An afternoon in Tokyo and the Shiodome Illumination Show

Ahh a quiet morning with a cup of coffee and some Christmas music! Bonj took the cub on his run this morning (much to our cub's dismay, he was not ready to leave mama). Why is it still so hard to watch him scream and reach for me, when I know he'll be fine? The struggle...

We didn't really have any particular agenda yesterday, so we hopped the (local) train into Tokyo! Big mistake! We heard how the local stops at every station on the way, but we didn't quite grasp what that meant.  It meant an hour and a half of standing in a too hot train with a squirming, shouting, toddler that wanted anything but to be worn. Whoops! We made sure to get on a rapid express train home, much faster!

Enjoying some quiet time before our journey into Tokyo.

We found ourselves at Tokyo Station with no idea how to exit! This is becoming somewhat of a reoccurring theme for us.  The stations are clearly marked for the different train lines, but finding an exit sign is much more difficult.  Tokyo Station is HUGE! We ended up winding our way through an overly crowded food court with "pushy old ladies" according to Bonj. Apparently he caught a few elbows. Once we emerged from the hustle and bustle inside, we weren't sure where to go.  Initially we planned on going to the Imperial Gardens, but then Bonj wasn't so sure he felt like doing that anymore. Plus it was on the other side of the station, which seemed like a daunting task to get back through that labyrinth of tunnels! I should try and find a map of this station to post here.  So we decided we'd just start walking and see where it led us.  We ended up at an 8 story department building that resembled Macy's in NYC from the outside.  The department stores here are all open floorplan and the shops flow from one to the next, with no distinct separation. We knew we were in a swanky place when the number of employees greatly outnumbered the number of shoppers.  We couldn't read anything on the directory, so we hopped on the escalator and explored floor by floor.  By the 6th floor we hit babyland.  I was beyond excited to find a play area for kids, but our cub was even more excited. So I quick pulled his shoes off and sent him into the play area.  He befriended a jolly Japanese boy right away and us parents gave each other nods and smiles. Their little boy kept giving me great big smiles, which set his parents into shy giggles.  So I started making faces back at him and then he really got into it! Not long after his parents loaded him up in his plush stroller bunting and he was not happy about it (I secretly enjoy seeing the Japanese children scream and cry, it makes me feel like we can bond in some way).

This was a cool funnel type toy.  Another little Japanese boy was playing so sweetly on his own, until our cub came over and helped himself.  So I'd take the balls away from our cub and hand them to the other little boy and his grandpa would say "Arrigato" and looked pleased.  Maybe I did something right?

I found a cool pop up Christmas book for our cub and it's all in Kanjii.  I'll have to use Google Translate to see what it actually says. I thought it would make a cool souvenir for our Christmas book collection. Trying to find the checkout was a task in itself, remember how I mentioned the stores are all open... I walked around the area where I found the book, found a whole bunch of Hello Kitty stuff that didn't seem to fit so thought I was probably in the wrong department at that point.  I found a few checkout looking stands that had employees furiously wrapping people's purchases and thought I must be getting closer... I finally saw a lady with a flag in her hand in the air, an armband, and a line of people behind her. I got in that line. Success!

Oh, and a bonus of the department store, they had "western toilets" and "japanese toilets." I was so grateful for the western toilet! I haven't tried a Japanese toilet yet, but I know the day is coming when I won't have a choice! I admit I hovered at the sink when a Japanese lady came in so I could see which one she picked.  She went straight for the Japanese toilet!

Japanese toilet.

American toilet, in all it's glory.

When we were walking toward the department store, we noticed the roof appeared to be a huge garden! So we wanted to check that out before we left. We found the elevator and were greeted by a gloved elevator attendant. Too fancy! The elevator door was gold bars you could look through, the walls were red velvet, and the attendant controlled the door.  Once we reached the roof we realized it was all closed up for winter. Darn! So we waited for the fancy elevator to take us back to the bottom. I wanted a picture of the elevator, but we were packed in with no wiggle room.

Bonj found a character street he wanted to walk over to that was close by.  This ended up being a wild goose chase.  Google Maps has been great for the trains, but walking it is less than ideal.  When he said it was on the other side of Tokyo Station, I groaned and asked if there was a way to walk AROUND the station, rather than THROUGH that chaos. Nope. So we ventured back in... One quirk of the train passes, you can't just walk through a station and not get on a train. It messes up your pass somehow, so we had to find an alternate route through.  After some not so nice exchanges between the two of us, I found a passageway one floor down that let us walk to the other side.  Once we got there, his map updated and showed the character street on the other side of the station. What?! We found an area map of the station and the streets surrounding it, so we tried to compare buildings to where this street supposedly was.  It kept showing it in an alley or something, but I thought it looked like it might be one of the many tunnels in the station.  We walked back to the other side of the station, and ended up exactly where we had started.  At this point we scrapped it.  We'd spent over an hour searching for this character street and we were both frustrated and starting to pick at each other.  The silver lining, our cub had fallen asleep!

We agreed we should pick an illumination to go visit that was relatively close to where we were at to wrap up our trip.  So we picked the Shiodome. Oh great, back into Tokyo Station... Surprisingly, we found our train with little difficulty this time.  Hmm, maybe all of our walking through this darn station is paying off? We jump onto our train as the doors are closing (the run up the stairs to catch it woke up the cub, sigh...but he was in a good mood, so not all is lost!).

The illumination was "Beauty and the Beast" themed. They played a lot of the soundtrack and had the lights change along with the music.  For a country that doesn't really celebrate Christmas, they go all out on these illuminations! I love it! It was really windy and cold watching this illumination, so we didn't stay for all of it.  We walked into the mall next to it and found a tasty dinner spot.  The KungFu Kitchen that had all sorts of Jackie Chan murals.

The table next to us had a cute little girl that was interested in our cub.  When we left, we gave her this balloon bear we got at the department store earlier.  We tried to alter it, so it wasn't such a dirty bear though. Haha!

On our way back to the train station, we saw this unique Christmas tree display.  At first I wondered why they were all wrapped in nets, but after the first wall of wind hit us, I didn't have to wonder any more.

And that pretty much wraps up our afternoon in Tokyo yesterday.  We found our trains back home relatively easily, managed to stay off the local line and got home by 10pm.  I was sure our cub would fall asleep on the ride home, but I think he was too hot again on the train. I've also become pretty good at standing and nursing him while we cruise along.  Not sure if this is taboo or not, I've never seen a Japanese woman nursing in public, but nobody has said anything to me. It's either that or screaming, take your pick! Oh, and one last picture as I sign off.  This gem was on the fence at the station. Happy Monday all :)