Fall

Well, we arrived back in Tokyo to an empty apartment, quite literally. For our first several days in our place, we ate out for every meal & the whole family was sleeping on an air mattress with a single pillow and blanket.

I am happy to report that over the last couple of months(!) our domestic situation has dramatically improved. Our air shipment was delivered 4 or 5 days after we'd landed, and with it Robert's mattress, blankets, pillows, and the basic kitchen necessities required to prepare and consume food. Several weeks thereafter, we received the rest of our things from the US, and I am happy to report that we are now all moved in!

We even have curtains & light fixtures. Evidently, Japan has standardized its light-fixture socket situation better than the US. When we moved in, the ceiling in our living room had a couple of strange looking sockets. We took careful measurements of them, then went to Tokyu Hands to try and locate a fixture that would fit. As it turns out, we had our pick as almost all of the fixtures in the store were compatible with our sockets. So without further ado, here's a picture of our living room & light fixture:



Now that September is almost over, the weather has cooled enough that it's pleasant to spend time outdoors. Robert and I have been exploring some of the parks in the area and getting a lot of mosquito bites in the process! There is a really excellent park near our place called "Himonya Koen". It has a nice playground, a petting zoo (dogs, rabbits and guinea pigs), pony rides for $1.50, and there are rowboats available for tooling around the pond that's in the middle of the park.

On another note, here's a picture of our son practicing to be on a Japanese gameshow:


We are a bit further out of central Tokyo than we were at our last place, but our apartment is still quite accessible; it is a 10-15 minute walk from Meguro station on the Yamanote train line, and just a couple of blocks off of Meguro-dori, the same street that our old apartment was on. I still ride my bike to work, but it takes a couple of minutes longer now -- 14 minutes instead of 12. Go ahead and cry for me if you need to.

Our new address is:

14-11 Meguro 3-Chome, Meguro Hills #202
Meguro-Ku, Tokyo, 153-0063

Here is a link on google maps: Ours is the upper right-hand balcony.

and we still have a telephone number in the US (thanks to Skype): 415-508-4025.

The next time we will be in the US is over Christmas. Right now it looks like we will be in Eastern Washington over Christmas and Lacey over New Years before finishing up in grand style with a vacation on the coast before heading back to Tokyo. We are also planning a trip to Thailand and perhaps Singapore in late October or early November.