we’d have about 5-6 offers, but ended up with have 3 (technically 4, but our agent thought that $1.65m all cash wasn’t strong enough…this market is crazy). The 1st offer was the Google couple with $1.68m (same as their preemptive amount). The 2nd offer was from someone at Meta with $1.71m. The 3rd was from a couple that offered $1.83m. And then, the bidding war started…1st offer revised from $1.68m to $1.828m, and the 2nd offer revised from $1.71m to $1.825m. At this point, I was debating on whether I wanted to give to the Google couple, but our agent pointed out that they are using almost all of their Proof of Funds, and 2nd offer seemed to also be in the same boat. Both 1st and 2nd offers were bidding +$100k over their initial offering amounts.

Then, the 3rd revised their offer from $1.83m to $1.85m! I think what happened was that our agent let them know that all the offers were so close in range that we were probably going to multi-counter offer all buyers. They did not want to have to go thru with that, so they upped their bid $20k. They were already the highest offer and came out strong showing that they wanted the house. Their loan agent said that they will have no problem obtaining the loan, and I was impressed that their proof of funds was just in one clean statement for $1.2m and could definitely afford these insane mortgage prices. Plus, they’re going to give us free rent back for 30 days after the loan closes to give us time to pack and move…so, even though we kinda had an affinity for the Google couple, we eventually accepted the 3rd offer. I think it was the right thing to do since the other 2 offers were probably swept into this and might not be able to afford in the long run (weird saying this about DINK Asian tech workers lol).

We accepted their offer on Wed, and they deposited their 3% earnest money of $55.5k on Thurs. Susanna came on Friday and put the “Sale Pending” sign up. The total cost for expenses/improvements was $15,120 which will be reimbursed to her when the purchase closes. They are doing a 21 day close (which is pretty fast), so will close on 6/12, and then we can stay in the house till 7/11 (though we will probably leave sooner). We need to rent a POD, pack, and get together with a few more peoples to say goodbye. I’ll write another blog about peoples…they deserve their own entry 🙂

Where to start? It’s surprising that we signed with Susanna on 4/12…it’s only been a month, and on Wednesday, 5/15, we have officially listed our house on the market. We’re listing it for $1,569,000 and already got a preemptive offer for $1,680,000…but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning…

After meetings with the HVAC, painter, and gardener on Wed 4/17, HVAC came back to finish adding freon and installed a new thermostat. The handyman, Quy, was here over the weekend on the 20th and 21st and got rid of our ceiling fans, installed LED lights, 4 recessed lights, installed a new toilet in the masterbath, took away the shower door, removed the patio cover, etc. The gardener came on Sunday and cleared out all the weeds…we can now see the dirt!

Our anniversary weekend was the toughest in that we had to move all our furniture to the middle of the room (note that we’re still both working) so that painters would be there on the weekend to paint the baseboards. They also “fixed” the cracks in our walls, all our problem areas, painted all our doors white, and did almost all the exterior. There was also a guy who refinished the tub, though our tiles in that bathroom don’t look as nice after the shower door came off. Quy came back and installed all the hinges. Anson didn’t want to pay $70 for each installation of door knobs/pocket doors and did it himself over the next couple weeks (I installed 2!)

Honestly, the last two weeks have been more of a blur, but most of it was to just declutter our house. I fixed up Anson’s mats in the gym, started packing everything into boxes, and we started moving them into the garage on Wed 5/8. We moved my desk and end table from our master into the spa room. We didn’t want to list during the week of the Santa Clara city cleanup since trash would be everywhere. It was very helpful to get rid of 2 large patio chairs, some big boxes, various miscellaneous items, and our old sofa (too big of a butt imprint for staging lol). I bought a smaller sofa on Wayfair which arrived on Mon 5/6. Setup wasn’t too hard and I like that there is storage underneath and can pull out to be a sleeper sofa. The landscaper, Benjamin, and his team came and pulled out all the weeds in the planter box, put in wood chips all over our backyard and planted flowers in the front and back and installed drip irrigation. Benjamin planted some tomato plants in the planter box. We’ve had to hand water some plants that aren’t on drip in the very front and some in pots in the back.

