Last Part of Tokyo

I pretty much wore the children, mainly Sydney, out during our half-day trek around Tokyo, so we didn’t do a lot the last day we were there. Rich had gone to the ship signing ceremony, so we took our time getting ready on the Monday morning and of course made our mandatory breakfast stop at Starbucks. I decided we should do the last third of the walking tour of the area that we hadn’t done the day before – basically the back streets and alleys of the fashion district, because you know, I’m so up on the latest fashions I just had to see it.

So the first destination was the Prada building. Everything you read about the Aoyama District (where we were staying) talks about the “magnificent architecture of the Prada building” that “many budding photographers” flock to see and photograph. Well, here it is. Maybe because my knowledge of architecture stretches as far as my knowledge of the latest fashions – but it just looks like a big glass bubble to me. So glad I dragged the kids out to see it.

There was nothing else to photograph that day, unless you wanted to see pictures of Sydney’s meltdown in an alley of Tokyo (not pretty) where she just started crying “go back home, go back home; play with toys, play with toys”, meaning the apartment. So we high-tailed it back to the apartment after picking up some lunch (sushi, of course) along the way. We spent the rest of the day playing with toys and packing for the flight to the States.

Rich got home late afternoon and said the ship signing ceremony and everything that went with it was really nice. They pulled out the red carpet treatment for them and he even came home with a model of the LNG ship. Here are he and John just hanging out around the apartment.

That evening he took us out to dinner at the New York Grill which is the restaurant at the top of the Hyatt in downtown Tokyo. For those of you familiar with the movie Lost in Translation, it’s where Bill Murray was sitting at the bar when he met Scarlett Johanssen. It was very nice and we enjoyed a wonderful meal. Sydney and John were model children – as you see, we got even more use of the best $300 we ever spent – the mobile DVD player.

As we were at the top of the Hyatt we had amazing views of the Tokyo lit up by light.

As we hadn’t been able to go to Kyoto, I used the dinner as an opportunity to dress the kids up in the new outfits I bought them before we left Perth. Besides the elephant knees of Sydney’s tights, I just lover her new dress and sweater.

We even managed to get a fairly decent family photo together in the lobby of the Hyatt.

Luckily we didn’t have to take too many taxis whilst we were in Tokyo as you don’t travel with the carseats when going in a cab. So much to our trepidation, we strapped John into the baby Bjorn to one of our chests and Sydney was strapped into a seat. She thought it was great – we just prayed we didn’t have an accident.

And then at last we were on our way to America. We took the bus back to the airport and even got short naps out of the kids along the way. Here’s the happy travellers. John hung out in the carry-on suitcase whilst I did a bit of a reshuffle at the check-in counter to try and eliminate some carry-on luggage. One thing I have learnt is how much you DON’T need on the actual airplane with the kids, especially if you’re travelling overnight. Live and learn, right!

Here’s a few quick shots of our airplane ride across the Pacific. Both kids settled down to sleep about an hour after take-off, it was wonderful. Sydney slept the ENTIRE way there, we were amazed. She didn’t even wake up during turbulence or at breakfast time when they turned on all the lights. We even put her seat in the upright position with her sleeping in it and she came to on landing. John didn’t sleep quite as much as I would have liked, but he’s such an easy-going boy that he just laid next to me awake whilst I tried to sleep. I believe Rich slept a good part of the way – the flight was only 8 ½ hours (we thought it was 10 ½) and I think he slept about 5-6 hours of that. I on the other hand was much too excited and I slept about 2 hours – but I did see some movies and managed to eat a peaceful breakfast!

Then we landed in America – a real melting pot. We were standing in the US Passport holders immigration line and there were two Asian families, and Indian family, a Persian family, a few Latino families and our resident Aussie, Rich, standing along with me – I was the only “white” American in the whole line. Then our immigration officer was a Russian immigrant – welcome to America! We managed to spill an entire bowl of Cheerios right in front of the officer, so he called “Clean up on aisle 8”.

We then employed the help of a porter to assist in the moving of our 13 pieces of luggage (plus carry-ons). We had a private van hired for us, and our stuff, who arrived right on time and about 30 minutes later we were outside our apartment building. Our intrepid travellers had had enough by the time we got in the van and promptly fell asleep. We removed them and their carseats and placed them amidst our luggage as we figured out how to move-in to our new digs.

Welcome to our new home!