Skipping Town

So May seemed to last much longer than just 31 days, and it seems crazy that we were in Barcelona just a month ago, from April 28-May 3. We'd planned the trip in a kind of covid-break fever, along with our trip to Mexico--with numbers low (back at the beginning of the year) and all of us vaxxed, it seemed like this was our chance to finally do some traveling. Andrew's fifteen-year MBA reunion was planned for May, and our discussion about how he should definitely go quickly expanded into--Hey, let's ALL go! So we pulled the kids out of school for a few days and went. Our first time back since we left in 2007. It was very very strange and exceptionally wonderful to be back. Lots has changed. It seemed much more crowded and touristy than we remembered, and there were new procedures for timed tickets to Gaudi sites and things like that. But we reconnected quickly. We rented an apartment in the Barri Gotic, a narrow four-story apartment with one room on each floor, and after dro...

We spent the past six days in Puerto Morales, a town about half an hour south of Cancun. Out of the country! Using our passports! The kids had two weeks off for Spring Break, and we were determined to do SOMETHING this year. We’d initially planned a spring break vacation in Florida, but for various reasons decided to change our plan. Instead, we spent a long weekend in Jacksonville at the start of spring break, hung out at home for a few days, then flew to Cancun for most of the second week. The plan came together quickly, as big plans tend to for us, and we booked last-minute, but still managed to get a nice double room in the all-inclusive resort we stayed at in 2018--the last time we were in Cancun. Surprisingly, we even got a direct flight from Pittsburgh. Traveling again felt just as amazing as I’d expected. We hadn’t flown internationally since our trip to Japan in November 2019. An easy flight took us from cold weather to sunny, warm Mexico--we got our bags, pushed our way throu...

In the morning, we were all packed up and ready to go, but we were up early enough to walk to the Hie Shrine in Akasaka. Lots of red flags and gates and lanterns. We saw a wedding process in. We got our temple book signed. Then we retrieved our bags from the hotel, checked out, and got a taxi to Tokyo Station, where we’d get tickets and catch our train for the airport. We had lots of time, however, and headed first to Character Street for some final shopping. Character Street is a long corridor in the train station that’s lined with shops that each feature on iconic Japanese character--Rilakkuma, Shinkansen, Disney characters, Hello Kitty. Of course the Rilakkuma store was our first stop, and both girls selected a plush. Then, then!, we spotted a Kyrutto shop--kapibaras--the mole-like creature I’ve been pining for since our last trip to Tokyo ten years ago. Finally, I got to buy my own kapibara. The girls each bought one as well. Fortified with kawaii plush, we headed for our train...

The meds are helping already. The difference in how I feel between yesterday and today is remarkable. Thank goodness. For our final full day, we decided to go to a museum--have to do at least one, right? We went to the National Art Center and chose an exhibition of contemporary Japanese art. It was as inscrutable and mystifying as most contemporary art is to me. The girls liked a video of a Japanese family in Okinawa, part of which involved a pitch-dark viewing room with only the sound of galloping horses. Who knows what it meant. Next we took a city bus to Shinjuku, a neighborhood that just seems quintessentially Tokyo: tall buildings covered in neon and video screens, everything playing music or making sounds. We shopped at a Muji and an eclectic store called Tokyo Hands. We had conveyor-belt sushi for lunch. Unfortunately, the novelty of selecting small plates from a conveyor belt did not hide the sheer hideousness of many of the dishes--lots of orange salmon eggs (small and ...

After yesterday, I knew I’d reached a point where I had to see a doctor, so after some pastries we set out for the Sanno Hospital. Andrew and the girls went back to Nikoniko Park while I settled in to wait. There were multiple steps to register and pay, not all of which I understood, but by brandishing my passport and credit card and using some miming, I was able to eventually get myself seen by a doctor. He diagnosed bronchitis and prescribed a slew of medicines, advising me to “be careful” of the antibiotic since I’m allergic to so many other ones. The pharmacy was right there at the hospital, so getting the medicines was just another step in the process (of which there were many). When I was finally released, I met Andrew and the kids at the Aoyama Itchome subway station, and we headed to Akihabara for a tempura lunch. We’d wanted to go to Akihabara because I’d found a Time Out article that listed the biggest gachapon places in Tokyo, and one of them was in that neighborhood. And...

Another day of just me and the kids. Today I took us on a walk to Roppongi, with the goal of going to the Mori Art Museum. On the way, we stumbled on a beautiful park and explored for a while. I saw Japanese daycare workers arrive with two pink laundry carts full of toddlers. We eventually reached the Roppongi Hills complex, presided over by a Louise Bourgeois spider, but it was such a gorgeous day that we decided not to do the museum after all. Instead, we found Robot Park, where the kids played for a bit. Then we headed to the Harry the Hedgehog Cafe. We did not have an easy time finding it. Even though I have GPS on my phone, and I am 100% dependent on it to get me anywhere in Tokyo, sometimes it is still hard to navigate Tokyo’s warren of streets. We wandered and wandered, doubled back, changed direction. We were all very hungry, but I couldn’t really find a good place for lunch. We bought snacks at a 7-11. Finally we did find the hedgehog cafe, and got to hold and pet hedgehogs...

The girls and I were on our own today while Andrew went to work. After a leisurely early morning of pastries and the nebulizer for Greta, Andrew left for work and the girls and I walked to the Toyokawa Inari shrine. It was beautiful, full of fox statues with the red bibs (we still don’t know what they mean). I got our temple book stamped. Then we decided to pick up where we’d left off yesterday: at Takeshita Street, with an onward walk to Kiddyland. We took the subway there (yay to me for navigating it alone!). Kiddyland is full of Japan fun--lots of Rilakkuma and Hello Kitty and Sumikko Gurashi. Everything is also quite expensive. I told the kids they could each choose one thing, and after much deliberation they each chose a set of miniature Rilakkuma figurines--exactly what I would have chosen for them. I bought myself a small Sumikko Gurashi owl. We stopped for crepes for lunch--ordering them from a kind of vending machine, then handing the tickets to a girl in the kiosk--and ...