The Secret Life of…

[If you’re wondering what brings the honor of two posts in one day, it’s germs. I have a nasty, disgusting, head-and-chest-filling cold. It makes me unpleasant to be around. As such, I am not on the Cape with my extended family to celebrate my cousin-in-law-once-removed’s birthday. Nor am I resuming my place at the rescheduled-without-me ice cream social that I helped organize but that had to be moved due to rain — and thus required the recruitment of a new scooper in my stead since I am supposed to be on the Cape — because I’m pretty sure all those new kindergartners do not need a generous helping of my virus. Instead, I’m at home, where I promised Dave that I would not feel the need to be productive, but instead relax and try to get better. Well, I can’t just sit on the couch without going slightly crazy, so here I am.]

Friday was our much-anticipated — so much so that we tried to get ready a whole day early!– trip to Kamakura. Kamakura is an ancient, former capital city just outside Tokyo. It also was the only place we knew we’d visit before we even booked our hotel. That’s because I was lucky enough to meet Ikuko (wife of Hiko, who is the son of Mieko and the uncle of the bride) for lunch back in February, when she was visiting friends in Boston. She suggested it then and said she could give me tips. Much, much later — as in, about two weeks before we flew to Tokyo — I wrote her requesting those tips, including the best way to get there. Before I knew it, we suddenly had not just tips, but a generous tour guide (and husband) who chartered a small bus to take us there and back. Wow. (Seriously, I cannot tell you how much we totally dropped the ball as hosts during our own weddings out here!)

So after another leisurely dual round of breakfasts — and this time with kids who actually slept to a reasonable hour — we met our hosts at the hotel. We’d already seen our fancy bus (complete with A/C!) waiting in front of the hotel, and I think everyone was really excited, not to mention touched by this chance to enjoy Hiko & Ikuko’s company.

If you ever want to make someone feel like an honored guest, charter their very own bus for them, complete with personalized placard.

The 1.5-hour ride was pretty easy, even if Toph got a bit restless. But Dave did finally get him to fall asleep, which was key for surviving the rest of the adventure. Plus, the kids (and Dave) loved the bridges and the tunnels. In fact, someone convinced Oliver that every trip through a tunnel required throwing your arms in the air and yelling, “TUNNEL!” (For those of you playing along at home, you only have to yell once, but you keep your arms up for the whole tunnel.) Oliver was very committed to this, and so the rest of us were too.

Yes, we even made our Japanese hosts join in — because what good would a Vargus be if she didn’t incite ludicrous behavior?

Although it had been a sort of soggy morning, it had cleared up nicely by the time we got to Kamakura. I hadn’t thought it would’ve mattered, but once we started touring, I was really glad — not to stay dry, but to get to see everything more clearly. Our first stop was Daibutsu, or the Great Buddha.

This 37-foot sitting Buddha has been through a lot, and he’s pretty impressive. Dave loved that you could go inside for a mere 20 yen (less than a quarter) and see the way it was soldered (?) together. In fact, he went twice: once when most of us went in the first time, and once again after Toph finally woke up because he was sure the little man needed this experience. Personally, I was charmed by the giant (but honestly, probably not quite giant enough) shoes that were hanging nearby for whenever the Buddha might decide it’s time to get up and go somewhere else. I’m not sure it made much of an impression on AJ, although she did draw a nice picture of it later, and I know it didn’t make an impression on the one member of our party who managed to nap for all but the last few minutes.

The Great Buddha . . . and the Great Chaos (marginally contained for the moment).

Quick aside: The 20-yen charge to go inside Buddha seems pretty standard in Japan. While a lot of necessities like food were on the moderate to expensive side (think New York-ish), all of the destinations were cheap. Whether it was a temple or the zoo, entry fees tended to run less than five dollars a person — and the kids’ prices were always cheaper if not free. I don’t mind spending money, but boy did it make it easier to justify short visits and the probability of having to cut out early with a screaming toddler!

Anyhow, after visiting the Buddha, all eleven of us piled back into the bus to head to our next stop: lunch and a temple. Lunch was at a delicious soba place. Well, I thought it was delicious at least. The kids ate . . . peanut butter sandwiches that I’d packed that morning. Oh well. At least they finally ate something! Plus, AJ made pictures for everyone, which made me feel a bit better about her propensity toward hiding her head when anyone other than a Vargus talked to her. (UGH.)

