We are here, after a long 14 hour flight. Service has REALLY gone down in the International Long Haul market, or maybe United just sucks. Dunno. Anyway, we barely had anything to eat during this marathon in the air: one hot meal (teeny), a cup of ramen noodles (seriously, styrofoam cup with dehydrated peas, seafood chewies, and noodles – the flight attendants added hot water, and you had to wait 4 minutes before eating), and a hot turkey and cheese sandwich. As a seven-month pregnant lady, I was not pleased. I ate the entire box of wheat thins I had brought aboard, and some trail mix…you need to bring a full load of snacks to survive this flight, be warned potential visitors!!!
Once we arrived, we were picked up by the school (and school bus!) and transported the hour-and-a-half ride into central Tokyo. We were taken straight to our new apartment, which is quite tiny (Sushi Papa can’t stand up fully in the doorframe, picture to come later!), but still bigger than our studio in Berlin, so we’re happy. The tatami mats (woven reed mats in one room) smell a little funny, so we’re going to have to do something about that. Our biggest surprise was that there are many, many American chains here: 7-Eleven, Costco, and…RED LOBSTER!!! I took Sushi Papa to Red Lobster once when we were in Indiana, and he was a big fan…asking me daily if we could go back before we left for Japan. We never quite made it a second time, so you can imagine his excitement when we saw the glowing red sign as we turned onto our new apartment’s street. Not only do we have this seafood chain in Tokyo, but it is literally a 5 minute walk! Serendipity.
Hungry as we were, we decided to take a pass on the Lobster last night, and opted to walk about our neighborhood in search of some food. The Japanese restaurants were a bit intimidating (being full of Japanese people, and all menus being in Japanese with no food choice pictures in sight), so we wandered into the local grocery to find some chow. And at the perfect time…because at 8pm, a magical thing happens at the grocery in Japan – Sushi markdown! This lady comes out with her markdown sticker gun and puts 20% off on all of the fresh and yummy sushi in the land. A beautiful thing, it was. So we feasted on sushi (cooked, due to the baby belly), big fat peaches, and rice balls.
More on our new life later, but for now…we are really loving it here. Yay!
-Sushi Mama
