Weather: mostly sunny: low 21°C, high 27°C (with humidity it felt like 72° C)
Accommodation: Kimi Ryokan
I hardly slept on the flight at all, as usual. During the flight the airline staff gave out disembarkation and quarantine cards. She told me we only needed one card for the family, which seemed wrong as everyone always needs their own disembarkation card. She assured me this was correct, so I filled out our paperwork. Of course when we reached customs and immigration we all needed our own disembarkation card. That on top of being the last off the plane meant we were the last through immigration – at least it was easy to find our bags and there was no wait at quarantine!
We had a rather long walk to T2, where we could get a train. The night before Eskil had fallen asleep on Scott before we got a nappy on him. Scott had just decided not to worry about it, but Eskil was dry the whole night / flight! He didn’t wee until we got to T2, when he did a huge one. Awesome!
We got the 10:15 Narita Express. It was a 2 ½ hour trip to Ikebukuro, and unfortunately Eskil asked for a nappy to do a poo just before the end. It was quite a challenge to then find a toilet where we could change his nappy; we eventually found one under Tobu. We walked to Kimi Ryokan. Our room wasn’t ready yet (we didn’t think it would be but thought we’d check and leave our bags).
As we were exhausted, I went out to grab some take away lunch while the boys hung out in the common room rather than us all going. They played cards, and the only thing I could quickly find for take-away was from Vie la France – not a very Japanese 1st meal! Just as we were sitting down to eat they let us know they had gotten our room ready for us early. Hooray!
We all attempted to have a nap, but Eskil couldn’t get to sleep. I had a shower and felt a bit better. Since we couldn’t nap we went out exploring.
We headed to the ‘Forest of Ikebukuro’ geocache, and of course during the walk Eskil fell asleep in the carrier on Scott’s back. Hoping to all have a nap, we headed back to the ryokan, but Eskil woke up as he was being put on the futon and wanted FOOD. So we headed back out, and we ate at the restaurant that was our regular in 2007 when Scott and I were in Tokyo last. Eskil loved fried rice and noodles!
I was very tired and cranky, and I have to admit I didn’t enjoy the day much. To top it off I didn’t sleep well that night. Silly futons and noisy neighbours.
More photos can be viewed at https://www.flickr.com/photos/cragg-ohlsson/archives/date-taken/2015/09/14/.