Finally out of her shell, AJ ended her lunch drawing cats for Hiko and “helping” him learn to count in English.

The next stop was Hase-dera, a famous Buddhist temple that centers around a giant gilded statue of the goddess Kannon. It was pretty and impressive — possibly even taller than the Great Buddha, plus all the sparkly gold — but without any personal spiritual connection, I honestly found the architecture and the view far more compelling. The temple itself seems to be a perfect example of what one would expect to see in a Japanese temple, only more so. And then you can walk across the courtyard and be even more wowed as you overlook the nearby bay and all of Kamakura.

With apologies to the goddess, this view totally upstages her.

If we’d been here a few weeks earlier, the landscaping would have been overrun with hydrangeas. Even so, it was still lovely. You wandered up a path to the main building, and there were little nooks and crannies with gardens to explore. The temple’s goddess is considered a protector-deity, especially to women. At one point, women would come here to escape abusive marriages, and a section is lined with tiny statues to commemorate the aborted children of those women. These little stone statues form a tiny stoic army, surrounded by greenery, and it was such a strange juxtaposition to me.

On a lighter note, Toph appreciated every single water feature he could find — and there were many, especially when you add in (as he did) anything that had the slightest accumulation of liquid, be it an overfull planter or a random puddle on the ground. As he approached each and every one, he’d say, “No duck!” Then he’d put his hand on his chin and pensively say, “Hm. Where go?”

On an even lighter note, Oliver found his own view to appreciate. Ahem.

After we left the temple, we were short on time. Ikuko wanted to make sure we had a chance to see some shops, though, so we had a very quick trip through the shops on that street. Toph immediately saw — you guessed it — a wooden duck. I thought he’d be so happy after I got Becka to spot me the money for it . . . except he kept running back toward the temple and crying when I tried to stop him. I finally figured out — he wanted to put the duck where in belonged, in the pond. (Should’ve seen that one coming.) I managed to create a pond out of the paper bag it came in, and everyone was happy again.

Dave and AJ separately found this huge store full of music boxes. Knowing my love for them, Dave tracked me down, took my bull-in-a-china-shop of a son from me, and sent me in with my last two minutes before we had to get back on the bus. Sadly, I had too little time to really appreciate them, and no wallet (thus the borrowed money to buy Toph his duck), so I left empty-handed. Honestly, though, this was probably the only truly rushed moment of the vacation, and I know I’m better off without yet another dust-magnet in our over-tchotchke-d house.

Like I said, we were short on time, so Ikuko had to change our plan to just one more stop. We had our choice between the more commonly visited shrine (I think Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu) and a less famous temple in a bamboo forest. Ikuko said the latter was her favorite, and then added that we could try a traditional Japanese tea ceremony there. I think it was an easy choice for all of us.

The temple, called Hokoku-ji, is based in Zen, unlike the two Buddhist stops before. (If we’d made it to the shrine, we’d have added Shinto to the list, too.) I don’t know if it’s related, but there weren’t any giant statues here. The big draw, in fact, is the bamboo forest itself — and it’s beautiful.

Dave said the scenery reminded him of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but we didn’t see any ninjas-in-training (unless you count Toph).

To take the tea ceremony, we had to walk along a stone path through the forest to a small hut. The hut had a serving station in back, and then a row of benches looking out on the forest. We had bought tickets for the tea at the entrance, which we now traded for a bowl of frothy green tea, accompanied by two sweets (shaped and gently colored sugar cubes, as far as I could tell). As instructed, first, we ate a candy. Then, holding the bowl carefully in the left hand and cupping the rim with the right, we drank the tea — made less bitter by the already eaten candy. All of this was done while looking out from our benches onto the forest, complete with a small waterfall (and no ducks).

Oh, and in case you were worried about how horribly rude we were, Dave and I took turns running with AJ and Toph, since this was clearly not an activity generally done in the company of raucous kiddos.

Frothy green tea: it’s better than it looks. (A ringing endorsement if ever I heard one.)

