Here's another post with extensive trip narration provided by Paula. Once again, my words are in black and hers are in blue:
Monday was our beach trip. Weird to have to take little country roads everywhere, but we saw them extending the expressway at one point. ...we couldn't swim anywhere, just where the little fenced off area was... when we sat down a little ways away where there were no pebbles, a lifeguard made a point of coming over & motioning to us "no swimming" by making swimming motions & then making an X with his hands. We got the idea...after walking around forever looking for a good place, I convinced the girls we didn't have all afternoon & had better get in the water. And that was lots of fun. I could see why it was roped off... the bottom dropped off VERY quickly & the undertow was very strong. But the fun part about the bottom going from knee-depth to waist-depth almost immediately is that the waves would surge in & get really big but break a lot later than we're used to, so most people had floaties & just went up & down with the waves. We enjoyed it even without floaties, like a giant wave pool but real. And the water temperature was perfect, not too cold & not too warm. We couldn't see California, though...
Monday was our beach trip. Weird to have to take little country roads everywhere, but we saw them extending the expressway at one point. ...we couldn't swim anywhere, just where the little fenced off area was... when we sat down a little ways away where there were no pebbles, a lifeguard made a point of coming over & motioning to us "no swimming" by making swimming motions & then making an X with his hands. We got the idea...after walking around forever looking for a good place, I convinced the girls we didn't have all afternoon & had better get in the water. And that was lots of fun. I could see why it was roped off... the bottom dropped off VERY quickly & the undertow was very strong. But the fun part about the bottom going from knee-depth to waist-depth almost immediately is that the waves would surge in & get really big but break a lot later than we're used to, so most people had floaties & just went up & down with the waves. We enjoyed it even without floaties, like a giant wave pool but real. And the water temperature was perfect, not too cold & not too warm. We couldn't see California, though...
Stayed in the water for at least 45 minutes, then we got out & I told the girls if they wanted time to dry off, they'd better go back in now, but no, they were fine. Pretty soon we saw Shinya coming to find us & we all went back up to find the showers. So a lot of driving for not a whole lotta beach time, but at least we can say we saw the other side of the Pacific.
Tuesday we had wanted to get up early to get to Tokyo, but the girls were tired so we left a little later than we had intended & met Rob's friend Mondo at 9:15 in Ueno. I had met Mondo 2 years ago in Portland when he was Rob's roommate. He asked what we wanted to do, & we immediately said "Tower Records" in Shibuya, the trendy shopping area. Spent a very enjoyable hour there, although in hindsight we should've done that last so we weren't carrying shopping bags around all day... decided to go to TGI Friday's for lunch. Got a nice table in the corner & it was early but after a while people started trickling in including a couple of American businessmen with a Japanese businessman. I can only imagine the suffering of whoever has to do all the businessmen's laundry with the long-sleeves & ties in that humidity.
I think after that was when we found the Disney store, which Rob said we seemed to enjoy almost as much as Disney Sea. A cute little castle around the entrance, & the stairs up to the 2nd floor went through a couple little rooms like Mickey's house in Toontown & then up a spiral staircase, very original!
We had Haagen-Dazs... then we walked for a looong time up towards Harajuku, interesting stores but the girls & I were getting pretty hot. Stopped at a Uniqlo (short for Unique Clothing I guess) and found a t-shirt. Laura wanted to look at Levi's across street but since the jeans were close to $100 we passed... Mondo said they sold specialty stuff there. Then turned on a little alley that went toward another station that was cram-jammed with little shops, paper lanterns, and PEOPLE everywhere. I just can't imagine it being any more crowded in evenings or weekends. Lots of atmosphere, got great pictures!
Finally we found the station & took the subway to the emperor's garden; it was nice to step out near a big bare park with a moat (around the palace) & a swan... looked around there for a while & the kids were getting really tired of walking (as was I)... I think Rob had a hard time grasping that we didn't have the same level of energy that he did for walking around Tokyo. I'd wear different shoes next time... we walked back to the station, got out near Tokyo Tower (Eiffel Tower knockoff that is of course 13 meters higher than the Eiffel tower) Took the elevator to the top & enjoyed the tremendous view... we'd wanted to take another elevator up to the next observation deck, but the line didn't move for a long time so we gave up. I promised the girls we could take a taxi back to the train station, it was standing room only but finally in about 10 minutes we were at the main station where we could get on the shinkansen & sit down, wherein they promptly fell asleep.
I think a great time was had by all (including me!) The long picture I included is stitched together from two that I took from the Tokyo Tower. It should look good when you click on it and see it in a separate window. (Besides stitching two pictures together, I also "Photoshopped out" a window beam-all you perfectionists and graphic artists out there, see if you can find where (it's really not that hard to find, I didn't work at it that hard)). Thanks for letting me borrow your travel summaries, Paula.
I think a great time was had by all (including me!) The long picture I included is stitched together from two that I took from the Tokyo Tower. It should look good when you click on it and see it in a separate window. (Besides stitching two pictures together, I also "Photoshopped out" a window beam-all you perfectionists and graphic artists out there, see if you can find where (it's really not that hard to find, I didn't work at it that hard)). Thanks for letting me borrow your travel summaries, Paula.