The cleaner came on Thurs 5/9 and Fri 5/10. Susanna used some of her staging material (pictures, fake plants, cushions, pillows, etc) and got her husband to hang up pictures on Sun 5/12 & Mon 5/13. Termite inspection and home inspection happened that Monday too. The photographer took pictures on Tues, 5/14, and the listing went up on Wed 5/15. Meanwhile, Anson fixed a “leak” in the secondary bathroom by tightening the handles (yay! Glad it wasn’t serious). The wiring for the sprinklers up front were corroded (that’s why our lawn wasn’t looking as green), so Anson got guy who came at 6:30 am to fix it. I used almost a whole bottle of liquid fertilizer on it. Since weed blocker wasn’t installed, have been weeding a little everyday o.O We had an open house on Thurs, 5/16, and there seems to be good interest in our property. We’re staying at Granada Inn from Friday 5/17 thru Thursday 5/23 so that we don’t have to keep packing/unpacking. On Friday, there were 3 appointments (at 2pm, 4pm, and 5pm). The couple who gave us the preemptive offer work at Google and have been renting in our neighborhood for many years. They knew our house was going up for sale cuz of all the work that has been going on. Truthfully, I think $1.68m isn’t a bad offer since we first though $1.7m was on the high end, but this is how the Bay Area market is. I’ll update once our place is sold!

I’ve been in the Bay Area since May 2012, and now, we’re going to be moving back to Southern California. Wow, it still hasn’t set in. Last year in 2023, I went down to LA 6 times. Yes, we’re still in the same state, but it does get exhausting at times to travel there. We’re approaching 12 years here…my parents are getting older and it is a little hard to help them when we’re so far away. We’ve actually been thinking about moving back since last Thanksgiving, but we couldn’t really get started until after we came back from Japan. Well…we’re back, caught up with work, installed the blinds in the spa and gym rooms, and just finished our appointment with our agent.

We signed a contract with our selling agent, Susanna Wong today. She really knows her stuff. She was our buyer’s agent 11 years ago when we first bought this house, so we thought it fitting that she would help us sell it. She always gave us See’s Candies certificates during Christmas time and would answer Anson’s random questions about real estate throughout the years. She doesn’t work as much now as she wants to enjoy her family time, but she wants to make an exception for us, and she even wanted to lower her commission for us! There were some things that we thought we were going to do, but she has made some good suggestions.

Our plan was to pack everything up and put in storage and just use an air bed to squat in the house. We wanted to paint the house inside and out, replace lightbulbs, and the toilet. She is thinking that we probably don’t have to paint the whole house, just touch ups here and there on trims/cracks/baseboards/front of house, replace our old fashioned fans with regular lighting. We’ll need to do landscaping in the back, but should probably also do a little in front to make it more colorful. An HVAC guy will come to check our A/C and heating system.

We’ll bring down some personal stuff at the end of April and store it with Anson’s parents. We’ll need to buy a new couch for the family room, and can probably bring that down in our move. Our job in the next couple weeks is to de clutter the house and store things in the garage to make our place more presentable for the open house… projected timeline will be listing in mid-May and might have been sooner if not for the annual city clean up.

I think it’s sort of a shock how fast things are going. We just had our meeting with Susanna yesterday and we’re already thinking that our house will be sold be the end of next month. We have to pack, say goodbye to those we know, and not to mention that we haven’t told work that we are hoping to be remote…if it doesn’t happen, I think we are also content in taking some time off since we’ll also have to buy a place in Camarillo (did I say that was where we are hoping to move to?) We don’t want to live in the Valley because of the heat, but I’ll be able to drive to SFV to visit parents more often. So many things to still do before thinking about that though 🙂

Day 1 – SJC to Narita

And here we go again! We loved Japan so much last year, that we decided to go again this year, but this time in March instead of February which I think was a good call since it is a few degrees warmer and is less prone to rainy weather…but I’m getting ahead of myself (3 days behind in blogging ahh!).

