Tokyo - Part V

Friday, September 5th the entire family was supposed to fly home to Seattle, however Brent got word that he would have to stay in Tokyo another week. Brock and I talked it over and decided we would stay a few more days too! So, on Friday we headed to the Tokyo Toy Museum. This place was pretty interesting. Everything was wood!

We started in the baby room - set up for crawlers to toddlers. I was a little worried Brock was going to show off his awesome throwing skills, but he was good and played with all the toys "correctly".

The museum is in a portion of an old elementary school built in 1935. The floors in this room are covered in cedar wood and the center dips down to make a really cool area for babies to lay and play.

Brock really had a lot of fun playing in this room. By late morning it was a little crowded, so we headed out to explore the other areas of the museum.

This is the "Wood Toy Forest" room - the center has a huge tree house for children to climb up. The floor here is made of cypress lumber 3cm thick which comes from the mountains of Kyushu. The ball pit was different - all the balls are smooth sanded balls of wood (getting the theme yet?). According to the museum, there are over 20,000 wooden balls in the ball pool.

Just down the street, we stopped at the Fire Museum. We liked it because it was free! A cute museum above a real fire station; it showed how fire fighting has evolved from the 16th century to modern day fire-fighting in Japan.

And a cute picture of Brock showing off his rain boots when we went back to the hotel. 

Teal blue with dinosaurs

On Saturday, Brent was finally able to do a little sight-seeing with us! 

After a nice breakfast, we headed to the Tsukiji Fish Market. The wholesale market was huge and loud and moving! We either carried Brock or kept him in the stroller the whole time - forklifts were moving all around and workers were hurrying with handcarts to move the fish. It was all hot and muggy inside the building too.

TUNA!!!

Covert picture taking since you're really not supposed to....

We were there late - around 9:30am. To see the tuna auction, you have to be there at 5am and to see the fish market at it's peak, you need to be there at 7am. But we did get to see some nice tuna slabs.

These guys were cutting big blocks of ice with a hand saw and then picking them up to put in the machine to grind down for ice - Brent said it's been about twenty years since he saw that!

After the Fish Market, we headed for Ginza. The above picture is from a toy store - these are action figures that change from crime-fighting ninjas to..... sushi. We picked Brock up the red tuna model. :)

We walked around Ginza window shopping and then did a tour of the Sony Building. It looked pretty much the same to me as when I stopped here in 2006 (albeit newer models), but Brent enjoyed it.

Brock's first gelato

After lunch we stopped for some gelato at the train station. Brock got strawberry yogurt and he loved it. He only wears his bib for ice cream now. Brock.... no ice cream unless you wear your bib. [Oh okay Mom.]

We had a fun night hanging out in the hotel. We ordered pizza and had a pajama party. Brent even made a fort for Brock to play in! Sunday was going to be a loooong day.....

The Westin Hotel jammies

Good-bye Tokyo, Good-bye The Westin Hotel! After a search around Ebisu for diapers (no one sold them, but ended up getting some from a friend Brent had made in the hotel!)... Brock and I waved to Brent and boarded the bus for the 1 hour 45 minute journey to Narita Airport. We were there a little early for our 6:20pm departure, but worked out well for Brock to burn off a little steam in the play area.

Yay for America Airlines! We were able to get two seats (Brock is technically a lap child) for the 10 hour flight to Chicago. Brock was an angel, he slept the majority of the flight. However I couldn't sleep for fear he would fall off the seat; I watched two movies. :) After another 3 1/2 hour flight back to Seattle, picking up luggage, and stopping at the grocery store, we were home by 11pm. From hotel to home in Seattle - 27 hour travel time.

I want to thank my mother for allowing us to use her flight benefits and helping us with the usual drama that comes with looking at flight loads. It was wonderful to have this opportunity to visit another country - everything worked out so well.

I'm sure some people will wonder why I would travel such distance "unnecessarily" with my toddler, and my response is, why not? We had a few moments in the mix where he wasn't his happy self... but to see Brock's expressions when he was exposed to new experiences or things we've only since read about in books (panda bears, trains, octopus, etc)... it was totally worth it. Additionally, it was great for the family to be together an extra week where Amazon had intended of stealing Brent away. The entire experience was worth it and I would do it again in a heartbeat.