Also when we travel to 4 countries in approximately 24 hours! đ€Ș
So Ty and I booked this trip back in the early fall of 2019. Before weâd really taken our three other giant international back to back trips. đ€Šđ»ââïž Our Christmas trip to Japan was lovely, but also full of total burnout. It. Was. Hard.
We knew going into this 8 day trip that included five 8-10 hour flights it could be brutal! So we tried to make it as easy on ourselves (including the kids) as we could. We originally thought weâd stay in Singapore and explore. But weâve been already, and itâs super expensive. So when Ty found a place across the boarder in Malaysia that gave us lots of room, a mall, and water parks. We went for it! We knew jet lag was going to be a factor that first few days so we gave ourselves grace to not accomplish much. Ok, so thatâs the thoughts behind this trip, letâs start back at leaving Alaska.
Ty found a screaming deal from Seattle to Singapore and onto India so we needed tickets to Seattle. We left Sunday morning but not bright an early, which is always so nice. Our flight to Singapore wasnât until noon on Monday so we went to a nearby hotel with the plan to play in the pool and just relax for the rest of the day. Nice and easy is our mantra right?! Of course the pool was closed for cleaning. So we colored in the hotel room and they gave us a free movie. Dinner in the hotel and early to bed for everyone.
More side notes, yes weâre monitoring the Corona virus outbreak. We felt comfortable with our decisions on where we were traveling. The trickier factor was R, then L, and then Ty got a cold a few days before we were leaving. đ· We took the kids to the doctors before leaving. Made sure it wasnât serious. I loaded up on Clorox wipes, hand sanitizer, and sickness masks. The worst case scenario being if it kept getting worse we could come home from Seattle. Luckily the kids woke up on Monday sounding and feeling awesome! Ty wasnât as lucky but he was pushing through.
The kids got to play in the pool for 20 minutes the morning we were leaving.
Then we headed back to Sea-Tac, grabbed some free food at Bambooza (thanks Priority Pass!)
Hung out for a bit before we boarded our ten hour flight to Narita Japan! đ€Ș
The kids did awesome! Watched some shows and ate some food for about 5 hours before lying down and sleeping for the next 4 hours. Thankfully L slept on the floor and R across the seats. The staff either didnât notice or werenât worried about it. Gave them both so much more room to stretch.
We landed in Narita at 10pm Seattle time, 2pm local time. Our bodies were so out of wack! We only had two hours to hang out which was nice so we walked for a bit then went to our gate and everyone stretched out.
Our next flight from Narita to Singapore was 7 hours. It was hard to tell the kids we had to get on a plane and do it again. They were such amazing troopers. No meltdowns or freak outs.
The kids slept almost the entire way and Ty and I got a few hours which was needed. We landed in Singapore at 1am local time.
We got through customs and meet our driver. Unfortunately we werenât quite done traveling. We had an hour drive from Singapore over the boarder to Johor Bahru, Malaysia. The boarder crossing was quite serious and they had medical staff standing outside the Malaysian boarder with thermometers checking for fevers. At 2am!! But it was worth the extra drive when we got to our three bedroom apartment. It was so nice to have extra beds and space to spread out.
A quick snack and everyone went fast to sleep! So glad that âdayâ of travel was done!