We woke up at 7am and ubered to SJC around 8:45am ($20) and checked in at the counter where they weighed our bags. Like last time, we are only bringing backpacks so that we don’t have to pay for luggage, and it’s actually very doable. We met up with Brandon and Josephine at the lounge and tried to fill up with eggs and potatoes before the flight. I also brought with us shredded cheese, cut up Kara Kara oranges, bell peppers, and cucumbers to have something healthy for the ride.

Our flight was supposed to be at 11:10am, but don’t think we started boarding till then and also didn’t fly out till 11:30am. We remembered to refill our water bottles before the flight this time. I was getting a little hungry so I got a mini ramen bowl for 300 yen. The flight was pretty smooth most of the time…little did I know that the next day will probably be our hardest this trip.

Cost: $1026 plane tickets + $20.01 Uber (old credits) + Udon on plane 300 yen (travel charge erased w/pts)

Day 2 – Narita to Odaiba

The flight was pretty smooth sailing until about 30 mins to landing. That was when we hit turbulence. I think most planes going to Narita also had this trouble and we circled the airport for a little longer. The plane would make sudden drops every now and then and Anson’s stomach wasn’t having it. The person on my right and people in front of us used the barf bags.

We landed (and everyone clapped!). I was secretly praying that we wouldn’t die. There were a good many people compared to last year (didn’t get a whole row to ourselves this year) so customs took a little longer. We said goodbye to Brandon and Josephine at the airport, got data working on my phone, ate our customary premium salmon onigiris, sandwiches with the crust taken off, and chicken salad from Lawson (1470 yen), then went to the train station.

I can never sleep on planes, so I was pretty sleep deprived and couldn’t make many sound decisions after this. We probably shouldn’t have stayed in line for 1/2 hr to buy the PASMO passport to save 500 yen each and just bought individual tickets for the Keisei Narita Skyaccess, but what’s done is done. We took the 5:25pm Skyaccess to Shimbashi station which arrived at 6:45pm (1414 yen) and transferred to the Yurikamome at 6:57pm getting off at Tokyo Big Site (388 yen each) after 28 mins, and walked to our hotel, Tokyo Bay Ariake Washington hotel.

I booked this with my Capital One travel credit for $237.74 (guess I’ll just keep this in since had to pay CO annual fee) Check in was at a kiosk where you have to enter where you’ve been previously and where you’re going next (so big brother :). The hotel room is…cozy and has a nice view of the city but it is all we kinda need. We went out to Lawson for more food (1069 yen)…then we crashed 🙂 Travel days aren’t my favorite…

Cost: Skyaccess 2828 yen + Yurikamome 776 yen + Lawson 1470 yen + Lawson 1069 yen + 3 nights hotel $237.74, Pocari Sweat drink from hotel vending machine 180 yen = 6134 yen + $237.74 = ~$270

Day 3 – Georgetown, Joypolis, and Daiba Park

So jetlagged 🙂 woke up at 1:30am, stayed up for a couple hours, and woke up again at 6am. Bought tickets for our hotel’s in-restaurant breakfast place called Georgetown at the hotel (2200 yen/pp). It’s kinda expensive, but I think it’s worth it since breakfasts in Asia are AMAZING, it is convenient and a good source of our veggies for the day, and since it is considered a hotel charge, I’ll be able to get it credited from my Capital One travel points.

Speaking of breakfast, some examples of the food was sashimi, ikura fish eggs, shabu shabu fish, salad bar, tandoori chicken, various meats, natto, rice (that comes from a machine!), miso soup, various desserts, fruits, etc. Looking forward to this for the next two days too!

We left the hotel around 9:30 and proceeded to walk 1/2 hr to Joypolis, an indoor SEGA theme park. I bought the tickets for $20/pp on klook (charges erased with CO points). I don’t like the cold, so I have bundled up with 2 pairs of pants, 2 jackets, gloves, scarf, and fuzzy hat…this will probably be what I wear every day lol.

