Whirlwind Wednesday

Wednesday was by far our craziest day here.  We left the hotel room before 8:30am and didn't get home until after 7:30pm with both kids in tow.

We had arranged to meet with a guy the lawyers contracted with at 8:45am to take care of the legal paperwork. We patiently waited for the hotel shuttle (which drops off at the closest train station) for quite some time before we noticed that the shuttle didn't start running until 10am!  oops.  So we took off running to meet the guy (really nice British guy who married a Japanese girl and has lived here for 9 years)...

First we had to register for our Gajin (Foreigner) cards at the local office in Ota-ku.  (It was a lengthy train ride, but the nice guy let us talk his ear off about random questions we'd been having)  The best way to describe a "ku" is a borough.  (Think Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, etc in New York City).  We live in Yukigaya-otsuka neighborhood, within Ota borough, in Tokyo, Japan.  Make sense?  Anyways, you have to have a Gajin card to do just about anything else in Japan.  It has your name, picture, address, and how long you plan or allowed to stay in Japan (according to your Visa).  We still have to go back and pick up our official cards, but they gave us temporary copies so I was able to get a phone.

Next after another train ride and bus ride we arrived at another government office to apply for re-entry Visas. These are needed (and expensive!) stamps for your passport to come and go out of the country.  Our guide/helper (forgot his name...) said that the Japanese government was changing the process this summer and that if the kids and I wouldn't be travelling before then that we wouldn't need to purchases stamps for us...thank goodness!

Pheww....all of that was done in time for a late lunch at McDonalds.

Next on our list was to conquer Ikea.  We originally asked to see if there was a member with a car who wouldn't mind driving us out to the store, but they let us know that there was a FREE shuttle from the Denen-chofu train station.  Yes, Ikea has their very own shuttle to bus people to/from their store.  Even better the Denen-chofu area is where the majority of the Europeans live in the Tokyo area. Smart people.

Funny Logan story-- ever since visiting the kids at the yochien Logan has been a lot more confident talking to strangers, even Japanese people, specifically kids.  He asks Kurt how to say certain things and then tries to talk to them on the trains, buses, etc...very un-Japanese like. lol  Anyways, on the bus ride to Ikea he sat by two little Japanese girls, ages 2 and 4.  He tried talking to them for a while, until they fell asleep. :) (For those who know Logan, that kid can talk!)  After they fell asleep he started talking to their mom.  She had said a few words to him in English so he assumed she was fluent...for the next 30 minutes he talked her ear off about Star Wars. lol  She did a lot of smiling, nodding, and chuckling.

We finally arrived at Ikea!!!  We thought it wouldn't take us that long because we had totally done our homework.  We spent an evening at the Ikea in Palo Alto picking out, writing down, and taking pictures of the items we wanted to purchase.  Boy were we wrong.  We totally overwhelmed the little Japanese Ikea people.  It took us 2-3 hours, 1 regular shopping cart, and 2 or 3 of the flat carts to get everything we needed.  On the upside - it only cost around $100 for them to deliver everything to our apartment.  Apparently we qualified for the best shipping rate. lol  We ended up buying 2 couches (which shocked them), a tv stand, kitchen table, bunk beds, storage shelf thing, desk, rug, and a bunch of other random little things.  The only furniture that we are shipping from the states is our queen bed, crib, kids dresser, office chair, tall shelf thing that was in our entry way, and my glider.

After checking out we boarded us bus again and worked our way back to the hotel.  We were all pooped - especially the kids who skipped any sort of nap and the me the pregnant one who missed a nap and need to put her feet up.