Meet the Parents – In Tokyo

It’s been a while since my last blog post, and not just because I’m lazy. I’ve also been fairly busy. At the beginning of May, my parents stopped over for a week on their way home from Europe.

I got to play tour guide and show off my Japanese skills (they’re crappy, but Mum n Dad looked impressed nonetheless). It was a good break and lots of fun to show them around the sights of Japan – some of which I’d never actually been to before. Despite my lame Japanese skills and the bad signposting of touristy sights (as well as the fact that apparently maps in Japan do not necessarily have to point North), we managed to get by pretty well.

It sounds a bit Nanna-ish, but one of the best parts of the trip was waking up in a bed (which is already a bit of a novelty) in my huge hotel room (probably 2/3 the size of my apartment) and opening the curtains to as the backdrop against the streets of Shinjuku from 30 floors up.

Tokyo was fun, and it’s such a huge place that there’s always something new to see, but 31 million people does make it a little crowded at times. It was good to escape to Kyoto, which is so much more spread out, and wander around the hundreds of shrines and temples. Kiyomizudera was my favourite, even though it was packed with Junior High students on their annual excursions. “MISTER! MISTER! HELLO MISTER!” does get a little tiresome after a while. It was fun to see the looks on their faces when I told them that I lived in Japan though.

Another of the highlights of our trip to Kyoto would definitely be that we dined in the same restaurant twice. The delighted waitress wandered around chuckling “Two times eating! TWO TIMES!”, which led to my father attempting to strike up a conversation in English with her. Unfortunately, she really didn’t understand much other than “two times”, but was too polite to move away and just stood there nodding dumbly. She also sent over a pot of really bland tofu – possibly just an excuse to move away from our table – which my parents and I dutifully ate.

The whole trip was a bit of a whirlwind, and it ended too quickly, but it was good to see my parents again, and I also enjoyed seeing a little bit more of Japan.