We have been traveling as a family since the kids were really small. I want them to see everything and I want them to be curious about the world we live in. Most of all, I want them to know who they are.
This last trip we took was really important because we decided to take my guys to meet my mother’s family in Japan.
After a 9 hour plane ride and almost as many hours on trains we arrived in Kochi, a little town on the island of Shikoku in the south of Japan.
My guys were a little nervous at first. Who were all these people?
But here we were in the very place my mom lived until she was about their age. And it was pretty magical seeing it all through their eyes.
We visited some neat sites; an old castle, the bustling Harume market and a famous little bridge.
We also stopped by a beautiful shrine perched high on a cliff on the other side of the Pacific Ocean from where we live now. The boys were amazed that the same ocean touched this beach and the beach near our house.
My favorite moment was walking the road between my grandpa and grandma’s family homes, realizing how close their families lived to one another in this little town; watching my kids run with glee.
Why on earth did my grandpa and grandma leave all this and move to North America so many years ago?
We traveled back up north to see the boat my mom journeyed to Canada on with her little sister and my grandma. The Hikara Maru is now a museum in Yokohama Japan.
Traveling with all our luxuries now: cell phones, laptops, ipads and easy commercial air travel I realize how brave my grandmother was traveling alone across rocky seas to a foreign land with two small children in tow.
“Do you know that my grandma came to Canada on this boat?” I overhear one of my guys telling the other.
“So did mine!” his brother says.
And so did mine.
I’m so glad we made this journey. In trying to help my kids figure out who they are, I’m learning so much about myself.