Update from Tokyo

The first leg of our Tokyo trip was making it to the ISOT Stationery Show—we stayed at a hotel quite close to where it was taking place, especially since we were arriving late at night in Tokyo, a completely new city for us.

We’re now well into the second leg, and we’ve moved into a non-traditional sort of apartment/hotel, which is located more centrally, since we’ll be visiting places and people in and out of here. It’s a smaller hotel, and a bit hidden away—we were just picked up by a Pilot rep from here, and one of the first things he asked us was how we found the place, hah.

The new place has a large bedroom area, a separate dining room, and a small kitchen. We’re close to the Tsukiji Fish Market, which is also close to many other amenities and is walking distance to lots of different shops and conveniences. Inside our rooms, we’re already spreading out, all of our belongings and clothes and food detritus sprawling over every surface.

It’s been lovely to get settled in again, since we’ll be here for a little while before moving onto to visit Superior Labor in Okayama. We’ve been keeping busy! We generally try to stick to doing one thing per day when we travel with the kids, and or maybe one thing plus a smaller local walking distance type of activity, but we’ve been keeping our days full. It’s so hard to resist! And the kids have been (mostly) troupers. Especially with Tokyo being so large, we’ve had a few naps out in the wild, in the stroller, and then onwards to enjoying some excellent sushi or another floor of stationery in a department store.

I can’t wait to share more, especially before it all completely escapes me. I’m taking notes, but reading them again is sometimes an exercise in hieroglyphics. We’ve already had some exciting visits and also done some romping around the city on our own; I’ve been trying my best to take photos and buy all the things. But for now, just saying hello.

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Currently eating: eel on rice
Currently wearing: a surprisingly comfortable hotel kimono pyjama
Most unexpected purchase so far: Japanese incense sticks
Total mosquito bites across the family: 4
Currently watching: Japanese women’s golf on TV and Jon trying to organize all the receipts across the table
Currently looking forward to: visiting Life Stationery
Latest heard from the Chan family:
*Jon, attempting to close the luggage*
Jon: UHNNNN-NNNGGGGGG.
Liz: Yikes, what’s that crunching sound?
Jon: Nothing. Probably just a bag of chips or something.