By the time we made it back to the bus, we were most definitely running late. This meant we’d run into rush hour for the return home, and I’ve never seen anything like rush hour in Japan. Even so, we survived the trip back to Tokyo — in part because AJ was as sweet as can be and shared her new, beloved red panda plushie with Oliver. (He was absolutely enamored — and yet, in his slightly-beyond-perfect way, so good about giving it back at the end of the ride.) Also in part because we had an iTouch and an iPhone, both loaded up with TV shows. (They were worked hard on this trip.)

We went straight to our dinner reservations, also provided by Hiko and Ikuko, at a yakitori restaurant. The kids made due with the granola bars left in my bag, and Becka ate tofu, but the rest of us devoured some truly delicious chicken. When Hiko found out that Dave is all about spicy — and not just sort of spicy — he ordered a special plate for him. I think this might have been one of Dave’s favorite meals.

Plus, Shiori and Masato (bride and groom) joined us yet again. The night before the wedding. Can you imagine anyone doing this in the United States???

The whole crew, so enamored with Japanese-style cuisine that we try to pose Japanese-style too!

Aside from AJ falling into the well under the table and deciding to cling to me and Dave for the rest of the evening, even the kids survived decently. Toph especially enjoyed playing cars with Hiko, which was adorable. (Hiko has three sons, the youngest of which is in his last year of high school, so he’s had lots of practice.)

Hiko-san and Iko-chan, two of the best tour guides and hosts in all of Asia

Even so, by the time we left, the kiddos were done. Toph fell asleep in his stroller and didn’t even budge through train stations, hotel lobbies, or jammy-changing. I’m pretty sure AJ fell asleep within seconds of her head hitting the pillow, too.

I, on the other hand, was on a mission to get some money from the ATM . . . until I ran into Eiko (mother of the bride, daughter of Mieko) in the hotel lobby. She’d just come up from her home in Shizuoka prefecture, and so we were very excited to finally see each other! She and Shiori bundled me up to her room, where I got to see Shiori’s dress, then escort her to Mom and Jilda’s room to say a quick (if exhausted) hello to them. Becka came down a few minutes too late to see her, but not too late to keep me up chatting for a couple more hours than I probably should have. Oops. Still, I think it was my only real opportunity to quietly hang out with my mom and sisters, so I’m glad I did.

I have more than one hundred unique pairs of socks. Socks of every color. Socks in just about every conceivable pattern. Socks that represent enough animals to fill a farm and a decent-sized zoo. Socks for every occasion. Socks for occasions you didn’t even know you should worry about. I also have a growing collection, as I suppose should be expected, of socks with holes.

I have a hard time letting go of these socks. Back in the day when I had just barely begun my sock collection, I had a favorite pair of red textured socks. One of my first pairs of non-standard socks, and I loved them. To pieces. Literally. One day — must have been around Christmas because I was back in my parents’ home in Indiana with my college boyfriend — my mom and said boyfriend forcibly took my holey red sock from me and (WARNING: This is gruesome and not for the faint of heart) cut it in half. That’s right. They brutally murdered my sock right in front of me, its red threads unraveling like streams of blood from a gaping wound.  (What? Too much?)

I’m sure they considered it some sort of intervention. Well, if so, it didn’t work. If anything, it backfired because whenever I see a tattered pair, I think of that cruelly dispatched red sock. Obviously, I can’t let such a fate befall yet another pair. Ninety percent of the time, I know who gave me which pair. I can tell you if I wore a certain sock on some special day. I can explain how that particular pair is special, worth holding onto because it makes my collection that much more complete — in a wholly utilitarian kind of way, of course.

Which brings me to my dilemma: What exactly can I do with these socks that can only be called “wearable” in a pathetic show of pity for the end of their glory days?

I have less than an hour before I have to pick up the kids. I have determined that it takes approximately 24 seconds to switch applications. It takes almost a full minute to get my screen back if it turns off to save energy while I read something. Word has restarted twice, which takes about the same. And don’t ask how long it takes to get from sleep mode to an actual functioning state.

As far as I can tell, I have no viruses. I have run Ad-Aware to clean up any sneaky Web-related not-quite-viruses-but-might-as-well-be. But at this rate, I won’t even manage a single productive thing before I have to leave. UGH.

