We just came back from a week in Japan! We saw our cousins the Ishiis in Tokyo; old friends Yoko-oneisan and her husband in Emi; my cousin Kari from Wisconsin (now living in Tucson) and her husband in Kyoto; and my host family from college, the Yadas who were also in Kyoto. You may recognize everyone from our wedding. We hadn't been back to Japan since 2004, so we took a million pictures and ate a lot of food. A week seemed like enough on paper but it was over before I knew it! It seemed as if it was time to leave just when Thomas was getting used to people and things. I didn't feel like I had enough time to do half of the things I wanted! I'm already planning when we can go back and what we'll do. Right now the plan is for next year!
Katsuo Ishii graciously met us at the airport. And thank goodness, too, as I don’t think I had any brain power left at that point, after being on the road for 18 hours. He saw us safely to our hotel, and we were met by my cousin Kazuko Ishii. Thomas surprised us by running over to her within the first five minutes to be picked up. Usually it takes him at least half an hour before he can be at all interactive with strangers, but perhaps because she looks so much like Mom, and speaks Japanese too, he was fooled into thinking that she was his Grandmamama. She laughed and called herself "Imposter Grandma." In fact it was the next day, as he was running towards her with his arms out, he suddenly stopped short and stared at her with realization on his face. And then ran away. It took him that long to discover the imposter! How funny! Poor Kazuko! Mom had a good laugh about it later, though!
Anyway, we had a lovely time with the Ishiis, chatting with everyone, visiting Yuri at work, eating French food, Japanese food, Japanese-style American sandwiches, yum yum yum. Thomas was still pretty jet-lagged at that point, so he was pretty grumpy and tired, but even so seemed to connect with almost everybody. Mari gave him a couple of "notebooks" that sing Japanese children's songs and say the Japanese alphabet and quiz him on how to spell words. He'll be able to use those for a very long time! They are awesome!
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