Well, 13 checked pieces of luggage, 5 carry-on bags, two kids and a sick husband later and the Taskers have made it to Tokyo! Yes, this really is all of our luggage – we are VERY grateful at the moment for Rich’s frequent travel through the Perth International Airport, as our surname was recognised by the attendant (Rich was returning the rental car) and he kindly overlooked our over-packing and let us check on 10 suitcases, 2 car seats and 1 port-a-cot. By-the-way, there are new US luggage restrictions on bags – they can only be 23 kilos! Luckily our heaviest bag was 22.8 kilos.
Here are Sydney and John riding there way to Tokyo. We got Sydney this cute little Trunki ride-on suitcase. Of course the first time I tried it out at home she fell off, so she never got on again. However, in the excitement and environment of the airport she LOVED it and even let Rich pull her around the entire Singapore airport. She sat on it, he pulled and she then figured out how to lift her feet up and just ride it rather than pushing her feet at 100kms an hour as Rich whizzed us through the airport. I wish I had some video footage, but as he pulled her along I was pushing our five carry-on bags and John in the Baby Bjorn.
We have been talking up the airplane ride for a few weeks now, but you never know how kids are going to react in the actual situation. Luckily for us, and all our co-passengers, both Sydney and John were great. On the way to Singapore, John and I were in the front bulkhead row and Sydney & Rich were behind us. I got to watch a movie (The Bucket List, for those interested) in relative peace for the first half of the flight to Singapore, and Rich watched after Sydney. We then switched places and Rich enjoyed his dinner and a movie (not sure which one, sorry) and I played with Sydney. Of course, I ended up with the poopy diaper during my Sydney watch!
We had almost three hours in Singapore so we relaxed in the lounge. It was after 8:30pm when we arrived, so I was a bit worried Sydney would try and go to sleep, but she was too wound up to do that. We pretty much had to run to get our plane as just as our bags were being scanned the attendant decided to get up and do something else, so we were standing there with half our bags scanned and the rest in the machine. When we kept telling the other people standing around that we needed to get going they just said “he’s doing something else”. So helpful. So I ran with John up to the gate to ask them to wait, which they did.
I think I may have told some people that I would relax when I was on the plane with two sleeping kids and a champagne in hand – but I never actually believed it would happen. Well, some dreams do come true. Sydney and John were both asleep on the plane before we even pushed out of the gate. I was quite literally dancing in the aisle, much to the embarrassment of Rich. I guzzled my champagne – since we were late getting on the plane they had to collect the glasses before we took off – and breathed a HUGE sigh of relief. As soon as we could we all put our skybeds down and went to sleep.
Sydney woke up about 4 hours into the flight very disorientated and distressed, so there were a few tears and Daddy’s lap was needed (much to Daddy’s disorientation and distress). Daddy has been very sick lately and basically lost his voice yesterday.
John, on the other hand, thought being strapped to the seat was a lot of fun and just kicked and cooed as usual.
We got to Japan at 7:30am local time Friday morning. Because of our slightly (ha ha) larger than normal load, we got some help at the airport by the friendly Singapore Airlines staff. Whilst Rich checked 7 of our pieces into the storage facilities Sydney took in the sites and sounds of the Narita airport from the “comfort” of the transport cart. We have been trying to teach her “Konichiwa” (Hello) but so far waving is sufficient.
Here’s Rich and John waiting for the bus from Narita to downtown Tokyo. As you can see (he’s gonna kill me for putting this pic on the net) Rich is not looking too good. John is as chipper as usual and having a good time kicking Daddy in the gut hanging from the Bjorn. We had a 90 minute bus ride into the city. When we got to the hotel drop-off point it was completely crowded with police cars, security personnel, media, etc. It turns out that Hu Jin Tao, the President of China, and the Emperor of Japan were meeting at the hotel. So we had to walk right through middle of all the hub bub. I would have thought Mr Hu and Mr Emperor would have loved a picture with my beautiful kids, but I was wrong. Of course when we went to catch a taxi they were coming out of the meeting so we were shuffled back into the lobby and told we needed to wait 15 minutes – so we went and got some lunch.
We’re staying in a great little two bedroom apartment. The Japanese put the Swedish (e.g. Ikea) to shame with it comes to clever storage – it’s amazing all the nooks and crannies that this place has. It’s also amazing how many I’ve managed to fill with the stuff from the 6 bags of luggage (two of which are the pram and port-a-cot) we brought. Oops.
We all took naps yesterday afternoon for about 3 hours and then went on the Tokyo Subway system to Shibuyu for dinner. I didn’t listen to Rich (what else is new?) and we brought the double pram. BIG mistake. We had to carry it, with kids in it, up and down about 20 flights of stairs, in peak hour, metro traffic. And NO ONE makes amends for the fact that you’re two foreigners trying to lug a pram with two kids down the stairs. DUMB!!! (Us, not them).
Yeah – I got to be in a picture! Here we are outside the Shibuyu Metro Station. If you can recall any movie that shows Tokyo, Shibuyu is the really busy and crowded intersection you always see people crossing. It's the busiest intersection in the world – it’s the one that even has the crosswalk going diagonally across the street. You may recall it from one series of Amazing Race, they had to do something in the area. So we, of course, had to try out the diagonal intersection just because we were there and we could. Unfortunately because of the pram in the way we didn’t get to higher ground to take a photo of the area from up above; maybe next time.
So that’s what we’ve been up to for the last two days! We took it very easy today (Saturday). We were supposed to go to Kyoto on the bullet train and meet some Japanese people Rich works with, but because Rich is not feeling well at all, and I’ve been sick as well, we cancelled. We all slept in and then spent the morning in our pyjamas just hanging out – the first time we’ve done that in three weeks! We had Starbucks for brekkie and I’ve taken two walking trips out – one with Sydney and one by myself. Here’s Sydney enjoying holding the umbrella and drinking her “Japanese” orange juice (I couldn’t figure out what was orange vs. mango vs. carrot in the characters, so I bought the English one).
Sydney is really cute, she keeps asking us “When are we going to Japan” and we keep telling her “We are in Japan”. She’ll go and climb in the pram and say “Let’s go to Japan”. Hmmm….
Tomorrow, Sunday, Rich is flying to some island for his work thing. I am celebrating Mother's Day by doing what I want and walking with the kids to Harajuku and going to the Meiji Tong shrine and park. You may have heard of Harajuku girls in a song by Gwen Stefani – they are the Japanese “goth” youth who dress all crazy. They hang out a lot outside the Meiji shrine and are a bit of an “attraction” in and of themselves – so I must admit I’d actually like to check them out as well. It’s only supposed to be 11 degrees tomorrow and a bit rainy, so my plan is to rug up the kids with all the over-packed clothes and walk a bit fast.
I forgot how much I love travelling in foreign countries – the adventure and discovery of it all. On my little walk today I found the rugby ground, two Starbucks, at least 20 restaurants with the oh-so-Japanese fake food on display outside, a really cute and way too expensive kid’s shoe store, several 7-Eleven-type stores called AM/PM, hundreds of vending machines that sell everything from Coke to mini-kegs of Asahi beer, and of course what I was looking for – SUSHI!!!! Yum!Well, we’re off to dinner. OK, yes, we’re going for Italian – so Japanese!
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