To the grocery store... and beyond!

The first picture is of Ivy all settled in for the night-- slept from 8:30 pm till 6:00 am. We hopped out of bed at 5:00 and started staring at her... couldn't wait for her to wake up so we could hold her again!

We got ready to head out in the stroller for the first time (thanks Erin and Greg!). Today was the second day of sun in Tokyo since we got here- and when it's sunny, an already amazing city just turns stunning. We met a fellow American traveller last night on the roof who told us about a "big" supermarket nearby- so we decided to check it out just for fun. We dressed Ivy in my favorite outfit, that Sally gave us, and headed out into the glorious sunsine. The store was about 8 blocks away through our neighborhood. It's essentially an imports grocery store... I saw things I can buy at Raley's! We decided to stay in for dinner and make spagetti (of all things... embarassing, I know...)

Ivy was perfectly content in the stroller, and seemed to enjoy walking around in the store- lots to look at. She fell asleep on the walk home and was asleep until we had lunch out for the first time. We went to a "fast food" restaurant and enjoyed some shaved meat, rice, salad and miso soup. Ivy was a trooper the whole time- just haning out and keeping her own counsel.

After lunch, we headed home for a rest and a meal for her before we braved the crowds at the Tokyo Tower. We enjoyed some quiet time on the bed... I do love this picture that Brian took of Ivy and I- and I took an equally tender one of him with Ivy this afternoon as well.

It was a lovely afternoon.

The Tokyo Tower was nothing short of incredible. From the observation deck, you can observe the curvature of the earth... and you can see endless Tokyo as far as the eye can see. The scale of this city is unbelievable... and I don't mean that lightly.

We braved the tower in spite of the crowds because it was perhaps the last sunny day we will see while we are here... it was a beautiful view for sure.

Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, we managed to give Ivy some gas.... we're not sure if it was the heat or not enough burps.... but she was an unhappy camper for the late afternoon and early evening. We were able to finally get her comfortable, and both of us feel more confident, having seen her through some difficulty. It required a team effort, but she was soundly asleep at the proper time!

She caused quite a stir in the waiting line at the tower. I now can meet the eye of other mothers, with a knowing look, as we admire each other's children. It's a club I've longed to belong to- and today for the first time, out in public, felt admitted to. It was very special. There was a whole busload of traditionally attired elderly Japanese ladies that went "gaga" over ivy. Lots of cooing and virtual chin chucking! I'm sure they were wondering what our story was... but it was so fun to watch her get so much attention. Also, we rode up the elevator (packed in like sardines- no joke...) with a family with 2 young girls- who apparently fell in love with her. We saw them all over the tower, they asked her name, and kept waving to her and to us while we were there. So sweet!!!!

Anyway... we continue to be thrilled with our new role- We are attempting to soak up all of the atmosphere that Tokyo can offer us as a family, before we make our way back home to California in less than a week!

Monday morning (tomorow for us) is our first Embassy day. I have chosen Ivy's outfit already... my own fashion future is less certain! More tomorow! We love you all, and really enjoy reading comments, though I don't seem to have time to reply to them all... :)

And now for something completely different...

Ok, so I realize, that Brian is holding Ivy in each and every one of these pictures... but I'm the camera girl. Also, he's in charge of the video camera, and he's not in any of those... so that's how it works for today.

She is Precious. That is a good word for her. Ivy's disposition is very mellow and easy going so far.

It sounds ridiculous to write this, but I feel like I know her more now at 6:30 pm than I did at 12:30 pm.

We (mostly me) were very nervous this morning. I can honestly say I've never been more afraid of anything in my entire life. The first picture here is right when Okada-san and Taz brought Ivy to our apartment-- litterally minutes after her arrival. I got to hold her first, and then Brian wanted her. We've taken turns with diapers and feedings and amusing her for the day. They stayed for about 1.5 hours... watched us change her and feed her. I've got to give props to my girl Sally for helping me get ready for those first moments. If I hadn't "practiced" on Donovan, I would have been in BIG trouble. We chatted for a few minutes about her schedule and habits and then that was it! We were on our own.