On Thursday, we finally managed to sleep in a bit — you know, like 6am. We had a very leisurely morning because we thought we were meeting some friends at 9:30 for a tour of Kamakura . . . except I’d totally screwed up the dates, and we were meeting them the next day. Lucky for us, I got a call from Eiko to say hello to the newly arrived Jilda — who assured me that our tour-giving friends (her brother and his wife) were coming home from Australia that day and wouldn’t be at our hotel until 9:30 on Friday. Oops. Eiko had great timing, though! We were still in the get-ready phase, so we used second-breakfast (a must in Toph’s world) to figure out what we wanted to do with our suddenly free day.

Mom shows off the Forrest Gump-esque world of Japanese bakeries (you never know what you’re gonna get)

It was surprisingly easy to get all eight Vargi and Vargi-adjacent, minus Rob because he had to work, to agree on a plan: a walking tour of Asakusa. Asakusa is a fun area of Tokyo with lots of shopping, and it would be an utterly predictable choice if it weren’t for the fact that we undertook this journey in the rain. (Dave and I decided it was a welcome change from hot and stifling, though.)

All of us in front of Asakusa’s famous Kaminarimon Gate (”Thunder Gate” — an appropriate name for the day); I’m particularly fond of Toph’s pose.

Honestly, it was even better than you might have thought. Our first stop was Nakamise Dori, a pedestrian road lined with little shops — made all the more convenient with its retractable roof. It was fun to see all the wares, from kitschy to beautiful. We have a tradition of buying Christmas ornaments (or ornament-conversion-worthy items) from our trips, and this time I let AJ pick out one too. She loved this and made sure to get the very best Hello Kitty trinket she could find. I could’ve spent way more time here, but our traveling horde was getting hungry — and the osenbei (rice crackers, which Dave bought mistakenly thinking he was getting cookies) and ningyo-yaki (freshly made mini-cakes with red bean paste inside) weren’t enough to quiet them.

Okay, to be honest, red bean paste probably angered a few of them. But I absolutely love it, and I was thrilled when Toph begged for more after he finished his. Plus, even AJ the Picky had fun watching the vendors make them!

All your trinket shopping done conveniently in a rain-free environment!

For lunch, we decided to try a place that was recommended in both my and Jilda’s guidebooks for okonomiyake, which is basically savory pancakes that are usually cooked on a grill in front of you — a similar set-up to Korean barbecue, only with a lot less meat. Apparently rainy Thursdays aren’t high tourist time because there were few patrons, despite the guidebooks’ warning about long waits.

Everyone else was missing out, though, because it was delicious — and fun. Even though my annoying picky children subsisted solely on the raisins in my backpack, they still liked watching the process. And Dave got to skirt past Japanese cuisine via a very untraditional version called pizza-ten. Guess what that resembled?

Oliver and Granny are amazed by the staff at the Sometaro okonomiyake restaurant.

After lunch, we dashed through the rain to a nearby drum museum. The drum museum probably isn’t on the average tourist list. I think we found it in my book of kid-friendly day trips in Tokyo, written for ex-pats on a yearlong assignment more than visitors. Honestly, though, if you have kiddos, it should be on your list. This was the kids’ favorite of the day, hands down.

It’s really just one medium-sized room, lined with drums. But the drums — from all over the world — are almost all furnished with the appropriate drum sticks/instructions about using your hands, so everyone can make all the noise you want. We walked in with three kids under the age of five, so we were all about that. (Apologies to the few people who were there when we arrived; none of them lasted five minutes after we came through the door.)

What? You wouldn’t want to stick around for The Symphony of Three Kids Whacking on Taiko Drums either?

After the kids were (mostly) drummed out, we headed into the crazy-pouring rain for Kappabashi Dori. On a normal day, this street would’ve been tons of fun and really different; it’s essentially the kitchen district, selling everything a commercial kitchen or restaurant might need — generally via very specialized stores. We walked past stores selling only chopsticks, or pans, or vast quantities of restaurant checks. Jilda was in search of the stores selling plastic food, which restaurants display in their windows in lieu of printed menus. Somewhere on this long road, they existed.

