I live in Tokyo....

Well, we've been here for nearly two months now.  I don't even know where to begin.  There's so much to say.  Why don't I just post a lot of pictures with captions...

When we arrived in Japan after 20 hours of traveling, during which Lyla slept for only about an hour and Sawyer was a complete angel, we checked into our hotel and enjoyed a lovely bath in our outrageously deep Japanese bathtub.

Here's Lyla modeling her hotel bathrobe still super energetic despite being awake for an insanely long time.

This is what Tokyo looks like.

The next morning we checked in to our temporary, serviced apartment for the next month while we looked for a place to stay.  Serviced apartment means we lived in a glorified hotel room for a month.  They cleaned the place and replaced the towels and sheets twice a week! Heaven. It was a little less than 700 square feet, but amazingly it felt pretty spacious thanks to the fact that we only had a couple of suit cases AND Japan's expertise in designing livable itsy, bitsy spaces.

Here I am showing off the washing machine.  Having a washing machine in my apartment is novel for me.  We've been taking our laundry to laundromats/rooms for almost our entire married lives.  In case you were wondering, that's 8 years.

The best part about our temporary place was the view from our 32nd floor windows.  This is the famous Hie Jinja shrine.  Since we arrived during the Japanese New Year celebration we were able to join in with some of the festivities at the temple.  We clapped our hands, said a prayer, and rang the prayer bell.  We also bought some tasty street food.

Here you can see Japan's capital building.

Of course, the scenery of sleeping children is always my favorite view.

Since we didn't have many toys, our favorite activities included making couch cushion forts and...

Taking baths.  Lyla loves to play in the bath, although it's hard to believe it after looking at this picture.

If up until this point you have not been impressed with Jonathan's abilities, you will be now:

This is what a bento lunch looks like.  We ate out a lot.

We also ordered delivery a lot.  This is what cheap Japanese delivery looks like.  They come back to pick up the dishes later.

After a lot of looking and a lot of debating we settled on a little apartment in a neighborhood called Shoto, which is just next to Shibuya (a central metro area of Tokyo), and about a 10 minute walk to the Shibuya metro station. We moved in at the beginning of February along with a very small shipment of our things (just our beds, a few pots and pans, some toys, and books).  We were excited about this apartment because it has a fenced in patio area where Sawyer and Lyla can run around and be free (and hopefully stay out of my hair...oh yea, I'm an awesome mom.) The things that I will remember most about our apartment search were that we were all, but particularly Sawyer, extraordinarily sick.  Sawyer had coughing fits so violent and prolonged that he would vomit.  Imagine a sick toddler stuck in a car for hours upon hours...it was not a happy time for any of us.  But Kaz, our handsome real-estate agent (or at least Lyla thought he was...this started Lyla's obsession with Japanese men.  She can't get enough if them), really pulled through and negotiated a rental contract on our behalf that we couldn't be happier with.

Here's Lyla playing on the patio.

In this video, which is mostly boring but has a couple of worthwhile gems, you will see Sawyer reunited with his beloved lightsabers.  You will also see him speak in what he believes is Japanese.  And finally, Sawyer will mesmerize you with his Jedi fighting skills:



We had two huge snow storms during the first weeks in our new apartment.  Each time we had about a foot of snow.  These were the biggest snow storms to hit Tokyo in over 45 years.  We were actually out and about during one of the storms.  We didn't realize how bad it was getting until it was too late.  We were out traipsing around until we sought refuge at a ramen shop.  The soup was so warming and so delicious that we were able to make it the rest of the way home on foot!  It was hard work dragging Sawyer the whole way since he just wanted to stomp around in the snow, but we all made it home still warm from our hot noodle soup.

Here's a lantern in our back yard.

Here's the stuck out in the snow, ramen day:

Sawyer liked to practice his jumping while we were stuck inside.

Tokyo doesn't own snow plows.  So, as you can imagine, a foot of snow is crippling for the city.

Sawyer and Lyla loved to go furniture shopping with us.  We bought our first dinning room table.  I will post a picture of it, and the rest of our apartment soon.

Here's Lyla Charming her latest Japanese man crush in the line to go to Ikea.

We like the iPad because it really brings the family together.  

So does The Land Before Time.

Sawyer got this balloon for being good while we shopped for curtains....I hate shopping for curtains.

Valentine's Day in Japan is a total rip off.  On Valentine's Day in Japan women give men chocolates.  What?! Apparently, March 14th is White Day, and this is when women get gifts of adoration. Here's Jonathan's stash.  I took the kids to a Chocolate expo at a fancy department store and now Sawyer is obsessed with samples.  Whenever he sees a toothpick his little heart flutters at the memory of chocolate melting in his mouth, over and over again.

We were really bored this day...

And then finally, on February 21st our stuff arrived.  All of it.  After being on a container ship for two months, not a thing was broken.  We graduated from living out of a suitcase to having closets FULL of stuff.  It's amazing the things that you don't need, but that you have and keep.  We are still setting up house, but are nearly done.  I'll post pictures of the finished product soon.