It’s a Tuesday and Joypolis opened at 10am…and it was packed! Why are people not in school??? They had some cool rides like a Sonic rollercoaster ride and Transformers 360 ride (Anson opted out since he can’t take spinny rides) and did this treadmill competition one instead). They also had these three “rides”: Wild Jungle, Wild River, and Wild Wing which had basically the same concept but you watch a screen and your vehicle shakes with the action on screen. Some activities were all in Japanese and not as fun since we couldn’t understand the context. I think that they could have streamlined getting on the rides and acknowledgement of rules better, but hey…this ain’t Disneyland 🙂

We then proceeded to explore Daiba Park. We saw the Gundam statue and then walked some familiar paths that we did last year. We saw their Statue of Liberty, grabbed a Peach tea from a vending machine (170 yen), walked the beach and a segregated park of the island, weren’t really hungry still even though we didn’t eat lunch, bought tomatoes and cucumbers from OK Store Odaiba (536 yen) and salad and premium onigiris from Lawson (782 yen), ate dinner while listening to Ask Pastor John, then crashed at 8:30pm (and I’m typing this at 4am…been up since 1:30…don’t feel bad…I feel totally fine lol)

Cost: Breakfast 4400 yen + Joypolis $40 + Peach tea 170 yen + groceries 536 yen + Lawson 782 yen = 5888 yen + $40 = ~$78.80 (breakfast and Joypolis credited = actual total ~$10)

Day 4 – Teamlab Borderless

After having breakfast again at the hotel (2200 yen/pp), we decided to walk to Teamlab Borderless. The husband wanted to walk over the Rainbow Bridge like we did last year. We left the hotel around 9:30am and got to Borderless at 11:25am. I bought these tickets on klook at the same time as Joypolis and it cost $19/pp which will be erased with Capital One points.

This was the only thing I planned for the day, and I’m glad it was as see spent about 3.5-4 hrs here. The place is a digital art museum, and it was magnificent to look at. It was pretty dark and there are no signs to where everything is which keeps the ambiance mysterious. It is up to you to just explore all the rooms. The lights and art work would frequently change in the different rooms. One room had stringed up lights from the ceiling, another had balls moving around, another had lily pads. We also were able to color in a certain aquatic animal and they would scan in our drawing and it would display in their large sea aquarium area. We aren’t very good at drawing, but we wrote the words “A+P 2024” on our turtle.

Another highlight was going to their En Tea House (had to pay 600 yen per drink, but it was worth the experience!) We were seated and shortly, a woman would bring out our tea putting it in a circular bowl. I’m guessing a projector would sense it and then a flower would start growing until there were multiple flowers where your tea is in your bowl. Once you started drinking from your bowl, the petals would scatter across your table and it would repeat over again until your tea was finished.

Overall, I’m pretty happy that we were able to experience this place. We then walked over to Tokyo Tower to take some pictures, and then took the Yurikamome (388 yen) back to the hotel. We bought food from Lawson: Anson’s premium onigiris, salad, pasta carbonara, and a lemon drink (1403 yen). Still not over jetlag, so after dinner and shower, I think I feel asleep at 5:30pm and probably could have slept longer except needed to brush teeth 🙂 At least I didn’t wake up till 3am! Yay!

Cost: Georgetown breakfast 4400 yen + Teamlab Borderless $38 + En Tea House 1200 yen + Yurikamome 776 yen + Lawson 1403 yen = $38 + 7779 yen = ~$90 (breakfast and Teamlab Borderless credited = actual total ~$23)

Day 5 – Travel day – Odaiba to Hakone

We opted to not do breakfast buffet today, and I was up pretty early, so I explored the different convenience stores in our area: Lawson, Daily Yamazaki, Family Mart, and 7-11. I got us 2 salmon onigiris, bean thread, 3 eggs, beef onigiri, sushi roll up, sandwich, yogurt, 2 salads, and 2 drinks for 1019 yen + 1556 yen. Checked out of the hotel around 10:30am.

We decided to take it easy today and are taking our time traveling down to Hakone. Took the Yurikamome from Tokyo Big Site to Shimbashi station for 28 mins (388 yen each) The trains are still a little confusing for us and we ended up accidently exiting the station and paying 150 yen each 🙁 We took the Tokaido subway for 1.5 hrs to reach Odawara station (1514 yen/pp).

