Just the 3 of us!

Josh, Elise and I found ourselves with a free weekend and a nice baby gift to take advantage of, so we headed up to the New Sanno in Tokyo to relax and do some more exploring. (Our friends, the Dunhams, had treated us to a night stay and Sunday brunch for two at the hotel...hooray!) Since discovering that we can drive to the New Sanno in an hour from our house, we're continuing to get more and more bold in our ventures to and around Tokyo.


This time we found our way to the Shinjuku-gyoen, one of the city's largest parks. We walked around and enjoyed the Japanese and French gardens - it was a great escape from the concrete and metal! Unfortunately, we got there pretty close to closing time so we couldn't stay as long as we would have liked...guess we'll know for next time. On our way back to the hotel we stopped at the Ebisu train station (Japanese train stations often have large shopping malls attached to them) and picked up some take out Indian food and a few treats for dessert.

After the service we returned to the New Sanno for a delicious brunch. (It was good that we hadn't eaten breakfast because we had more room to try all of the assorted dishes and cuisines that were there! YUM!)

Our last stop in Tokyo was the Edo-Tokyo museum which is a history museum of the Edo and Meiji periods. Our parents will be glad to hear about our exciting adventure at the museum...Not only was Elise quite fussy, but her cry echoed throughout the whole museum...and the other museum visitors did not seem too amused with us! (It was most likely the start of many more trips to museums where we are far more interested than she is...a rite of passage into parenthood, for sure!!)

Greetings from the one armed blogger!

So, yes...writing blog entries with only one hand available is certainly not ideal, though I could have some sense of accomplishment in my multi-tasking abilities (my other arm is being used to hold/feed Elise)...there's still no denying the fact that even the smallest of tasks takes at least 3 times longer with a newborn around! I am learning the slow and sometimes painful lesson of having no expectations for my days so that I can be thankful when we get even a few chores done or errands run.

We have actually accomplished quite a lot of things during Elise's first six weeks in the big bright world - we've been to Tokyo and Yokohama twice, taken cable cars up two different mountains (one in Hakone and one in Chiba), gone to see Big Buddha twice and bigger Buddha once, traveled to Shimoda (a great beach on the Izu peninsula), and now we're all experiencing our first real typhoon! I guess it's the un-fun daily chores like cooking and cleaning that seem more difficult to have time for...oh well, the dishes can always wait until later!


More on Shimoda: We joined our friends from the Lighthouse for a Labor Day weekend getaway and traveled about 3 hours by train to the peninsula just south of us. There are lots of beaches closer to us, but they are surrounded by some of the most heavily traveled waterways in the world - so you can imagine how clean they are.

Having a little sweaty baby on the beach was quite tricky. I think we found sand in her nose, ears, and neck folds for at least 3 days. Stiil, we enjoyed "discovering" a new part of Japan and it was great to be in the Pacific Ocean! We also stayed at a great bed and breakfast, complete with tatami rooms and Japanese-style futons to sleep on.