It’s Sunday on a week where we haven’t done much school work at all… So today, we catch up on Norwegian homework. We’re a week ahead of schedule because they took a week off mid autumn, but we didn’t, so we can go to Bangkok on Friday without having to stress about Norwegian homework deadlines. Maylin is in “grade 1” and learning the basics. Here is one of her submittals this week:
Joe has a task: His sister wants a knife after seeing (and hearing Joe’s praise of) our new knife! So today, he sets out for Tower Knives back at Shinsekai. The girls and I have schoolwork to complete before we go join him for lunch.
When we finally get out the door and walk towards the train station, I finally take the picture I’ve wanted to take for so long. Right now I’m struggling with “perfect is the enemy of the good”, meaning I don’t want to share our everyday struggles of bikes and cars blocking sidewalks, because I can’t get the “perfect” picture for you. So here you go, an imperfect illustration of how bikes are most often parked completely blocking the sidewalk, and cars most often half off and half on, all forcing us (with kids!) to walk in the middle of the road.
When we finally make it to Shinsekai, it’s after 1pm, and Joe is fading away. He’s been drooling outside a ramen restaurant “for hours” waiting for us, and so we finally sit down and order.
After lunch, we went stamp hunting. There are postcards and the same multi-stamp system as the cranes in Hiroshima, but you have to go hunting for each of the stamps. I think there are 7 in total, and we located 3 or 4. Oh well. BUT! We did find some other cool places that we hadn’t discovered yet, as the hunt for stamps took us down new-to-us streets. Like the Pringles store:
From Shinsekai, we walked over to Abeno Q, we joke about it because it gets so crazy busy on weekends, and I swore off weekend visits early on. I lost, and we’ve been there quite a few Sundays since. We went looking for a few things we needed, and we’re in a state of panic, so if we think we may need it, it goes in the cart. Maylin ended up with Pokémon themed, self-heating eye masks, and is loving them! (She’s already the girl who falls asleep in 30 seconds flat, but now she’s practically asleep the moment she puts the mask on!)
Joe suddenly messages me that he found a table at the food court (IMPOSSIBLE! ON A SUNDAY??) and it’s time for a snack. We grab a couple of highly disappointing bubble teas (trying new things don’t always lead to success) and the girls eat a couple of orange and mango tarts – very mass produced, crumbly cake-like, and not the perfect silky confection we thought of when we read the menu…
On the bus home, I stay on one stop more than Joe and the girls. I am heading to the pharmacy to get something to heal my heels. Walking this much is wrecking havoc on my poor feet! (They were never great to begin with…) So I shop my heart out, picking up two new remedies, in addition to the gel socks I picked up at Abeno Q earlier.
So I take my time and browse just about ALL the shelves. Joe thinks the Japanese cold medicine (yellow powder to mix with water which tastes TERRIBLE) is the best cold medicine he’s ever met, so I pick up another pack of that to bring on the rest of our trip. I also look through the candy aisle, as this is where we found Téa’s Baskin Robbins charm and candies, and we’ve never found them anywhere else since. But today, I find the below candy, and I have to use my translator. Is it for dogs? Is it for people? I can’t figure it out! I then use my translator and ask a nice couple for help. They ALSO seem unsure, but we see the placement, in between all the other human candies, and decide it MUST be for human consumption. The girls are going to LOVE this!
While I’m shopping, Joe is cooking up a tofu pasta dinner, and we end the night watching a movie. I’m sleeping less and less, wanting Japan to last as long as possible. It’s incredible how much better I’ve slept here, despite the hard floor and thin mattresses. I’m more relaxed now than I’ve been in years, my heart rate and sleep scores on my fitbit show that I’m probably more in my element here and now than I have been for a long time. So now, going backwards and staying up late in the evenings, dreading departure, will probably force me to shut down before long. Wish me luck!