I arrived in Tokyo on Tuesday, Japan time, after taking off with Grandma and Grandpa on Monday noon DC time. Deanne met us at the airport, then we swung over to the next gate to grab Valerie, and the gang had successfully been assembled!
We made it to the apartment we were renting, dropped off the luggage, then hooked up our devices to the mobile WIFI hotspot. Valerie took off - Ben is also not-quite-randomly-but-definitely-serendipitously also in Japan, and the three of us had dinner at the Italian restaurant just downstairs.
Wednesday I hopped off to work, while Grandma, Grandpa, and Deanne saw Mount Fuji. Dinner was near Tokyo Station at a giant mall. We first had taken the elevator all the way up, not realizing that the prices scaled with the height. We eventually found our ramen place on the fifth floor to be quite nice.
Thursday was the day in Tokyo, where they saw some gardens and parks and shrines and went up Tokyo Tower. I met them at the bottom of the tower, and we split up for dinner - Ben, Valerie, and I cruised to Ebisu for some Japanese pub fare. A pair of men helped us by ordering for us - we ended up with an odd mix of sashimi, soup, and spring rolls.
Today, I needed to get my rail pass, since the rest of the crew had picked theirs up the day before. I left the very tight apartment while others were playing musical chairs with the single shower and grabbed mine before returning back to an empty apartment and a shower all to myself. (I suppose it would have been just mine regardless, but still.)
I've sincerely enjoyed meeting and having lunch with the office here in Tokyo. (Sushi, Indian, and soba, in case anyone was wondering what lunch was during the week.) They are small, have a great sense of camaraderie and humor, and genuinely cared about me coming. There wasn't a whole lot of analysis going on that I could watch, but I did help them with a bug or two.
I left work tonight and headed back to the station to meet up with the family and Ben. We finally found a strip of restaurants that all looked good, and we had a great family-style meal of salad, spring folks, gyoza, various cooked meats, and - my favorite - a mochi squid pancake. (I had mochi for dessert too as we picked up our final breakfast worth of food at a much more sophisticated 7-11 than we're used to. I love the texture of mochi.)
Sleep, eat, (working, for me), and repeat! I have been loving the food, so it is perfect. Tomorrow is on to Kyoto, and a thankfully bigger house!
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