Back in Tokyo
I’m back in Tokyo – this time with Amelia and Duke. Tim will join us tomorrow. One of Tim’s cousins graciously invited us to have dinner at her place, so that’s the primary motivator to go this week. But it’s also been far too long since we’ve played our adventure song, and we’ve been looking forward to our next trip.
Aside from dinner on Tuesday, we don’t have too much time and we also don’t have too much on the agenda. Tuesday morning I’ll take the kids back to the custom notebook store, and I’ll take Tim back to the izakiya that’s around the corner. Aside from that we might go to an aquarium and a Pokémon Center and hopefully eat some more tasty food. We’re staying in the same hotel as when we were here a year ago, and the kids have already staked a claim in the kaiten sushiya nearby for dinner tonight.
We’re cooking up a few more trips over the next few months… but coming back to Tokyo for a short trip is starting to feel like coming back to an old friend.
How absolutely fantastic! Very cool that you all have been invited over for dinner at a Japanese home. That will be so cool!
What a cute train picture! I think it’s on a train and very cool we can see you too in the reflection. Have you all gotten to enjoy some different ekiben? Those are the awesome bento boxes that are specific to different train stations. I think that is so cool that every region is famous for a different food specialty depending on the season too.
Please post lots of pictures. Can’t wait to see them!
Oddly, we haven’t taken the Shinkansen very often. But apparently the bento boxes aren’t the same as what Tim remembered from childhood. But we love trying the local special dishes and Okashi.
(And sorry that it looked like your comment disappeared – I still haven’t figured out all the details of this blog! )
Oh this picture and these words bring me joy! I miss you all so much! By the way, the green tea you all gave Chini came to our rescue yesterday when we were having a big lunch event for my mom’s Japanese church friends. We tried making tea from the green tea bags we had, but it was so horrible that I began to feel sick after just sipping a couple of sips. Chini pulled out this amazing tea, which replaced the 2 gallons of undrinkable tea we had made for the event, and it really made EVERYTHING taste better. I wish we could find that kind of tea here in the US.
I’m glad it worked out! We’ll have to try to find a refill! Thanks for reading, Anna!
bummer… I posted yesterday I thought but somehow it didn’t post! Mainly I was just gushing about how awesome it is to see you all back in Tokyo, your backyard! Amazing and awesome that you will see both Chiho and Manami! We have another maternal side cousin (Makoto) that I’ve never met! Tim has never met him either. I’m hoping Manami and Chiho can tell us about him. He’s the only son of Mom’s oldest brother (Toshio). I wonder if they have seen him recently. We have all met his sister Minako.
No, that was a mistake on my part – I didn’t realize the website was waiting for something from me! We had a blast at Manami’s yesterday – their family made us feel so welcome! And Duke and Kazunori hit it off so well – they didn’t need a common language to start having fun together immediately. And the night before that Chiho came all the way across town to meet us in Ueno and have munjayaki and okonomiyaki with us.
We’ve been so busy that I haven’t had a chance to put together the pictures yet, but I’ve been taking as many as I can. I’ll have to add them in one post at the end…