First Days in Tokyo

Well, we're in Tokyo! We arrived on Sunday, December 30th after our 14 hour flight. (Yes, that is our 12 bags of luggage!) What an amazing few days it has been. We are all experiencing sensory overload...there is just so much to see and experience. We've walked more in these four days then we have in the last month! We have definitely jumped in the deep end - sink or swim (or walk as it may be). We (meaning Darren) are becoming very savvy using the subway - which is crazy! I've never seen so many people in my life - and Darren said it isn't even crowded because of the holiday. Tokyo basically closes down from January 1 - 4. Things are just now beginning to open back up. We even got a peek of Tokyo Disney Land from the Subway on our way to IKEA Japan a few days ago. (You can click on a photo by the way to enlarge it).

We went to our apartment yesterday and you can see Mount Fuji from the roof garden. You can also see Tokyo Tower from our terrace. We went shopping at the local grocery store for a few things. THAT was an experience! I think I bought laundry detergent, dish washing liquid and disinfectant cleaner.

We walked all over the neighborhood and found a 100 YEN store!!! My favorite of course (think dollar store). We got some great things there :). Things are a bit more expensive here. You learn the value of the yen very quickly. For example, we ate at Subway for dinner the other night and each ordered 1/2 sandwich (that's all they have), fries (yes, fries), drinks and it came to 3000 yen (about $30.00) AND they put very little food inside the sandwich. We now know why the Japanese are very thin - walking a lot and eating on the lite side.

We tend to stick to restaurants that have pictures of the food on the menus so we can just point to what we want. The second day we were here I ordered what the guy had next to me and she kept asking me something and I just kept saying "hai" (yes). Thank goodness I ordered something yummy. So far the kids have been open to trying pretty much everything.

Since we're still at the hotel (the furniture store opens tomorrow so we can get beds for the apartment) we've been able to eat a wonderful breakfast buffet at the hotel every morning. Some of the foods they offer are very Japanese but most is normal US breakfast foods. The oddest thing we have noticed so far is that the egg yolks are as orange as orange juice. As you can see, we have an amazing view of the city (we're staying in Shinjuku).

There is a park right next to our hotel called Shinjuku Park and there is a huge play area for the kids. It has a really huge concrete slide that the kids love. We met four local boys there today and they played with Maddie and Nathan for over an hour. I have found that the one universal language we all share is laughter. I would have taken more photos but the batteries in my camera died and this was the only one I could get. The boys at the top were the new "friends" the kids made (even if we couldn't communicate with words).

Here are two more interesting photos. The first one is of a line of people waiting for Krispy Kreme doughnuts (the wait was 50 minutes). We were AMAZED to say the least. The other is of some kiosks along the street to process your digital photos. We did buy a rice cooker today (we had to have someone explain what the Japanese writing means - good luck!), a hair dryer and an iron. The store we bought these items in today was ten floors...many escalators, elevators and stairs to say the least.

I'll try to update this again before I lose Internet access through the hotel. I'm not sure when ours will be up at our apartment.

Happy New Year!