Three years ago, Andy got a call from his teaching company in Japan telling him to buy a ticket for the next day and leave immediately before the country closed its border due to Covid. We drove through the night and dropped him off at the airport in Portland and he left over two weeks early to start his English teaching adventure in Tokyo.
When Japan finally reopened in October of 2022, we decided to make the trip to see him. And so in March of 2023 we hopped a plane from Vancouver, BC and flew the over 10 hours (skipping most of a day in the process) to Haneda Airport in Tokyo.
While we didn't get to sit next to each other on the flight, I did get to sit next to a mom and her two little girls taking a trip to visit family. Thankfully, all of our prep work made getting through quarantine, immigration and customs a breeze and Andy was there to meet us after we got our luggage to help us get our SIM card and IC card (a handy little card that you can load with cash and use to tap and pay for train fares, vending machines and many stores) and navigate the complicated train/bus/subway/monorail system to our hotel.
We dropped our bags at the hotel, grabbed a light bite to eat at the local Lawson's convenience store and went to Andy's apartment.
Looking down after dropping off our bags
Japanese convenience stores are everything they should be and ours in the US are not: located everywhere with good quality, cheap, easy to fix or ready to eat items.
Andy's apartment is in a small, older building near a station and shopping. He has a cute little kitchen, tiny bathroom, living/office space and a bedroom with a balcony where his washer and drying racks are located.
Since we didn't have to catch the train until 11 the next morning, we took some time to wander the tree-lined walking path next to our hotel. The cherry blossoms were lovely in the lamplight at night...
Our hotel room was small but clean and even had house slippers to wear after we took off our shoes...
When we climbed out the window onto the balcony, we realized it also had a pretty view...
the cherry blossoms were even pretty from above
we could see Skytree Tower in the distance
Then I put my phone, glasses and journal on the head board (literally a couple of boards attached to the wall at the head of the bed) and went to sleep on the first of a few small, hard, uncomfortable beds with horrible pillows...
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