こんにちは東京!

This is the first real vacation that husband and I had in years — a full week in Tokyo. Needless to say, I didn't plan any itinerary. We'll figure out when we get there. We're not going anywhere out of Tokyo, so it's super comfortable. For a month before the trip, my entire head space and energy have been spent on sorting on caregiving logistics for the dog, so much so that I was sorting that out even when I was in Seoul. 

No regrets taking the red-eye flight out to Tokyo. I wanted to stay in for as long as possible to settle Choya before flying out. Considering how much I have been kept awake in the nights for weeks (because, Choya), sleeping in this plane seat isn't an issue at all. LOL In fact, it would be friggin comfortable to sleep without any interruptions. Din of engines, clink of cutlery, toilets flushing and human voices et al aren't any issues for my exhausted mind. I'm only tuned to waking up if Choya whines, pants, retches, scratches or digs. 😂

It was only 11.15pm when the plane took off. Had two glasses of red to ease my anxiety about the dog. Then I set the seat back flat and curled up to snooze with three pillows. Solid sleep was had for five hours before breakfast service. The husband even had a small bottle of sake with his breakfast, at 4.45am. (I didn't.) Okaaaaaay. His holiday mode had been turned on!

I clean forgot to fill up the electronic arrival card and customs declaration. Managed to scramble to fill out our particulars and submitted those before the wifi turned patchy. Whewwwww. Then I settled in to eat my breakfast in peace. But thanks to turbulence, I had no chance to get a coffee inflight. That had to wait till I arrived in Tokyo. Luckily there was at least sencha with breakfast. 

The brilliant husband had declined the arranged car to pick us up from Haneda airport, and didn't tell me till we were in the plane. He was like, super enthusiastic, "Let's be adventurous! Let's take the bus." To that, I sighed, "Didn't you realize that the airport limousine bus hasn't stopped at our hotel since March 2023 and the bus company refuses to put a stop there?" We could take the bus and drop off somewhere and cab it. The man mulled it over, and announced, "Let's take the trains!" So who has to navigate? Yours truly. 

Walao, this is peak hour downtown office traffic. Well, we had a seat from the Keikyu line at the airport, but the office crowd was packing in. Then we were the only tourists with big suitcases braving the Ginza line. Champions. But we made it to the hotel just fine before 9am. Hahahah. The icing on the cake — the hotel decided to be nice and gave us our room earlier than the 3pm check-in time. Yayyy. 

We had landed to a cloudy Tokyo with plenty of odd rain showers. I stared at the news headlines. The first named storm and typhoon of the 2024 Pacific typhoon season—Ewiniar is approaching Okinawa, and due to brush past Tokyo. It would smack Okinawa, but at this point, Tokyo doesn't know if it could come in ferocious. Zzzzzzzz