Takin' it to the streets

I feel like right now my kids are at that perfect Peter Pan age. I just don't want them to grow up. Life is so much easier now, no diaper bag, they can feed and dress themselves - life is pretty perfect. More importantly I am able to take the two of them out and about by myself and feel pretty comfortable doing it. However...rethinking taking them downtown by myself at night would have been a better idea. Oh well.

I took them downtown to explore Little Tokyo or as we call it J-Town - which someone pointed out is probably racist to say if you are not Japanese. Huh. Never thought of it that way. In any case I headed down there around dusk, not the world's safest place at night but there is still so much to do.
I parked and then they ran around the plaza at the Japanese American Cultural Center, designed by Isamu Noguchi. There were tons of other kids running around and wouldn't you know there are lots of dangerous steps and rocks, perfect for breakin' yo neck. Yikes. They had fun playing hide and seek, tho.

Then of course, obligatory mochi run. How can you go to Little Tokyo and not have mochi. We headed to Mikawaya where the Kid got rainbow mochi, the Baby got chocolate ice cream mochi and I got COFFEE ICE CREAM MOCHI. Man, did that hit the spot.

A jewelry store just for me? You shouldn't have. No, really. You shouldn't have. (Note: I need to get that logo blinged out in 8 inches of diamonds and hang it from my neck.)

We crossed the street and went to Kinokuniya, the cutest darn bookstore in the world. The kid's section is small but amazing. They had books in English and Japanese but of course the kids picked out Power Ranger books in Japanese. I told them good luck reading it, so it's pretty much just a picture book. Ha!

I even found a Hello Kitty book. What caught my eye were all the cool cookbooks - but again, none were in English so it would have been pointless to get them. Amazing pictures though.

We spent a good hour there so it was now dark. Not the smartest idea in the world dragging two kids down dark streets downtown, but heck, we had to eat!

For dinner I wanted to head over to my favorite Daikokuya, but per the usual the line was out the door. So we went down the way a bit and stopped at Suehiro cafe. I remember going there A LOT in college cause they stay open til 3am (!) on the weekends.

It's like a local coffee shop, except it serves Japanese food - teriyaki chicken, donburi, just real late night comfort food. (check out the long menu) And of course the best part, the kids meals come with ice cream!

It was late so we headed home, first having to walk to our car by passing every single bail bond store downtown. Good. Lord. Who knew there were so many? It was nice to spend time just exploring the city with the kids - yet another great downtown experience for the them, one that I recommend you do too!...in the daytime. Just sayin'.