Living on Tokyo Time

Here's our journal from the Japan trip. We went for the wedding of Tomoe and Jeff, Gavin's friend from Cornell, and turned it into an 8-day family vacation in Tokyo and Kyoto. This was Tai's first international trip!

Day 1 - The flight over was a pleasant surprise. Tai did well. He made friends with lots of folks around him, including a pair of grandparents in the seats behind us, who gladly played peek-a-boo with him throughout the flight. What a help that was. He slept for about four hours and was pretty good for the rest, as long as he got to walk around in the back of the plane every hour.

Our first night we took a walk around our hotel's neighborhood in Shinjuku, amidst the neon signs and busy and crowded streets. We ate dinner at a diner sort of place where you buy a meal ticket at a vending machine and give the ticket to the cook. The next table over, Thu heard the group speaking Vietnamese and spoke to them. They were from Halong.

Then we went back to our cozy room at the Sunroute Plaza. Tiny, but turned out to be comfortable and a great place to sleep. And Tai loved it. We called it his mansion.

Sashimi breakfast

Day 2 - We woke up at 5 a.m., our clocks still off. So we went off to Tsukiji Fish Market and saw all the trucks of tuna being packed up and carted every which way. We sat down at a counter restaurant and ate a delicious sashimi breakfast of maguro and aji tataki. Of course, after we ate, we walked a bit more and found out there was an Outer Tsukiji Market with tons of food stands, for cheaper. But that's okay. It was so good.

We went back to Shijuku Station and got completely lost. Tai cried as his parents tried to find their way and his dad's inadequte Japanese got them twisted around. But we made it back to the mansion and then waited for Gavin's friends, Rich and Thi, to arrive at the Sunroute.

We met with Rich and hit Shinjuku for a sushi bar, where the sushi only cost 140¥ for two pieces. Delicious again. Finally Thi arrived and the guys went out for Jeff's bachelor party organized by Kevin.

Kevin has all the connections in Roppongi so we ate at a top-of-the-building restaurant and had a wonderful view of the rain-soaked city beneath.

The next morning there was an earthquake, a soft rolling earthquake, thank goodness that was it. We arrived in Tokyo after a typhoon had already passed.

Special udon

Day 3 - Yoshi led us on a great tour of Shinjuku dining, starting with a lunchtime stop at one of his favorite udon places. You order a bowl of udon, cold or hot, with some fish toppings or not, and then walk down a line of scrumptious foods and pick what you want to put on top of the noodles. It too was delicious.

Then we went off to the Ghibli Museum, which we had been looking forward to for over a month, buying our tickets beforehand in the USA (you have to). We are big fans of Hayao Miyazaki and we couldn't wait. Yoshi led us to Mitaka and we took a Miyazaki movie type of walk to the museum, along side a tree-lined river (creek) where the birds made that zipping kind of chirp and zzzzz sound that seems to be in all of Miyazaki's movies. Maybe they're not birds, but bugs.

Unfortunately, after all the work Yoshi did to get us there, he was unable to get a ticket as all of the tickets alloted to Japanese citizens had already been purchased. Had he been a foreigner, he could've gotten in. We felt bad.

The Totoro Gate - He took our tickets, but didn't let Yoshi in.

Eating ice cream with Yoshi

The museum didn't disappoint, full of displays with optical wizadry and cool Totoro displays. Tai really liked the strobe light effect that made Totoro look like he was jumping up and down. Hard to explain how it worked. Anyway, we found Yoshi afterwards and ate ice cream. He led us through the Kichijoji area and a wonderful hike through a park that ended up in a cool shopping district.

We headed back to the hotel and then went to an izakaya for dinner, another fine choice by Yoshi. We ordered off a touch screen menu on our table. Very cool. After Rich hit the 'order' button, a waiter or waitress arrived with our tasty food. Tai was asleep for most of the dinner, even though we were laughing loudly and the table next to us was having a good time. Rich took a lot of photos of the dishes, including the regional assortment of sake.

Rich asks, "Where am I?"

Day 4 - Before heading off to the wedding, we took the subway to Yoyogi Park for what we heard was some kind of "Vietnam Festival." Since three-and-a-half of us are Vietnamese, we went to check it out. As we tried to find the festival, a Japanese man in his 50s approached us and pointed us in the right direction. He must have assumed that we were there for the festival. We asked him why he was interested in Vietnam, and he said he likes Vietnamese music and he's excited about the future of Vietnam. The people there are very smart, he said. Right now, Japan is up here, and Vietnam is here, he said, making a gesture with his hands. In 50 years, Vietnam will be up here and Japan here, he said, reversing his hands.

