Night in Tokyo

Great news -- we have our household goods!! We spent last weekend unpacking and setting up house. We still have a few things left to do but the townhouse has officially transformed into a home for us. It was like Christmas morning again for the girls unpacking their toys and seeing all of our "stuff" after so long.

For my birthday a few weeks ago Nate surprised me with a trip to Tokyo. It is only a 40 minute drive from us and is fairly easy to get to when traffic is light. In downtown Tokyo the military has a hotel called the New Sanno. It is very fancy and very affordable. Hotel rooms in Tokyo are outrageous so its quite unbelievable that you can get a room at the New Sanno for what I would say is "cheap" in the states! The New Sanno is very popular and books up months in advance, but sometimes has cancellations last minute so I think we got lucky to get a room on a Friday night.

Nate found a babysitting service so we could have an evening out. A nanny came to our room and watched the girls. We ate a fancy dinner at a restaurant inside the hotel which was the most intimate, delicious, and romantic dinner I have ever had. The wait staff was unbelievable, we had 6 people waiting on us and they all came from a different country. Nate and I really enjoyed chatting with them. The dinner was 8 courses of total deliciousness! We found it funny that they serve the salad after the entree. Afterwards we wanted to see a bit of Tokyo. We took a short subway to Shibuya which is a famous intersection in Tokyo (the concierge said it was the busiest in the world). The lights and sights and sounds of the place were amazing but the overwhelming sea of people at this intersection was unforgettable! Pictures don't do it justice.

Birthday dinner at The Wellington

Shibuya -- thousands of people getting ready to cross.

  

Came home to this. Mia the Nanny took such good care of our girls.

We planned to go to the Toyko Tower and then to Ueno Zoo the next day. Well the tower took awhile so we aborted on the zoo and just walked around Ueno park and got lunch at a delicious Ramen place.

Outside the New Sanno ready for our day!

Tokyo Tower

Aubrey wanted her picture taken with the Tokyo Tower "mascot". It was funny because as I was taking her picture 4 Japanese people started taking pictures of her too. Then they asked to get a picture of Aubrey & Reagan with their family. This was our first experience with this and surprisingly both girls who don't like to smile for the camera, smiled on command. I was stunned. 

This monkey was putting on a show when we left the tower.  It was doing amazing tricks like walking with these stilts and crazy flips and high jumps!

From the lookout atop Tokyo tower.

 The girls always find rides no matter where we are in Japan.

We only got a small taste of Toyko and can't wait to go back and experience more! I have started planning the next trip already:)