We purchased groceries (tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, and oranges for 1540 yen) since Hakone has NO supermarkets, and bought the 3 day Hakone Freepass at the Odakyu Sightingseeing Service Center for 5,400 yen each…I’m a little conflicted on whether we wanted to start it today or tomorrow since Saturday is projected to rain all day 🙁 We bought lunch at Lawson (1007 yen) and ate the food while waiting for the shuttle bus to our hotel.

I used most of Anson and my points to book 3 nights at Hotel Indigo Gora. This place is a 5 star hotel…and we feel a little out of place lol. Each room has it’s own onsen! They had a mini bar (not that we would get anything from it), but we are able to use it to store some leftovers/groceries. We took a stroll outside near the waterfall lake, got onigiris and butter chicken from Lawson (840 yen), and ended the day soaking in our onsen (this’ll be a daily thing to get our points worth)!

Cost – Breakfast: 1019 yen + 1556 yen, Transport to Odawara: 776 yen + 300 yen + 3028 yen, Hakone Freepass: 10,800 yen, Groceries: 1540 yen, Lunch: 1007 yen, Dinner: 840 yen = 20,866 yen = ~$140

Day 6 – Hakone Freepass

I got us breakfast at 7-11 again (got other kinds of onigiri since they don’t have Anson’s favorite which is sold at Lawson, eggs, gyoza, milk on sale, and cheese wedges for 2097 yen). We left the hotel around 8:30am and proceeded to hike uphill to Gora Station. Since we have the 3 day Hakone Freepass, it covers our transportation for the next 3 days (though we probably won’t be able to make it worth the cost since tomorrow is gonna be pouring, but it was nice to have the convenience instead of buying individual tickets especially with so many people around).

We took the Hakone Tozan Cable Car up to the the Hakone Ropeway that had a clear view of Mt. Fuji and stopped at a destination that sold black eggs (didn’t get) and black ice cream (400 yen) that just tasted like vanilla. Took the ropeway down to Hakone Sightseeing Cruise on a pirate ship on Lake Ashi at 11:25am. We ate pasta carbonara, salad, milk tea, and onigiris for lunch (1658 yen) before heading on the cobblestone hiking path where we met an Australian woman who walked and talked with us down to the Amasake Tea House where we shared an Amasake Tea and sesame mochi (1,100 yen). It was a nice ambiance with rustic dirt floor, heater, and the trunk of a tree used for the table. It was nice to talk to fellow travelers and see where life was taking them…each person has their own unique story to tell.

We parted ways and hike a little more down the “path” back to Yumoto, but it was a little scary since part of the hiking path was sorta in traffic with very little walkway. The cobblestones also didn’t end and made it not as conducive to walk quickly as we didn’t want to roll or sprain our ankles (though I’m glad the path was all downhill…I wouldn’t survive if it were uphill). We decided to take the Hakone Tozan Bus to Yumoto around 4:50pm and then the Hakone Tozan Railway back to Gora Station. Dinner (and food for tomorrow since it’ll rain) was at 7-11 where we got onigiris and a pork and rice dish (2136 yen) and ended the night soaking in the onsen again (hey, there’s an onsen tax and this hotel is fancy schmancy, so might as well use it!)

Cost: Breakfast: 2097 yen, Black ice cream: 400 yen, Lunch 1658 yen, Amasake Tea House: 1100 yen, Dinner: 2136 yen = 7391 yen = ~$49

Day 7 – Rainy day at Hotel Indigo

Pros for traveling during low season (coulda fooled me) is that flights and accommodations are cheaper. I had hoped to be here for the cherry blossoms, but because it’s much colder, looks like they won’t be blooming earlier this year…which brings up the cons: the unpredictable weather patterns. I had planned for us to hike from Hakone Yumoto to Mt Sengen and then to the Chisuji Falls before ending the day at Hakone Gora Park, but the rain had different plans (glad we didn’t though since it would have been grueling uphilll!)

Hence, we changed course and I splurged on the fancy breakfast at our 5 star hotel (3729 yen/pp which will be credited with Capital One points). There were eggs Benedict, omelette station, various Japanese small eats, drinks, desserts, pasta, salmon, etc. I don’t know if it was mind blowing, but I appreciated the ambiance.