We found the festival and it was very much a taste of Vietnam. Food vendors shouted at Thu in Vietnamese, trying to get her to buy their egg rolls. Had we not had a buffet breakfast beforehand at the hotel, we could've eaten pho, banh mi, banh xeo, or many other dishes. In any case, this was a very fun, unplanned event on our Tokyo trip.

The married couple - Jeff held on to the gloves.

Finally, it was time for the wedding, held on a futuristic island called Odaiba. Jeff and Tomoe looked great, and more importantly, like a great match for each other. We had never met Tomoe before, so it was good to see her. Jeff looked flashy and formal, like we'd never seen him before, decked out in a white tuxedo with white gloves. It was our first time at a Japanese wedding and reception. The food was amazing. Lobster, wagyu beef, and many other high-class dishes. Tai was the only kid there, much less the only toddler. He couldn't sit through the speeches, but he enjoyed himself the rest of the time, especially at the after-party, where all the friends who weren't at the reception could come and dance and party (after most of the family goes home).

"Weddings are great!"

I gave a brief toast to Jeff and Tomoe, recalling (thanks to Thu) that in our 2001 video, "Is This Happiness?", the "documentary" where we interviewed at Les and Crystal's wedding everyone who lived in the Buffalo house their thoughts on the future, including thoughts on marriage. Jeff had felt that you never knew where you'd find love, or where it would find you, but that we are "fated" to meet the right person. And when that person comes along, you have to seize the opportunity. And after meeting Tomoe, and hearing her story, and knowing how she gets along with Jeff, I think it's true, they were fated to meet each other.

Day 5 - After a noodle breakfast at Ringer Hut, we bid sayonara to Rich, who headed back to professorial duties in Atlanta. Next it was off to Kyoto by bullet train. My first impression of Kyoto was that it was very crowded. The sidewalks were teeming with people and the malls were packed. In Tokyo, that's a given. But for some reason, neither Thu nor I had remembered Kyoto that way. Nonetheless, we had fun shopping. We met up with Thi for a last dinner with him before he set off to tour the country solo.

Our ryokan, while not as new as the Sunroute, featured a public bath that felt excellent when we soaked our bodies after a long day of traveling. We slept on futons on the tatami mats. We all enjoyed sleeping that way.

Relaxing in a Kyoto park

Day 6 - We took a long walk around the Higashiyama area, winding our way into Maruyama Park and several temples. This day was a national holiday so there were tons of people hitting the park, and also buying flowers for the cemetary. We pushed Tai in his stroller for as long as we could, until we hit some stairs, or until Tai wanted out.

As crowded as the park was, Gion Corner was empty because of the holiday. All in all, somewhat of an exhausting day, but we took in several great sites. We ended the evening with a relaxing dinner by the river. People gather on the bank of the Kamo River and eat their bento box dinners and listen to up-and-coming musicians playing nearby. Tai had had enough of restaurants by now anyway, so eating outside was ideal.

"Oh, this is high."

Day 7 - We took the train over to Osaka to try the food there and walk around. This was the first time we're back to thinking about getting back to reality. (That's why we're here at a computer station, checking email and updating the blog right now.)

So it was nice to visit a building that was right out of the future. We found our way to the Umeda Sky Building. After a tasty lunch in the bottom-floor food court, a re-creation of an old-style Japanese town, we went to the third floor to buy our elevator tickets. The ride up the building was kind of like a roller coaster. You're shot straight up in a glass-door car with a sight of the urban Osaka beneath. It's enough to make the knees go weak.

Party on the futon!

Day 8 - Days 1 thru 7 were mostly non-stop fun and adventure; Day 8 was the long, long, long trip home. It started with a shinkansen ride from Kyoto to Tokyo (2.5 hours), then catching the Narita Express (1 hour), then waiting at the airport for nearly three hours before boarding the 8.5-hour flight home. I should back up and state the highlight of that day was the private breakfast we enjoyed at the Iroha Ryokan. The private room could hardly contain Tai, but we enjoyed our hot tofu and baked salmon. Tai enjoyed the strips of nori as he did the entire trip. . . .

We've been home for more than a week now, and we've posted pictures of the entire trip. More deep thoughts on traveling with Tai and being in Japan later. . . . Lastly, thanks to Rich for some of these photos from Tokyo. His are the good ones.