But this wasn’t a normal day. Sheets of rain were pouring down on us — so badly, in fact, that some random passerby ran up to Dave and gave him his umbrella. I guess he felt better getting wet than seeing a drenched American tourist with a preschooler on his shoulders. Sweet, huh? But not enough to keep the whole clan searching for the elusive mecca of plastic food, so we headed back.

The return was less exciting than planned, too. We thought we’d take a ferry back halfway, but we’d missed the last one by about ten minutes, so it was back to the subway. Since both Toph and Oliver had crashed — Toph so completely that he slept in my arms even through the transfers between subway lines — it probably was for the best. And, really, it was a great day even without the added novelty of a boat ride.

You know they’re tired when they sleep this hard despite being soaked to the bone!

We originally were going to attempt a family dinner, but my kids were NOT behaving and the picky-eater-friendly restaurant that we tried didn’t have space for a giant clan of nine (now with more Rob!). So the rest of them went on to enjoy a sushi dinner on the 38th floor of the Ebisu Garden Tower without us. Bye, fam. Hi, McDonald’s. Yes, McDonald’s. Again. This was my first and only meal there, at least, and it meant I got to try a teriyaki McBurger. I feel like that still counts as something quintessentially Japanese. Besides, the kids liked running around the plaza and survived much better that way — and we still got to enjoy the view from the tower first.

This is the view we traded for the basement-level McDonald’s. Yeah. I know.

A break from our regularly scheduled Japan coverage, in honor of Toph’s second birthday today — or Tofu-kun, as he was called when we were there.

In Japan, “How are you?” is actually said “Are you genki?” Genki is a little hard to translate. In this case it mostly refers to healthfulness, but there’s more to it. For example, when Eiko says she’s “wishing for genki” for her mom (Mieko, my namesake and approximately eighty years old now), she means more than just good health. There’s an aspect of spirit to genki — a sort of joy in that health/life.

There’s another use of genki that I know well. I learned about it first when my parents would talk about living in Japan — because everyone would use that word to describe my then-one-year-old sister. In this case, it’s definitely the spirit element that is emphasized. And, quite honestly, euphemized. Well, let me tell you, never has a euphemism been so liberally applied than to Toph during our sojourn!

You see, Toph is already an energetic kid. Running, chasing, and otherwise moving quickly is high on his list. He doesn’t like to sit still for anything, and when he’s done, he’s done. Patience isn’t his strong suit. Plus, both kids were tired and trying to figure out when exactly we were going to let them sleep. When Toph gets overtired, I call him my superball. He just plain bounces — from everything, to everything, off everything, about everything. As a bonus, he often peppers the bouncing with screeching because who doesn’t like screeching? BUT . . . he does most of this with a big smile.

(Contrast this with my two-year-old nephew, who was also there. He could sit through three-hour dinners, eat everything put in front of him, and only speak when spoken to. The kid made Dave look ill-behaved.)

When our Japanese hosts were being polite, they told me how genki Toph was. When they didn’t guard their words, I got asked (more than once), “Is he always like this?” Ahem. And when they were being extremely polite after we left, I got a note from the bride saying, “Toph is so genki that he made this trip unforgettable for all of us!!”

In a spasm of what I’m optimistically calling “scientific curiosity,” my son decided to see what would happen if he stuck all his fingers down his throat. If you have ever accidentally ingested certain poisons, practiced bulimia, or wanted to reenact The Exorcist, you can figure out the answer all by yourself.

We didn’t pack quite as much into our second full day in Japan, but I think it might have been the kids’ favorite day. First of all, Granny was there! Toph was so excited to see her when he woke up (he was asleep when she was around the night before), and AJ was thrilled to have yet another someone to play silly games. These started almost as soon as my jetlagged, underslept mom was ready to face the day. After all, that beautiful plaza across the way has multicolored bricks that just call out to preschooler imaginations.

AJ and Granny are careful to dodge the fire-shooting bricks. I didn’t have to because I luckily wore my fireproof underwear that day.

We figured out the day’s plan over a leisurely breakfast at a nearby cafe, and then once again joined the utterly silent commuting masses on the train. (Seriously. It’s eerie.) We were off to Ueno Park!

