I know many of you have an additional anguish about the holidays. You are suffering, like me, from a certain set of mental or physical challenges that add a certain perplexity surrounding the holidays.

When you are faced with a life-changing-event or you simply can’t face yet another holiday season, it can seem impossible.

Read how I went from perfect to paper plates!

I will admit it….I am a summer-lovin’ city girl….but there is something about Tokyo in the winter that makes me smile. It is like no other city, I tell you!

It has been one of those kinds of years. Nothing has been the same. From our sleepy little Swiss village, to living in a city of thirteen million people... from holidays spent laced with traditions and family, to one spent on the beach... so many changes…. but the holiday have always been very grounding for me, a time to evaluate.

How a guilt trip from my youngest turned into a fun Tokyo day trip…and then I had some realisations about being a mother!

I am not sure exactly what motivated me to add camping to my bucket list…but I can tell you now, now that I have done it. The best reasons to go camping – to be cold and damp, to not sit down once in 72 hours and to come home with pains in places that I never needed to know existed – simply boils down to 3 crazy truths.

What is it about a day spent wandering, exploring a new place? What is it that it does to your senses? One afternoon, spent chilling in the down-to-earth and vibrant Tokyo hood of Kichijoji actually gave us the feeling that we had taken a mini holiday….and only 20 minutes from Shibuya station.

When you ask Lulu, Friso or what they love the most about their new home, and if you listen carefully, you will hear something unexpected in their words. They speak unmistakably about culture and the transformations they are experiencing. Living aboard has made them quite reflective about their own culture and who they really are.

In the spirit of taking more time for the two of us….and to see more of this amazing place we live…we put the kids on the school bus and pegged it to a wonderfully tranquil place in the world – just a short hour away from central Tokyo. 

And how 4 mamas pegged it from Tokyo on a girlfriends' day out (read - day with the girls and no kiddos!)

As any busy woman will tell you, planning a day out…just one little day away from it all…is no easy task. But, we four were determined to leave Tokyo for the day, just get out of dodge and see something new.

Over the summer holiday, I looked back at the past fifteen months, living in Japan. I took stock of where I was, what I had done, saw, experienced. And then I made a plan and a promise of what I wanted to do with the next years. I realised that the most important thing for me, personally, was to see as much of Asia as I can. Let the exploration begin!

Before Japan, I wasn’t actually that sure I was a passionate mother.  I didn’t spend the time on it that other moms did.  I assumed they were better. I thought I was missing something….and then I was invited to create a vision board….and the fairies came…..

If you live in Tokyo, or are just visiting, surely you will stumble upon the Tokyo Sky Tree. When you do, here are 4 quick tips to enjoy the visit. 

As an ex-New Yorker, I have had a brand new handbag swiped off the back of my chair in a London hotel, a mobile phone snatched off of a posh restaurant table and my family home in Switzerland broken in to while my children were sleeping upstairs. Losing my mobile phone in the centre of Tokyo - a shocking revelation ensues. 

Coming from Switzerland, we are very used to snow. Everyone drives four-wheel drive automobiles, the trains and trams leave and arrive on time all winter long and families own multiple shovels. I cannot remember school ever being cancelled in the years we were in Zürich. That is why the past twenty-four hours have felt like a magical holiday for us.

Ever since I was a little girl, picking wild flowers in the forest behind my parent’s home, I’ve been pleasantly obsesses with green.

Here are my go-to places in Tokyo for my "fix".