I dressed in their traditional yakuta robes and checked out the public onsen and drank some roasted tea at the hotel lobby. After some blogging, in the late afternoon, the rain died down, so we took a stroll along the waterfall river before eating our onigiris/sandwiches we got from 7-11 the previous day. We ended our last night using our private onsen.

Cost: Breakfast at hotel 7458 yen = $49.72 (but $0 after Capital One credits)

Day 8 – Hakone Gora Park, Foot bath, and Odawara

Woke up early again and got breakfast from 7-11 for 1426 yen (got shrimp gratin and my little treat today was a strawberry banana smoothie for under $2! The store attendant helped me with the machine since I looked like a helpless foreigner lol).

Since it was forecasted not to rain in the morning, we took the hotel shuttle up to Gora Station (glad we didn’t walk uphill!) and checked out the Hakone Gora Park. It is relatively small but had a variety of sections: a place for a traditional tea ceremony (sad we didn’t bring cash), cafe, crafthouse to make pottery, glassblowing, etc, greenhouse, rose garden, and hanging wisteria tree. We also saw some cherry blossoms.

Bought lunch again at 7-11 for 1563 yen (this time, kimchi fried rice, chicken gizzards, and salad). I checked out the foot bath that is outside the lobby (the water was nice and hot!), we had late check-out at 2pm and I did the foot bath again before taking the free 2:30pm hotel shuttle back to Odawara station, bought groceries for 810 yen and checked in to our Toyoko Inn hotel (the 3rd smallest hotel we’ve been in). We finally ate out at Yoshinoya where we could get an English menu on our phone. We both got set plates and found out we could also get free refills on rice. I feel like the Yoshinoyas in Japan are much better than the ones in the states. They even have set menus that come with individual hot plates for about $5. Odawara seems more like a transit town, and since it was raining and we had already seen the Odawara Castle on the way to Hakone, we decided to take the rest of the night easy before we go on our way to Yokohama tomorrow.

Cost: Breakfast 1426 yen + Lunch 1563 yen + Groceries 810 yen + Yoshinoya 1453 yen + Toyoko Inn $83.36 = 5252 yen + $83.36 = ~$35 (Toyoko Inn $83.36 was credited)

Day 9 – Cup Noodle Museum, Yokohama Chinatown

Toyoko Inn came with free breakfast (wasn’t the best, but Anson liked the hard boiled eggs and I guess I liked the milk pudding and getting enough veggies). We had to check out at 10am, so proceeded to take the Ueno line from Odawara to Yokohama (990 yen/pp). Walked 15 mins in the rain to The Square Yokohama for our 2 night stay.

We first thought we’d have to put our luggage in storage, but our room was ready at noon, so we rested for a little bit before heading out to the Cup Noodle museum (500 yen/pp. It was inspring to hear that the maker of Cup Noodle was 48 when he invented the product. He saw a need before anyone else and was able to gain from his work.

We later headed to Chinatown after the rain died down. Most of the stalls were selling the same things. We got a Peking duck roll, and pork belly bao, and frozen glazed strawberries on a stick (1330 yen total). We saw the coolest orange juice vending machine where they squeezed 4 oranges to make juice for 350 yen. We then walked back to the hotel and stopped at Lawson for some onigiris and sandwiches (1126 yen).

Cost – Transport 1980 yen + Cup noodle museum 1000 yen + Chinatown 780 + 550 yen + OJ 350 yen + Lawson dinner 1126 yen + The Square Yokohama $180.51 = 4786 yen + $180.51 = ~$32 (The Square Yokohama $180.51 was credited)

Day 10 – Anitouch, Cosmo World Ferris Wheel, Conveyor Belt Sushi

Rain, rain, go away…yeah, fares are cheaper in March, but that means that you have to contend with weather. It rained all day today, and we, being cheap, decided to walk to World Porter’s. Yes, only a 15 min walk, but my shoes/socks weren’t too happy.