We both feel amazingly comfortable in this very new role. I'm impressed with Brian's alacrity for Fatherhood- he's a natural. He says the same of me (only motherhood, obviously). We haven't had a little cry that we couldn't soothe yet-- but tonight might be another story!

One of these pictures is of Brian changing his first diaper. The last two pictures are about 10 minutes apart. Brian said he just wanted to lay down with her on the bed.... and then he was snoring and she was asleep too.

Right now, he's feeding her a bottle as I write this.

We both are so happy, and feel very at peace. Ivy is a precious baby, and we can't wait to see what happens next.

Thanks to all of you who sent us good wishes and love today, such an important day for us. We'll try to update the blog often, so you can see what we are up to. Tomorow (Sunday) we think we will pop out to the park for a walk and see what that's like. Monday we go to the embassy for the first time. Tuesday, Embassy and the health check up.

Until tomorow....

Kyoto a gogo

Ok, so it was a long day, but totally worth it. Some things you might want to know... we are both waking up at 4:30 am, and we want to hop in bed for sleep at about 9:00 pm at the latest. We feel that we are getting around the town well, despite our inabiltiy to speak Japanese. We have our phrase book, dictionary and translator, but it doesn't always solve the problem. We have depended on the good will of our fellow man to get us through confusion from time to time. Its amazing how much you can accomplish just by paying attention, though. As far as eating goes... anyone of you that really knows me, knows that I am pretty picky. The good news is that there isn't a great deal of "white slimy food" over here... but the bad news is that I can't really decipher what is what... so that leaves me reluctant to try really unknown items. Brian is enjoying just about everything he eats- he likes Haggis from Scotland, after all. We will hope that Ivy follows in Brian's food footsteps!

So since we were up at 4:30, we got ready to go catch the bullet train in the central Tokyo station. We weren't sure where we were going, so we wanted a cushion of time to get us there. We were amazed that the subways were not totally crowded at 6:00 am- the stations were in fact, deserted. The only people aside from us on the subway were very hung over looking men that appeared to be on their way to work. We took two subways to get the the bullet train, and then boarded the bullet train for Kyoto.

The train ride was about 2.5 hours long, and was very comfortable. I wrote 35 postcards on the way there. They are not the most interesting postcards you will ever get... 35 is a lot of them to write. We enjoyed looking out the window at the passing scenery of the Japanese countryside. It seemed to us that there was not any discernable break in towns the whole way. Some towns were smaller than others, but there was "civilization" out the window the whole way. Some farms, factories, shrines, neighborhoods, industrial parks, high rises... a bit of everything. When we got to Kyoto, we realized that we had not planned ahead and bought any kind of a map of the city. Kyoto is a LOT bigger than we had guessed. My cousins Kim and Nashon had visited Japan a couple of years ago, and based on the notes from their trip- we thought we could figure it out. We were wrong, though. We thought we'd hop in a taxi and go to the Imperial Palace for a tour at 10:00. It's kind of a long story, and if you really want to know, I can tell you later.... but after jumping through A LOT of hoops to get there, present passports and get permission to tour the palace, in the end we skipped it to walk around town instead.

The sun was out in Kyoto-- the first time that we had seen that since we got to Japan. It was really, really hot! We did less walking in Kyoto than we've done since we got here, but we felt it more. We walked across town and found a "handmade art center". This was a 7 story building featuring all kinds of "made in Japan" goods- a good place for some touristy souvenir shopping. We are guilty of wanting to do this kind of shopping- as were all of the other tourists in town. It kind of reminded me of the "trading posts" that you find near the Grand Canyon. Whatever- we did buy a few cool things, such as Kimonos for Brian and Ivy, two wood block prints for me (!!), and a carved stamp with Ivy's name written in Kanji characters. We also had lunch there... not the best lunch in the world, but definitely one we didn't have to negotiate in a foreign language.

