I'm back. As usual, I got home many hours before I left, thanks to the International Dateline. We got up early on Wednesday, ran around for one last morning of fun, and gave ourselves severely sore feet as a special memento of our vacation. We took the airporter bus for an hour and a half to Narita, and then sat around for two hours after checking in. Night was falling as our plane pulled back from the gate. We spent next nine hours in the air, slept for four of them during which it was dark outside, and got to San Jose at 10 a.m. on ... Wednesday morning. It's very, very confusing to travel east from Asia or Australia to the US. I'm tired and hungry, and my body isn't sure what to do next. So I let my mind take over, and my mind says update!
None of the photos I took in Japan are developed yet, naturally, but here's a handy digital camera photo showing off some of the great gifts I bought in Tokyo. I left out the hand painted vase, the watercolor original, my Mt. Fuji t-shirt, and assorted bits and pieces like frog rubber stamps, paper clips, plaid umbrella, etc., luckily for you. I spent every penny I had, and I'm thrilled by what I selected. I may never go back to Japan again, so I tried to get things which I couldn't buy at home. This is pointless, actually, as I can obtain nearly anything I want from the Japantown stores in San Francisco, but this way I have the thrill of remembering where I was when I bought each treasured souvenir.
You see the Totoro and the Nekobus, of course. I could buy them via the Internet from home, but what fun would that be? I found these at a doll shop on Harumi-dori in the Ginza. Then I bought an iris scarf at the garden next to the Meiji Shrine even though the iris garden wasn't in bloom yet (the one in the Imperial Gardens was so I did see some iris). There are also three yukatas, the cotton robes people wear while sitting around in the evenings or to sleep in. I bought a great fan at Asakusa because it was so hot -- I loved the miffed expression on the cat's face! There's a bunch of inexplicable advertising on display as well, specifically the Pokopoko Pea Snacks with an angry looking pea character, the actually quite edible Horn cookie, and the ever popular Crunky candy bar.
What you can't see, because they're wrapped, are the six sets of Three Wise Monkeys obtained at Nikko as gifts for the people in the office who took my calls and followed up on my work while I was flitting about Hokkaido. Well, you can see two of the green wrapped boxes by the cat fan. Tiny, inexpensive, cute, and will look well on a computer which is my chief object when buying gifts for the office personnel.
I expect to write a little more about Japan, but for now this will do. I had a great time. The week just flew. Unlike my normal vacation mode I got out and ran around seeing things every single day. We didn't have any problem with jetlag, though we tended to go to bed and get up about two hours earlier than we normally do. That was fine, though. We didn't have the money to seek out the Tokyo nightlife (3000 yen cover charges were normal), and we did want to get going early to avoid the heat and humidity each day. It was in the 80s the whole time we were there, and we were grateful for the superior ability of the Tokyo subway lines to air condition their stations. If it had been New York we would have expired from heat exhaustion on the spot, I think, what with the amazing amount of stairs and levels involved in the basic subway platform location.
It was a complete break from our routine, and a welcome one. On the other hand, I'm glad to be back with my pets and I'll be very glad to sleep in my own bed tonight. But I will miss the Japanese proliferation of cold drink vending machines. It's going to be hard to get used to not buying my coffee in a can whenever I want.
I sent the postcards, by the way. Buying and mailing a grand total of 43 postcards cost -- are you ready for this? -- 6000 yen, or about $55 USD. It was a fun project. I rubber stamped each one in an attempt to personalize them. So hey, enjoy the heck out of your postcard when it arrives, okay? It was a true labor of love from me to you. Arigato gozaimasu.
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