Trippin with the kids

SO I suppose that trippin is not a verb, at least not in the sense that I wish to use it in.  But we did go on a trip together.  A "fly by the seat of our pants" trip to Tokyo (to lazy to hyphenate so quotes instead)!  Well there was some planning since I had to make a hotel reservation and appointments at the American Embassy a month in advance...but otherwise!

I, being fairly feather-minded at times, did not submit the paperwork for the children and I to get tourist passports (blue) while we were in the states.  Mine had expired and the children have never had one.  We flew into Japan on our "official passports" (red) which are issued for those traveling at the behest of the government.  Since we hope to do some traveling, and since it is considered abusing the official passport to use it for personal travel, we needed to get blue passports for everyone.  Hence a trip to the American Embassy in Tokyo.

In order to have appointments asap and close together in times and have a hotel room, I had to book everything about a month out and over a Monday night.  The plan was to take the train in on Monday, spend the night and then hit the Embassy bright and early on Tuesday followed by a train ride home.  Jon did not come with since it was over a week night, not that he got to relax, true to form he had to work late that night.

The train ride was fun, four trains with one long ride and multiple shorter rides got us to Tokyo.  It took a bit longer than my Japanese Train App promised since I had to figure out what direction to go at each stop.  A lot of people helped us out.  Basically I pointed at my phone and the station it listed as our next stop and looked confused.  They figured it out and held up fingers to indicate the platform number.  Jon hates that kind of thing, but it all worked out fine for me.  We finally made it to our stop and walked about 10 minutes to the New Sanno Hotel.

This swanky place is the Tokyo playground for the military and its dependents.  You have to be active duty, retired, or civil servant (or family) with ID to book a room and they check ids at the entrance, just like on a military base.  It is quite nice: a bunch of restaurants, some NEX (base) shops, a spa and a great pool.  I had timed it to miss the massive boondoggle that is rush hour in Tokyo (they literally hire people to PUSH commuters into the trains so the doors shut).  That put us at the hotel around 3:30pm.  We had a light meal, explored and then hit the pool.  After I pulled them all out due to blue lips we fixed ourselves back up and went walking around the area.  There is a big park near the train station, so we meandered our way up there passing the French Embassy and a neat looking shrine.  It was odd seeing all the caucasians on the street and thinking "big city they can speak English" only to hear responses in French.  It was a great park, however Io did not enjoy the massive rock stair while in her stroller.  Next time she will be in the backpack!  At twilight we headed back.  Found a 31 flavors which I cruelly passed by, as well as many cute clothing shops and a grocery store.

Some of  you may remember Felix the cat; it turns out he is still big in Japan and is the spokesman for this grocery store chain.  Better than an anthropomorphic cactus I guess.  I don't think I will ever understand the draw of Japanese advertizing.  (Possibly because I am such a horrible artist :-)

We had dinner at the hotel's Japanese restaurant.  They had hibachi grills like at the Japanese steak houses in the states, but they have an age limit, so we were stuck at a table.  My kids have loved those grills since infancy, the fire scared them a little, but that just meant they leaned back not forward at the important tricks.  Ah well.  With some very understanding wait staff we had a nice meal and finally wandered off to bed a bit to late and quite tired!

Now, our room was somewhat cramped with a queen bed and a sofa bed pulled out, but you should have lain on the queen bed.  It was heavenly, I know this because I had about 4 hours of sleep on it.  My dear Thor 'decided' to have a lovely bout of croup that evening.  Our room was fairly warm and it was humid and the outside was not better, plus he was battling my coughing cold.  Finally around 3am I raided the ice machine and had him sit with his head in the ice bucket, chewing ice cubes and doing my best to ease the coughing.  Big all-nighter in Tokyo!  Oh Yeah!

Eventually he was able to ease back asleep and I got a couple more hours in the lovely bed before the alarm went off (and another hour where I convinced myself to get up).  We hit breakfast and had the bellhop call us a cab to the Embassy.

An American Embassy in my head has always been a great place of mystery.  Secret meetings, guard that will catch you as you are being chased by the hostile government of you host country, falling into their arms shouting "I am an American!",  a big antechamber with art and a feel of America in the center of a foreign world.  Turns out not so much.  The gates were closed and fortified and the guards were Japanese men.  I understand having some Japanese there since so many people were in line for visas, but all of them! There were two lines for entrance, one for those applying for visas, very long, and one line for American citizens (and handicapped) which was blessedly short.  We gave them my cell phone and cameras and went through multiple metal detectors, first at the entry building and then again at the administrative building, where I also had to leave the stroller outside...luckily I brought the baby backpack!  I love the kid, but Io likes to explore and lets you know it when she feels thwarted.  Putting her in the backpack prevents this without most of the yelling. 

We arrived inside just before 9am, our appointment time.  (Yeah me, even with security we were on time!)
The appointments stretched from 9am to 10:45am but they were kind enough to run all of our paperwork at once.  Jonathan had it all set for them in separate folders, I am sure they thought I was very methodical and organized:-)  I gave them the folders, stood by the kids while she worked her way through it, went and paid, show the receipt, waited and then was called over to raise my right hand and swear that all of the information was truthful.  Alexandra and Thor each gave their ages and said I was their mommy.  Normally Thor would have been super shy, but there was a microphone he got to talk into so he was loud and clear.  Io did not really confirm anything.  She gave me back our official passports (very important!) and we were on our way.  It took just over an hour.  We had hoped to explore a bit, but other than walking up some lovely stairs to the main building there did not seem to be much to see.  More security, which would have been a hassle, and no fancy foyers, just halls and meeting rooms, which may have been decked out, but they were not about to show me.  I was a bit disappointed in that, plus Jon said they are more likely to shoot you than save you if you come running towards the gates so I was quite disillusioned by the time we were done.  However our passports should be processing and may even be here before we head stateside later this month.

After realizing that we should have waited in front of the Embassy for a taxi instead of starting the walk and finding our own, I finally flagged one down.  New Sanno was kind enough to include a taxi card in the room information.  On one side it said I want to go to XXX and listed some major attractions, the other side said I want to go to the New Sanno, this is how you get there, all of it was in English AND Japanese.  The taxi driver was ~quite~ relieved. 

We went back and tossed on the swimsuits for a quick swim before checkout.  It was a cloudy day so we nixed going to the Tokyo Tower (no view) and headed back to the trains and home.  We made it home in time for Alexandra to have her first swim lesson.

All in all a successful trip.  Hopefully next time we can take the time to really explore and maybe even bring Jon with.

As and aside we are headed stateside for the second trip of the year.  Ten days in Illinois, a week in Florida and 10 days in New Jersey then home again.  Jon has to go for work and we are tagging along.  The government won't let him mess with the airlines so I get to fly with the kids, he said he is upgrading to first class.  Just because he can.  At least I don't have to wake up for work at 5am tomorrow.  :-)