1
Jan
Greetings from Tokyo!
Topic: Family and Friends, Japan 2007
We arrived in Tokyo yesterday evening (which was already New Year’s Eve here), and we’re staying at the International House. When we told Kai the name of the place, he excitedly said, “great, we can have pancakes for breakfast!” He was disappointed when we had to explain it wasn’t that International House. We’re here just for one night, as our apartment lease doesn’t start until the 1st.
We were too tired when we arrived to go out for any New Year’s Eve festivities, so we all slept from about 8PM to 1AM, and then the boys got up, as it was mid-afternoon by their body clocks (and mine and Maria’s too, but as parents of two boys who have never been great sleepers, we have mastered the art of sleeping anytime, anywhere). Maria took them out for a stroll for a couple of hours, and they ran into a lot of late night revelers. Maria says Eidan and Kai received many shouts of “cho kawaii” (they’re so cute!). I got up when they came back so Maria could go to sleep. It’s now almost 7AM - Kai’s watching a movie and I got Eidan back to sleep in his stroller about an hour ago.
The 10 hour flight from San Francisco went much better than we expected, as Eidan slept for the first 3 hours (thank you, makers of Benadryl) and for the last 2 hours. Kai spent his time watching videos on Maria’s laptop, and playing card games with us. I can now confidently challenge anyone to a game of Go Fish.
Tokyo’s Narita airport is a marvel of efficiency. In less than an hour after we got off the plane, we loaded up our free luggage carts, got through Immigration (apparently New Year’s Eve is not a busy travel day), got about 60,000 yen from the ATM (roughly $600 - with the low crime rates, it’s common for folks to carry lots of cash in Japan), dropped off our half dozen pieces of luggage with the takkyubin (and scheduled the delivery to our apartment for the next afternoon), bought our bus tickets for getting to the hotel, and boarded the bus exactly on time (you can expect just about any type of service in Japan to be exactly on time). There’s also train service from the airport, but for where we were headed, the bus was easier.
I’ve only had one encounter so far with someone trying to speak Japanese to me, but unfortunately I wasn’t up to it - partly because I was exhausted and partly because I didn’t know all the necessary words. It was the bus attendant unloading our bags and asking me for the luggage receipts. Maria was still on the bus with Kai, and I wanted to tell him my wife had the receipts and would be off the bus in a moment. The main thing I got stuck on was how to indicate possession: I know how to say something like “my wife’s bag,” but in this case I didn’t want to say “my wife’s receipts” - I just wanted to say she was holding them (I also didn’t know the word for receipt, but I was going to try “tiketo,” on the chance that ticket may be an English word that’s been adopted into Japanese). After I have a chance to ask Maria about this I’ll post the proper Japanese. I’m sure I have many, many more such encounters ahead of me, and I’ll learn something from each one.
We had a great 48 hour stay in the Bay Area before we flew to Tokyo. Edward threw a party for us at his amazing house in the hills of Woodside, and many of our old friends were there. I’ll post some pictures soon. We also spent some time in our old town, San Mateo, which has somehow managed to become even more densely packed with new buildings since we left 3 years ago (I’m mainly thinking of the Bay Meadows racetrack property, which used to be mostly grass, and is now filled with a multitude of office buildings and condos that press right up against highway 101). One great addition though is a pho restaurant on 3rd Ave. We stopped there for lunch, as I’ve heard you can’t get good pho in Tokyo, so that bowl will have to last me for a while. Fortunately, it was good 
The only night that was really tough was our stay at a hotel near Logan Airport, for our 6AM flight to San Francisco. Eidan decided to stay up the entire night. Around midnight I gave up trying to get him to sleep in the room, so I thought I’d try to put him to sleep by taking him for a stroll in the rectangular, endless loop hotel hallway. I gave up after about half an hour, and we spent the rest of the night chasing each other in the hotel lobby. He finally fell asleep at 4:30, just a minute before we had to get on the shuttle bus to the airport :-(. The upside is he slept for most of the flight. The downside is I didn’t, and I went for 40 hours straight with no sleep. I actually held up really well, probably because I was excited to be back in California for a little while.
Today our plan is to meet up with Maria’s friend Atsuko, and we’ll take in some of the New Year’s Day sights, as New Year’s is much bigger holiday here than in the US. Then we’ll move into our apartment this afternoon.
January 3rd, 2007 at 12:47 am
Glad you made it without any major crises. Happy New Year to you, Maria and the boys. I’m looking forward to reading your further adventures!
January 5th, 2007 at 4:52 am
Hi Mike, one of your old G-Town roomies from days past saying Hello; I check your blog now and then to see how you are doing. Congrats on the move to Japan! My employer has seen fit to send me to a few cities in Japan to meet with NTT DoCoMo, and I’ve always had opportunities to play tourist. Since you’re there for quite some time, and will have ample opportunity to tour around, I’m sure you will hit all the highlights. But let me say, don’t miss the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo; I am sure you are familiar with the controversy about the shrine. It is very interesting, but you might find yourself the only non-local visiting. And don’t miss the nearby WWII museum (not called WWII there), which has quite a…different…interpretation of events. Best of Luck, and enjoy. Mark McGinley
January 6th, 2007 at 4:51 am
Hey Mike, belated Happy new year wishes to you and your family. I am glad you guys reached without major problems. Hope to read many more of your adventures to come. Good luck. –Raminder