We've had a whirlwind first few days! Thursday was a regular school day for Kent and Julian. After they were walked to school. Alan and Yuka and I, with Griffin and Seraphina, stopped by a Starbucks (which are all over), and I had an Earl Gray latte... Yum! On Friday, which was a Japanese holiday, the boys did not have regular school, but the British School in Tokyo held a special day for parents (and grandparents) to come have each student meet with their teacher and parents to show what they have been studying. In the afternoon, we took a train to another section of town and went to a toy store, where the younger boys picked out some new toys.
Large living/dining room.. doubles as a gym!
Lots of flavored snacks! Their "Family Store"/ convenience stores also have some amazing salads & sandwiches!
These are the "Ultraman" figures which Griffin loves...and they make dozens of them (which mostly look alike to me, but he knows the difference!
Kent and his teacher, letting us know about some of the things he has learned this past term.
The boys playing a hand-held game.
This their building. They have a large apartment on the ground floor.
Garden near their apartment.
Some cherry trees are starting to bloom, but it's still sort of cold and rained today.
I lagged behind them so I could take a photo. Quite a crew walking through the city!
One of the many high-rise buildings.
Dior building. Hermes is next door (classy neighborhood!)
Edible flowers in the supermarket
They have SO many varieties of vegetables!
Mushrooms
Entrance to the British School
This book belonged to my boys!
Entrance to Suntory Hall (Tokyo's equivalent of Carnegie Hall). It's next door to (and sort of underneath) their apartment.
Alan is between jobs and has the month off, so this is a good time for me to visit his family in Tokyo again and meet almost 5-month-old Seraphina! He upgraded the international leg of my flight to Business Class, so I could be more comfortable. I still had a lot of anxiety since there were bad storms predicted all over the eastern US, and I only had slightly over one hour for my layover in JFK airport. Alan had scheduled me for a wheelchair when we booked my ticket, which was a little embarrassing, but he said that way they would guarantee that I would make my connection! It was nice since they let me pre-board, plus it was a long way between the gates at the NY airport. I would have had time to walk there, but my backpack is heavy. We had to make two passes to land at JFK, because of the turbulence, and that was a little scary.
The 14.5 hour flight was pretty uneventful. I had a seat that flattened into a nice bed, but still only slept for a few brief snatches. The buttons on all the seat and lighting controls were hard to figure out, and I had to ask an attendant how to flush the toilet. (The button is way over in the corner!) The food was pretty good, but I could not finish the main meal. Alan had set up an eSIM on my phone which I switched to when we landed, so I could tell him where I was in the airport.
One really cool thing was the forward and rear live cameras mounted on the aircraft!
We could not get money added to my watch for entry to the train, and there were long lines to buy a paper ticket, so we finally took a taxi to their apartment. The boys seemed excited to see Grandma!
My little space
Appetizer
Dinner! More than I could eat!
Approach to Tokyo's Haneda Airport
Touchdown at Haneda. You can tell he threw me forward when he hit the brakes!
I got home close to midnight last night. My friend Mimi picked me up at the airport. The flight was about an hour late leaving since they had to wait for the flight attendants to arrive from an international flight....not good planning!
Alan accompanied me to the airport via subway and monorail. There's no way I could have navigated all that by myself!
Griffin wants to be a musician, too!
View of Rainbow Bridge from the Monorail
Highrise apartments along the route to the airport
I used the spare yen from my transit card to buy milk tea from the vending machine at the airport.
They took us from the gate to the airplane on busses and we walked up from the tarmac.
The Dallas airport is huge and has a tram that goes between buildings.
Since this is my last day here, we all went to take the boys to school, so I could say goodbye to them. Taking a fast hike of almost a mile before breakfast is a challenge for me! This is "culture day", which in Japan is a holiday. At the British School, the children wear costumes from their culture, rather than their uniforms. We were allowed to go up to Kent's classroom since they had asked Alan to come take photos of each child.
On the way back to the apartment from school, we stopped by Starbucks for breakfast. I've never been to a Starbucks before since I don't like coffee, but I found out how good an Earl Grey latte is!
Class photo in costumes
Amazing fabric collage on the wall at the entrance of the school
Enclosed outdoor gym at the school
Interesting street
This is a huge intersection where we have a long wait for a light.
We didn't have any outings scheduled, so mostly stayed at the apartment, and Alan answered some computer questions for me. We walked to Midtown, which is the huge, multi-level shopping mall near here to pick up something for dinner.
Griffin can crawl really fast! He loves to take the cover off the outlet on the wall,
so every time we walk by, it's on the floor!
Julian practices after his bath.
Kent is learning touch-typing. His computer program shows him where to rest his fingers and which one to move when he types something.
Then, it shows a game where he's supposed to type the letter that's in the balloon.
Griffin is learning to eat solids! He loves lots of things!
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