We went to Animal Touch Minatomirai (4600 yen) where we were able to feed and pet some pretty cool animals! There were baby chicks, guinea pigs, meerkats, and chinchillas, and my favs were the lemurs, capybaras, and tamarins. We then went on the Cosmo World Ferris Wheel ($8.52) which ran rain or shine. We bought groceries (1095 yen) where I got these nice quality pieces of salmon for less than $4. If we bought at the end of the night, it would have only been $3!

We rested in the hotel before going out for conveyor belt sushi called Hama Sushi (introvert’s dream sushi place) where we ordered from a pad and the food would come out from the conveyor belt in record time. We ate a little before hand, but even if we didn’t, this place was pretty inexpensive (1804 yen). We then got more groceries (818 yen) and had even more sushi in our hotel room lol! I wish we did this more often during our trip!

Cost: Anitouch 4600 yen + Cosmo World Ferris Wheel $8.52 + Groceries 1095 yen + Conveyor belt sushi 1804 yen + Groceries 818 yen = 8317 yen + $8.52 = ~$55 ($8.52 credited)

Day 11 – All good things…

Should I really consider this as one of our vacation days when it is just getting to the airport lol?

We ate breakfast at the hotel. Items I liked were the bamboo shoot curry and pomegranate vinegar drink. We packed up and left the hotel at 11am, walked 17 mins to Yokohama station, got on the Ueno purple line to Shimbashi station (483 yen) and transferred to the Asakusa red limited express line at 12:10pm since it makes fewer stops to Narita (1414 yen).

It took us a while to check in since I think there was a miscommunication about why we had to be in the bag drop line. Even the attendant felt bad for us and didn’t even weigh my bag. But after we got thru that and security, we bought 3 boxes of Tokyo Bananas and 1 box of Strawberry Tokyo Bananas (4440 yen), then went to the ISS NOA airport lounge. They took away all the ANA lounge access on Priority Pass, soI was pleasantly surprised to have this place to rest, eat mochi, omurice, matcha chocolate, and to refill our water bottle.

I got 2 boxes of white chocolate cookies (1760 yen) on the flight since it’ll be credited as a travel expense. We were sat next to the window and middle…maybe we will pay for seat selection next time so that we can have an aisle and middle in the middle part of the plane so that we don’t bother others and they don’t bother us. I totally recommend everyone to use Mobile Passport Control to do customs when coming back internationally…it is even faster than Global Entry!

Overall, what did I think about this trip? I don’t think I liked it as much as last year’s. People go to Fushimi Inari, Nara, and Arashiyama for a reason. I did plan for hiking for Anson in Hakone, but didn’t know the terrain was so steep and that their trails are not as defined as in the states and included the highways. We saved some money by taking local trains, but it feels a little more stressful than having the JR pass. I am glad we got the PASMO passport when we arrived since it meant that we didn’t have to buy individual tickets for each ride. Rain is also pretty unpredictable and because of it, we had to change some plans. We ate more at convenience stores this time around (though I didn’t feel deprived because of that…there is so much variety and you can try so many different things). If we were to come again, we might want to buy more from grocery stores since it is even less expensive and they have quality sushi on the cheap!

I’m not unhappy with our trip, though at times, it feels like all cities are kinda the same though Japan’s are cleaner/safer. Crowds are also not fun, but they’re just a victim of their own success. I think it’s more that I felt a little distracted this time around since I had booked this trip before we decided on moving back to SoCal, and our minds have been filled with plans for the move but not being able to push forward because we still had this trip to go on. Now that it has come to an end, we’re going back to reality and will need to find an agent and fix up our house to get it ready to list on the market. On to a new adventure!

Cost: Transport 966 yen + 2828 yen + Tokyo Bananas + 4440 yen + Cookies 1760 yen = 9994 yen = ~$55 ($11.73 credited)

Cost of Trip:

Flights: Zipair $1026.30

Hotels: $83.36 + $180.51 + $237.35 = $501.22

My Capital One charges: $135.39

Anson’s Capital One charges: $122.79

Anson’s BofA charges: $216.65

Cash: $250

Total = $2,252.35

Credits for trip

All hotels $501.22 + Joypolis/Borderless $78.30 + travel credits $137.10 = $716.62

Total = $2252.35 – $716.62 = $1535.73