Tokyo

May 1-6 

We landed late in Tokyo after a long day of plane travel. Too late to catch the train into the city, we were happy to be forced to take a taxi to my sister's place in Azabujan. We got in around 12:30 am and she let us in, then we passed out after chatting a bit. 

The first few days we were pretty jet lagged but had a great time hanging out with Laurel, Tim and their kids Miles, Hazel, and Clyde. After traveling for months in places where the public transit costs less than $.20 per ride, the price ($2 or more per ride) was a shock. Actually the prices for everything were shocking, but we got over it pretty quickly. California trained us well. Welcome back to the first world! Everything is so clean and modern and wrapped in plastic. There's public toilets everywhere and people are polite and stand in line, it's really quite lovely (except the plastic part). 

Tokyo is made up of small neighborhoods brimming with tiny restaurants and shops, some seating only a dozen or so people. Our first meal out was conveyor belt sushi, where the most expensive items like fatty tuna cost 500 yen, about $4.50. A meal for seven cost us $60 for some of the best sushi we've had. After lunch the boys headed to the samurai museum and the girls went shopping. Tokyo has great thrift stores. The museum was full of old samurai armor and weapons, with a sword demonstration from a samurai actor that excited Miles and scared Clyde. We met back up at a nearby park with snacks and drinks before heading home to a home-cooked meal that included a Japanese mushroom risotto using leftover rice we brought from Georgia. 

The days flew by too fast. We spent an afternoon thrifting in Shimokitazawa district, while my Tim wandered the streets with Clyde and Tim S. spent the day at baseball with Miles and Hazel. Apparently Little League baseball is serious business in Japan with practices often going from 9-5 on Saturday AND Sunday. We ate delicious ramen noodles, saw Avengers End Game at a theater in Roppongi, walked through the beautiful Ayoma cemetary en route to an afternoon at the baseball field and nearby playground. There was a Children's Day festival with decorated koinbora (carp) flags with a giant koinbora to walk through, and the adults got a night out in the nearby Izikaya district. 

It was nice to have a break from standard traveling as we wandered the city with family. Made it feel sort of like home...away from home.