After we left the tourist trap, we hopped in a Taxi to head to the Gion district. The taxi driver drove us through a beautiful area that featured numerous shrines and temples, before depositing us in Gion. We walked back up the hill and explored some of these beautiful sites before doing our shopping. We are pretty convinced that we visited the same temple featured in Lost in Translation-- which was pretty cool for us. We actually went in the temple and sat for a few minutes and enjoyed the gorgeous experience. The temple was huge and full of beautifully ornate objects. We didn't really know what we were looking at, but we loved it anyway.
After leaving the temple and shrine areas, we went to the central shopping district... where we had a good time shopping for some gifts. We chose some chopsticks for Ivy at a store that sold nothing but chopsticks. One pair for when she is little, and another fancier pair (with pink rhinestones) for when she is older. We also went into a wonderful store that had all kinds of beautiful small gift items. I could have spent hours in there, deliberating over fun things to buy... Brian had to buy Ivy one more kimono outfit!

That was pretty much it! Home on the bullet train and we were tired!

Tomorow is our big day! We just got a call from Taz, confirming that we will meet Ivy at about 12:00 pm! We can't wait, and now I feel like I might throw up in anticipation...

We still heart Tokyo, but are kinda tired...

I can't even count how many subways we were on today! Brian has done an AMAZING job of navigating all of our travels through this city- he has a knack for it, thanks perhaps, to all of the Air Force training.

We started the day by heading downtown to the central Tokyo train station to purchase train tickets to go to Kyoto for the day on Thursday- I'm not even going to tell you how much it cost! Amtrack where we live is subsidized.... that's obvious. Anyway, the bullet train will be super cool. We will leave that train station around 7:00 am, be thinking of us!

After purchasing the trian tickets, we walked over to the Imperial Palace gardens to walk around for a while. We were fortunate enough to catch a special exhibit of artifacts from the Royal Family- which was beautiful and fascinating. The grounds were extensive and contained many enormous stone walls, moats, koi ponds, stauary, lawns and guard houses. I have attached a couple of pictures from these gardens.

It was pretty darn humid today- we both really felt it. We were very very hungry when we left the gardens, and decided to see if we could have lunch in a "mall" that we'd walked past on the way to the gardens. We went directly to the top floor of the 5 story building and chose from about 25 different restaurants for lunch. I'll admit, the one we chose had a sign offering an English language menu... which had great appeal. It will be hard to top the lunch we had today. It was wonderful. We had Katsu chicken and pork loin, along with a delightful salad, pickles, rice, miso soup and iced green tea. The salad was my favorite part... it was the most delicious thing I've eaten in a week.

After lunch, we walked around in this mall. I have never seen such an appealing selection of merchandise in my life! I could have spent tons on money and time... but I was good. I did buy a couple of gifts and a small balsa wood squirell to go on Ivy's shelf in her room. It is precious. We think we might go back to this mall next week with Ivy just to walk around.

We next wanted to head to a baby store we'd heard about in another part of town. It required a few different subway trains to get to- and then our map didn't make sense to us... so we hopped in a taxi to get there. It was the best 710 yen I've ever spent! The baby store was comprehensive... we wandered through it and bought some diapers (!!!!) and two tiny kimono outfits for Ivy, as well as some more wipes- we hear you can't have too many of those.

On the way back to the subway, we stopped for a coffee (or tea) at Tully's coffee and then lots more subways. We got a little lost a couple of times, and two very kind Tokyo residents helped us out a lot! We owe them big, especially the gentleman that realized he had steered us wrong, and hopped on our train to correct his directions, even making himself late for an appointment.

Speaking of kindness, I wanted to mention the kindness of our flight attendant on the NW 27, Sharon, who aside from taking wonderful care of us on our journey to Japan, also made a gift of a delicious bottle of champagne to us to celebrate Ivy! Thanks!!!!

Ok, so that's about it for today. We are going to have a snack for dinner and veg.

Tomorow's update will be after we get back from Kyoto.

