The first leg of the plane to San Francisco was pretty good. Just four hours long and both boys were excited and did well. We didn't even open the bag of snacks and toys, giving us a false sense of hope for the second, 11.5-hour leg to Osaka.
so far, so good.
It's said that the Japanese are OK with public displays of bodily functions that take things into the body but not those that expel things. So sniffling is OK, sneezing is not.
Archer developed a non-stop cough once we boarded the plane to Osaka and coughed pretty much every 2 minutes for the duration of the flight. Both he and Malcolm had runny noses. Archer threw up mucus into my handkerchief three times. Malcolm brought us a surprise throw-up (he hasn't done that in a long time) about halfway through the flight, covering my shirt with his lunch. Lots of sneezing.
slowly losing it.
At the airport, we met a graduate student of my colleague, who got our luggage situated. (It needed to be sent to the apartment for fear that the "small Japanese Taxi" wouldn't hold our bags. It would have worked out fine without this precaution--the taxi was just a smallish sedan, with automatic doors and neon lights and lace-covered seats.) We boarded a bus to central Osaka, which took about an hour, and then took the taxi to our apartment.
[Side note: We were told to expect that people, in particular young Japanese women, would want to take the boys' pictures. This happened before we even left the airport when two women in line behind us kept trying to get Malcolm to smile for a picture. Those of you who have tried to do this know Malcolm's incredible poker face and the futility of trying to get him to smile. They were disappointed in the end but still snapped several shots. Archer, on the other hand, was more than happy to have a woman with a cameraphone on the bus take his picture.]
When this whole trip was being set up, Y., my colleague, had repeatedly apologized for the size of the apartment. There was no need. The apartment is at least twice the size of our place in New York, and is very nice in general. We've posted a video below if you want a 'tour.' It's in a very residential neighborhood (suita-shi), about 15 minutes from the train station and 25 minutes from the university.
view from our balcony.
Y. met us at the apartment, which we arrived at around 6:00pm--I think this was about 3am our time. So we were feeling pretty zonked and they left us shortly after giving us a run-down of the major points (how to use the bath, etc.). We got some sleep, with the predictable waking up at about 2am.
Archer's description of the trip from the bus to the apartment: "I go to Japan and see the many elevators going down, then go all around and see the christmas lights."
[Archer is in bed with me and he "wants to tell Nanna and Nonno that Malcolm is sleeping." He keeps pointing to the Skype icon, the program we use to talk with them, and saying "it's right there!"]
goofy tour of our apartment.
3 comments:
Your apartment is surprisingly nice! And your lunches look delicious...
That's a pretty sweet apartment! Much biger that I would ahve expected. I think you could have fit your whole NYC place in the kitchen. You should have a very nice stay.
Uncle John & Jordy Heller
I can't believe you guys were on MTV Cribs....To think I knew you when....
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