Which sounded like such a great idea, until we got there, realized that it was approximately 4,397 degrees Celcius (I’m pretty sure I did the math right) with 148% humidity (this figure might be slightly inflated), and learned that nothing in the park was open. That included the zoo and any of the air-conditioned buildings which would’ve been a nice way to wait out the hour to the zoo’s 9:30 opening. Toph responded by falling deeply asleep in his stroller. Dave responded by emptying the ubiquitous vending machines of cold water and Coke Zero (surprisingly easy to find in Tokyo). I responded by starting the Ueno Park Death March to “enjoy” the park’s offerings — which at that hour mostly consisted of small spots of shade, a fountain, and a teensy playground.

AJ was so proud of herself for climbing to the top of this!

Needless to say, when the zoo opened, we were quick to enter. I was a little worried when I realized that Mom had promised AJ a giant panda that had passed away two years ago, but AJ took it in stride — especially after we saw the adorable red pandas (a.k.a., “the lesser panda”) that were being hand-fed apples in the panda enclosure. The cuteness was nearly stifling. And despite the zoo being on the old-fashioned side (read: cruelly small enclosures for many of the animals), we had a blast. Toph woke up not long after entering, and he was so excited by everything he saw. Watching him experience the whole thing made the morning for me.

I think my favorite moment was at the lion enclosure. The lions had full-length windows in many places, and a lioness was hanging out right by the first one, which you didn’t see til you rounded a corner. We told Toph to go see the lion — a favorite animal of his, since he so enjoys roaring — and he ran around the corner . . . then stopped short and began backing up in mild terror. He then refused to go near the plaster (?) sculpture of a tiger nearby.

AJ and Toph see how they measure up to the Ueno Zoo gorillas.

AJ and Toph were generally adorable the whole time, so much so that we kept being stopped by random passersby who wanted to take pictures of the cute little gaijin kiddos. Toph was happy to oblige as long as he could keep moving the entire time, and AJ was appropriately and predictably shy of the strangers — until it was time to say cheese, when she’d let out a big ol’ grin. I’m glad we chose this day to let them choose their souvenirs because they both picked out stuffed red pandas (for Toph, it was love at first sight), which they played with every single day after.Unfortunately, we stayed later than intended, which meant naps went late. Plus, no one wanted to be woken up so it was just a barrel of laughs in our hotel room, let me tell you. We took that barrel of laughs on the road to Mieko & Mikio’s house, which included one of the most fantastic meltdowns ever seen by Toph as well as a botched phone call that left Mikio scrambling between train stations and required an emergency translation call to Shiori (who is an extremely fluent English teacher). Luckily, Toph had finished his shoe-centered breakdown (NO! I WILL NOT WEAR SHOES BUT I MUST WALK ON THE DIRTY ROAD. NO, I WILL NOT WALK WITHOUT SHOES. I WANT MY SHOES BUT YOU CAN’T PUT THEM ON. EXCEPT ONLY MOMMY CAN PUT THEM ON. NO DADDY! NO GRANNY! HEY, WHY ARE YOU PUTTING THOSE #(*$&(#*&ING SHOES ON MY FEET? I DON’T WANT SHOES, ESPECIALLY NOT FROM MOMMY. AAARGH!) by the time we finally all ended up in the same place.

And then it was a lovely evening at their house, even though we showed up hours late and required dinner when they weren’t originally expecting to feed us. Oops. I don’t think they minded, though. Mieko showered us with presents — although mostly things she had around the house, which I think is more a symbol of her age than something Japanese. (In fact, this was one of the hardest things for me: I hadn’t seen her for years, and she’s nearly 80 now. The time shows.) Toph got an adorable, albeit sharp and rusty, toy train that had belonged to Hiko (Mieko’s son who’s now a judge with sons in college) when he was two. AJ got a pile of origami papers, which she powered through while the adults ate curry-rice for dinner. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of her “princess treasure boxes” and other masterpieces.

Our lovely hosts (and the grandparents of the bride) in their home — the same home my mom used to visit almost forty years ago!