As we were drinking coffee this afternoon, I realized that we really only have 2.5 days left!!! A long, 9+ year wait comes down to this. Un be lieve a ble.

We heart Tokyo!

Ok, so first things first! We got a final picture of little Ivy Sara, from Okada-san attending a festival in her village. Obviously, we can't wait until Saturday, but we are trying to stay busy.
Here are some pictures that we have taken so far-- out of order, but oh well. Ok- so there is a picture of the 100 yen shop- which is like a dollar store- endlessly entertaining for me- Brian was a little bored. Also a picture of my new favorite book store in the world (and I've been in a few :). There is a picture of the Tokyo Tower- which we could practically touch from our lodging. A picture of our first successfully navigated meal in Japan (this one is for you Vicki!). Brian in front of a nearby Starbucks. I told him that this is like going to McDonalds-- and he didn't care. The Starbucks is exactly the same as any other Starbucks anywhere else- food offerings a bit different. A picture of some vending machines- they are EVERYWHERE! A picutre of our first glimpse of beautiful Japan from the window of the plane- and a picture of us on the plane too.

Ok- so we love Japan! It is a beautiful country, and we find the citizens delightful! Everywhere I look, I'm trying to soak up the experience so I can tell Ivy about it later. Its kind of hot here- and quite humid, but not as bad as South Carolina this time of year. We are trying to get comfortable with the area this week- so we can explore confidently with Ivy next week. Our lodging is very nice and spacious. It is situated at the foot of the Tokyo Tower- so we'll never get lost... you can see the tower from every part of town. Yesterday, when we woke up, we set out to explore a bit- and figure we walked about 6 miles or more. We had lunch in a noodle shop- somehow ordered and paid for it without speaking Japanese or english. It was delicious! We found the Roopongi Hills shopping area and did a little bit of shopping- but mostly just window shopping. There are coffee shops everywhere- litterally on every corner- which makes us very happy. At the end of the day, right across from our hotel we found a delightful bakery that has European style pastries. It was a nice way to end the afternoon of exploring.

We were pretty tired out from all the walking- Brian took a nap and I read for a while. I'm almost done with the book already (the only one I brought), but there is a lending library downstairs! We ordered dinner in and watched a movie on the laptop.

I know this is too much info for some of you, and not enough info for others of you... but there's so much to tell about this awesome experience, and we aren't even to the Awesome part yet! Saturday at noon is our big event-- synchronize your watches. More later...

Here are the latest pictures of Ivy, as well as a picture of Brian testing out his baby carrier. That's just a prop in there, my teddy bear! The picture with the three babies is Ivy and her "room mates"-- she looks huge compared to them, but I don't think she's reached 10 pounds yet. It is so hard to imagine how big she is based on these pictures! She looks very tranquil, though, and we are very pleased to see that she likes a pacifier- that will be very handy for the flight home.

We had a delightful weekend away up in the Sierras. We walked, napped, read, watched the squirrels, Brian fished... and not to mention the Death Cab For Cutie show in Reno. All of the pieces for our travel to Japan are falling into place- we will be packing on Saturday and ready to go on Sunday!

We will update the blog while we are away, with pictures of our new adventures with Ivy! Thanks so much to everyone who is so interested in our journey... all of the correspondence is very heartwarming!

10 days to Tokyo!

We were hoping to get updated pictures of Ivy this week, and we did! We hear from Okada-san that she is a very good girl, and sleeps through the night and is awake for much of the day. She likes to talk to herself.... just like me! I'm sure we'll have a lot in common :) My mom and I went on a marathon shopping trip yesterday and picked up just a few more things for Ivy-- she will be the best dressed kidlet on the block, for sure! Brian got a chance to hang the shelves in her room this weekend- so I can display some squirrels in there for her, of course. I also finished the artwork that I created-- so at least on the surface... we are ready!

We head to the Sierra's for one last weekend trip as a family of 2... very soon there will be 3 of us! I'm looking forward to so many things as Ivy's mother. I just can't wait to meet her and hold her precious self for the first time.