Day 354: Christmas Day — Robot Restaurant Show
Merry Christmas!
We’ve talked about “Christmas in Tokyo” for months and now it’s actually here.
It was a special, relaxing, fun day. And it was different. I mentioned to Margaret today that this day, of all the unique days we’ve had this year, is the one that feels the most abnormal. Christmas is the only day of the year over the last decade or so that we’ve done essentially the same thing every year. We don’t have any other holidays like that — even Thanksgiving, we’ve done in various different ways over the years.
So, Christmas in a hotel room in Tokyo certainly feels unusual. But we had a blast.
We lounged in bed for a while as Willa read and James slept. He didn’t get up until 9am! Must be some kind of a Christmas morning record for 5 year olds.
We pulled back the Japanese style sliding door and they dove into their gifts.
Big lesson of the day: Each kid received about 10% of their normal haul in DC and they were totally and completely happy. Not one comment about not getting enough.
Willa got barbies, a headband, a sticker book, a new set of pens, a design-your-own crown, a pig that shoots yellow balls out of its butt and a few other things.
James got an Iron Man action figure, a baby animals sticker book, a new set of pens, a design-your-own mask, a nerf missile launcher, a fart machine and a few other things.
We thankfully had nothing planned until the evening.
Margaret and I each called our families on video calls. It was great to see them and bizarre to call them on Christmas morning while they were having their typical Christmas Eve celebrations. We miss everyone a ton and it’s nice to know we’ll be home soon.
We lounged around the rest of the morning — grabbing a late breakfast up in the exec lounge and then coming back to the room for some kid shows on Netflix.
In the afternoon we headed to Shinjuku for some lunch and exploring before hitting the Robot Restaurant Show (!).
Shinjuku is nuts. As soon as you come out of the train station you are just bombarded — locals, tourists, lights, advertisements, smells. All sensations are assaulted.
We headed for Takashimaya, a massive department store with an amazing basement food hall. It was hard to decide what to get but we ended up with fried chicken for the kids, plus a tuna roll for James. Margaret got an egg salad sandwich and I got a beautiful takeaway container of sushi. We also picked up a strawberry cake — the go-to Christmas dessert here in Japan because of the festive red and white colors.
We searched the building for a place to sit and eat but only found a set of chairs near the elevator. It wasn’t the most elegant Christmas lunch we’ve had but we were all hungry enough by the time we sat down that it didn’t matter.
After lunch we wandered through Takashimaya and then over to Tokyo Hands, the home improvement and design store in the building next door. Margaret and I could have spent hours in these places checking out all of the amazing stuff but the kids were antsy so we had to keep things moving.
After a quick stop for a beer and another snack for the kids we finally arrived at the Robot Restaurant Show. This was a recommendation from my old NYC friend Damien Gray who spends a lot of time in Tokyo.
This show is indescribable. We were funnelled down three flights of stairs into a long, narrow fire trap of a room with three rows of seats facing each other on each side of a performance area. It was touristy, cramped, loud, cheesy, expensive… and yet somehow still absolutely worth seeing. The kids absolutely loved it.
We got back on the train and headed home to our cozy Christmas HQ at the Gajoen Hotel. We put the kids to bed and then Margaret and I watched Lost in Translation while drinking sake. I had actually never seen it!
MISC:
Not Christmas related and not sure why it hit me here — maybe it’s because I’ve seen less than 5 black people in two weeks in Japan. But today it occurred to me just how truly remarkable it is that Obama was elected president, and how shocking it must have been for the rest of the planet.