When the kids were beyond exhausted, we headed back to the hotel — where we suddenly had a full family! Jilda had flown in that evening, and Becka, Rob, and Oliver had come back up from a few days in Kyoto. Shiori’s brother Shu had met Jilda at the airport (seriously, they totally went above and beyond) and was still in the lobby when we got there. And while it was fun to say hi and meet the adult version of a kiddo who I’d given horsey-rides to when I was seventeen, I think I was as exhausted as the kiddos. So I said hi and bye to everyone, and every single person in our hotel room was asleep within twenty minutes.

I’m at the dealership, waiting for my car to be done with its check-up. This, of course, is always enthralling what with all the sitting and waiting and sometimes being summoned to approve hundreds of dollars of repairs. Plus, the waiting room has its very own single-serving coffee machine. Sometimes I get to watch people baffled by its complexity! Whee!

Actually, I almost always pass the time on my computer. Mostly I work, although now that they offer free wifi, I’m more easily distracted than I could otherwise be (case in point: this very moment). There’s a TV in the waiting room, which can also make working a little more difficult. Today, though, I was so happy to see that no one had turned it on. The rest of my fellow Ford-owners were all happily (or at least quietly) reading magazines or staring at the wall. Most of them appeared to be in the segment of the population that enjoys the early bird dinner special at 4:30pm, so it’s more than possible that they wouldn’t be able to hear the TV even if it were on. Whatever the reason, I got a solid hour of TV-free time.

And then came a woman whose hearing is intact. Either she has no interest in back issues of Martha Stewart Living and Sports Illustrated — or the newest issue of Ford’s page-turner Frontlines, or she just isn’t a big reader. Anyhow, she immediately found the clicker and turned on the TV.

Which is fine. Really. I have no problem with people using the amenities offered in order to hold on to sanity in a waiting room.

Except that she almost immediately walked away to chat with someone who works here. Not in a “excuse me, ma’am, can I ask you a question about your car” way, but in the way that old buddies do and for quite a while. After that conversation, she wandered away to explore the dealership or something. The TV kept going, which I suppose isn’t too surprising since they’ve yet to create a TV that automatically senses if the turner-onner is still around and paying attention. (Note to engineers: Please invent this. It would save a small fortune in electricity bills in our house alone.)

I waited at least five minutes, made sure that the man in the corner who can’t even see the TV was still showing absolutely no interest in the sound that he probably can’t hear without his hearing aid anyhow, and then I turned the TV off.

When the woman returned a few minutes after that, I offered her the clicker from its resting spot on the table near me. “Would you like this? I just turned it off since no one was watching.” She declined.

I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m evil because she’d rather be watching CNN or Ellen or Suzanne Somers selling clothing. I’m also pretty sure I’m overly sensitive to abandoned TVs because Dave is physically incapable of turning a TV off (see suggestion to engineers above) and I’m not fond of being greeted by ESPN when I come down in the morning.

But, really, was it so awful to turn it off? Really?

It took Toph five minutes on the first flight before declaring, “All done!” Luckily he recovered well. Meanwhile, AJ said that flight — only to Chicago — was too long. Oh, if only I had taken a picture of her face when we told her the next one was four times longer! (She recovered well, too.) We actually survived both flights with a surprising amount of grace. It was the post-plane journey through customs and then to the hotel (another two-hour bus ride!) that was hardest on everyone. That first night, we gave into easy and familiar, fed the kids pizza and pasta, and were in bed by 8:30pm.

Dave and Toph, asleep in our comfy business class seats

And then were awake around 2am. We kept the kids “resting” in bed until 5, got dressed, and then explored the really beautiful shopping plaza across the way until something (McDonald’s, actually) finally opened at 6:30 and we could get something to eat. Clearly, we were off to a great start on food, huh? I promise we got better. And on the upside, it was only horribly (rather than ludicrously) hot and humid at 6am, so it was fun to explore.

Our favorite early-morning haunt: Ebisu Garden Plaza, across the street from our hotel

We spent the morning at a small but fun aquarium that had a tunnel for walking under the ocean tank, plus sea lion and dolphin shows. We left before the dolphin show because neither kid had anything left to give. (This was the first, but not the last time that AJ said, nearly in tears, “I want to stay and have fun, but I want to go to the hotel and sleep. I want to stay, but I’m too tired.”) This was definitely not a standard tourist stop (everyone else there was Japanese), but we had such a good time. Toph especially liked “chasing” the penguins as they swam by their window, and AJ loved the sea lion show. Plus, some Japanese TV show was there to film a segment, so we may very well have been immortalized on some show we’ll never know!

