Trip update

So things are going great.  We have been so busy it seems that we leave the house early in the morning and get back in the later afternoon and we are all exhausted.  I have walked more here than I have at any time in my life – and that is saying a lot since many of you know I am a BIG fan of walking and do it a lot at home.

We have been hitting different neighborhoods and checking them out.  Shopping is fun and exhausting at the same time.  My favorite has been Kiddy Land – a giant toy store with a whole floor of Hello Kitty stuff *gush*.  My 8 year old self just about died.  Of course the actual kid, Rowan, also loved it.  

Eating has also been challenging.  Jason has his paleo diet and we also don’t want to overload on the multitude of bread items.  Plus – you have no idea what most stuff is.  It has been fun though.  I had a seafood gumbo the other day that had things with heads in it.  Interesting indeed…

Jacob has been babysitting a lot for us and Rowan is loving that.  Jason and I have been able to go out a few nights and have dinner alone – nice.   Jacob has finally found some people to hang out with too and so he doesn’t feel beholden to us at all times.  He leaves tomorrow to go home.  Then it is back to just the family.   Rowan will going with me to yoga the next couple of days once Jacob leaves.  She is pretty good and entertains herself while I practice.   

Things to do before we leave:  Hello Kitty land on Tuesday ; go to the local sento (bathhouse); hang with the man since he won’t be home for a couple of more weeks.

Here is a link to my pictures so far.  I was getting too many to post on this site.  

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8Acs27Fy5atWIy

When we were planning our trip to Tokyo I called my brother to tell him and found out that he was also randomly planning his own trip to Tokyo at the same time to see the Tokyo International Film Festival.  We decided to combine trips in a way – he is staying with us sleeping on the living room couch and in exchange he is our personal babysitter.  It works for both of us  

Rowan LOVES her uncle and he is getting smothered under her attentions, but is hanging in there quite well.  For those of you who don’t know my brother – he is quite a bit younger than me at a youthful 21 years old!  I feel kind of bad for him because we are so laid back and go to bed early and wake up at the crack of dawn.  He took a crazy flight here with 3 layovers and a total of 30 something hours travel time and stayed awake for the whole thing!  He is a champ though and was able to sleep through the night on his first night here.  Of course Rowan woke him up at 6 am.  He is a musician for a living and couldn’t believe that it was 6 o’clock in the morning – in his words “this is not an hour that I am familiar with”.  

Last night – Friday night – he was determined to hit the town.  He was solo though because Jason and I rarely see it past 10 o’clock.  When we got up this morning he told us all about his night out.  Apparantly he spent over $100 on 4 drinks.  Needless to say he is quite bummed and won’t be hitting the town for the rest of his time here.  Looks like he is stuck hanging out with the family…

Here are some pics of the past couple of days – at a temple/shrine we visited; going out to eat; and one is of Jacob on his first night here.  We went and got some food from some vendors and sat in Shibuya square eating and checking it all out.  He kept giggling.  We also had tea with some yoga students after class one day and there is a picture of that too.  There is a mother /daughter here who practiced with our teacher in Encinitas a bit and they have been super nice and sweet with Rowan.  Also, a woman from Mexico who brought her tablas and wants to have some kind of jam session with my brother in a park.  Wonder what the Japanese will think of that?

We have arrived

So we made it to Tokyo.  Jetlag has not been so bad.  The first 3 nights Rowan would knock out at 5:30 and wake up by 4am, but now we have her back on schedule and she is going to bed at 8pm and gets up around 6:30 or so.  

We got here on a Friday afternoon and Jason did not have to teach that weekend and the studio he teaches at in the mornings was closed on Monday – so basically we had a nice long weekend to just hang out and get settled in.  We have done a lot of walking around – thanks Nicole for the use of the stroller because I can’t imagine doing as much getting around as we’ve done without it!.  Once again I can’t stress enough the use of a sturdy umbrella stroller when traveling with small children.  Although Rowan does do quite a bit of walking on her own and in those instances the stroller sort of becomes like a pack horse for us.  Today it carried both mine and Jason’s bags, yoga mats, sundry food items we had picked up on the way, and jackets.  Nice.

Japan – clean, orderly, quite.  India is an assault of the auditory and olfactory senses.  Japan is an assault of the visual senses.  Lots to look at and see.  One thing that has surprised me is the lack of attention to Rowan.  In India we can’t walk two feet without people touching her, talking to her, picking her up and walking off with her to show their friends or family.  But here people almost go out of their way to ignore her on the streets.  However, she has been going to the yoga studio with me the past few days and the students there have been really great with her.  She is a real trooper – she gets up very early with us, makes the trek down there and then amuses herself for 2 hours while I do yoga (okay I do bring a laptop with a movie and she has toys and stuff, but still she keeps herself busy).  

What else?   I like the neighborhood that Tarik lives in which is where we are staying.  We get out and walk around a lot every day.  We go to the market to get groceries for the evening meal and their is a small playground across the street from his house that Rowan likes.  She LOVES the uniforms that the kids have to wear to school here and has been BEGGING me and Jason to send her to a school that has uniforms.  If only she knew…

The yoga has been great so far.  Rowan started school this year so it has been challenging for my practice to find times to do it around her schedule and then there was that whole injury thing that wrecked half my year but it has been really nice to practice every morning in the studio with everybody.  There is a really nice energy and it gets freakin’ hot and sweaty in there.  Eka Pada Sirsasana is back!  I’m not pushing Dwi Pada though.  Patience is a virtue, right?  My brother arrives tomorrow and since he will be my personal babysitter while he is here I can leave Rowan at home to sleep in and take a leisurely practice if I want

Well, I will leave you with some pictures I have taken so far.  Most are of the family tooling around the hood – I like the one of Rowan standing with Colonel Sanders which means that, yes, there is KFC here.