All of us loved walking through the aquarium’s tunnel, especially when the giant ray went past

After a nap, we headed to Meiji Jingu, a beautiful shrine that is actually relatively young but still a biggie for Tokyo. I’d totally forgotten I’d been there before, but at New Years — which is a totally different experience. Rather than being packed shoulder-to-shoulder with people, we got to meander down a ?half-mile? wooded trail to the shrine itself. AJ was less impressed with the structure than with the “special leaf” she found; Toph meanwhile waxed rhapsodic about the rocks, which he was going to hold as he climbed the trees to play with the monkeys. (Note: There are no monkeys at Meiji Jingu.)

 Toph at his peripatetic best in front of a torii gate

AJ really wanted to go back to the aquarium, so we booked it and made it just in time for a dolphin show — and then got to pet a dolphin after! Okay, so this wasn’t in any way a Japanese experience, but I think it might have been my touristy highlight of the trip. His name was Neru, and I would’ve climbed in and given him a big, wet hug if we weren’t running late for dinner.

For a mere 700 yen (about $7.50), we got to pet one of the dolphin show’s stars

Once again, poor Toph fell asleep on the train ride back to the hotel (he did a lot of that), so he and Dave ended up skipping our first big Japanese meal: dinner at a tempura restaurant with Mieko (my namesake and grandmother of the bride), Mikio (Mieko’s husband), Shiori (the bride), Masato (the groom), and my mom (who had just arrived). AJ somehow survived this many-hour meal, although by the end she was pleading to go home. No wonder — it was 10:30pm! She didn’t try anything but plain rice, but Mom and I both really enjoyed ourselves, and our hosts made us feel so special. (Shiori & Masato even met Mom at the airport.)

A very, very short version without pix for anyone who wants to know what we did but not actually read my rambling accounts, or who just doesn’t want to wait for them. I’ll post the longer versions, hopefully with a few pix, bit by bit as I have time, and you all know exactly how fast I am at that sort of thing. 

Sunday/Monday: We survived the flights with a surprising lack of drama. Post-flight was harder, but still no tragedy of epic proportions. Phew. Asleep by 8:30pm.

Tuesday:  Everyone woke up between 1am and 3am. Whee! Went to the aquarium — twice! — and Meiji Jingu (shrine). Dinner at McDonald’s (for Dave and Toph, who was too tired to survive the big dinner) and a really nice tempura restaurant (for me and AJ) with Mom, Mieko (namesake), Mikio (Mieko’s husband), Shiori (bride), Masato (groom).

Wednesday: A long morning at the Ueno Zoo with Mom, dinner at Mieko and Mikio’s home.

Thursday: Walking tour — in the pouring rain, which was actually a nice chance from stifling heat and humidity — of Asakusa with the whole Vargus crew (Jilda, Becka, Rob, and Oliver had joined us by this point). We hit Nakamise Dori, okonomiyake lunch, the Drum Museum, and Kappabashi Dori.

Friday: Our fancy private bus tour of Kamakura with Hiko (uncle of bride/Mieko’s son) and Ikuko (Hiko’s wife), followed by dinner at a yakitori restaurant.

Saturday: The wedding! (Important supporting role by AJ as ring girl)

Sunday: Post-wedding brunch, shopping on the east side of Tokyo with Eiko (mother of bride/Mieko’s daughter), Shiori, Masato, and the Vargus girls (Dave & Rob watched the kids), Chinese dinner with all of Shiori’s family.

Monday: Goodbye breakfast with the rest of the Vargi, then car trip to Eiko’s home in Shizuoka prefecture. Quiet night at “home,” aside from dinner at a Japanese-Italian restaurant with Eiko and Hiroshi (father of bride).

Tuesday: A day at the Shizunami Beach, then made lasagna for dinner with Eiko and Shiori.

Wednesday: Time to leave: car, train, Shinkansen, train, plane, plane, car — home 25 hours later, still on Wednesday.