Day 357: A Final Few Hours in Tokyo Before Leaving for Hawaii!
Last. Breakfast. Buffet. Of. The. Year.
Big deal for this family of BB connoisseurs.
Though, while all these “lasts” and wrap ups are interesting to note, they don’t really help us digest or understand the finality. The year was just too big, ultimately, for us to see it as one experience coming to a close. Can’t think of a better way to describe it besides the cliche’d “hard to wrap our heads around.”
We sent home a final box of souvenirs for the year, including several items from New Zealand. Can’t wait to see the heap that awaits in my parents’ basement. It’s like a time capsule’d treasure pile of memories from a year of handpicking cool stuff from around the world. We were pretty selective about what we bought — nothing that could be found at home.
We did our final packup and a little school.
During school my dad texted about a tourist helicopter crash in Kauai that killed 7 people, including two kids. Horrifying. We were on the fence about doing that exact ride — probably leaning toward doing it — but this scary news tipped us the other way. No thank you.
Our flight wasn’t until 9 pm so we still had a full day ahead of us in Tokyo.
We left our bags with the bellhop and set out for a few final hours in Shinjuku — we wanted more time at Takashimaya department store and Tokyu Hands.
We ate lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant: pho with 333 beer. The feeling of lips burning from chili sauce and cold beer will probably always make us think of Vietnam.
As we walked through the home section of Takashimaya, I spotted a rack of Japanese pajamas made of cotton so soft they call it “marshmallow gauze.” I have been the only Sullivan to wear the offered hotel pajamas at every Japan stop, and decided I needed to try these. Immediately purchased them.
In fact, I instantly declared them the best purchase I’d made all year.
More on the pajamas in a second.
The kids stopped to play with these Lovel (?) robots. For about $3000, you can take one home. They’re warm, squishy and their bodies vibrant/breathe like pets or babies. They feel very lifelike and respond to gazes, waves, verbal cues, cuddles, etc. They charge themselves when they need it, can watch your baby while it naps (like a baby monitor), and will greet you when you come home at the end of the day.
I’ve watched enough “Black Mirror” to know that this is obviously the future — and it seemed all the more relevant considering all we’ve learned about loneliness in Japan. I admit the things immediately charmed you, like a cute toddler or a Golden Retreiver, and you had to constantly remind yourself they weren’t real.
Like, there was one who kept wheeling over to Teddy and gazing up at him and making a little curious chirp while batting its digital screen eyes as if to say, “Pick me up!” So real.
We made the rounds on other floors and eventually got a smoothie snack on the basement food hall level.
That’s when I realized, with horror: I didn’t have my new pajamas with me. The shopping bag. Where was it?? We’d been to a million floors and departments. No idea when I last had it. It was gone.
I hate this part about myself. I really do. I try so hard to be conscientious. But I just….lose track of stuff.
It’s probably good for the kids to see 1) their parents make mistakes and 2) their parents don’t freak out or cry when stuff like this happens. But it’s not exactly the example I like to set.
It occurred to me I must have left the bag in the bathroom up on the 9th floor. I shot up there solo…but it wasn’t in any of the stalls.
Noooooo — my precious new PJs!!!
I pulled out the ol’ Google Translate app and asked the closest staff lady I could find for help. She didn’t speak English but was very friendly and instantly took pity on me. She literally started trotting around, making calls and talking to colleagues in Japanese. She made a motion for me to sit and wait.
Meanwhile Teddy took the kids to a final arcade.
Back at Takashimaya, ten minutes later, my new buddy returned with a colleague — and they had my bag!! YES!!!!
I was thrilled – though as I told Teddy later, I’m not sure who was more excited, me or the shop lady who helped me. She was positively giddy herself.
I swear, kindness from strangers makes me well up every time. I was so grateful. It was the same feeling I got when all the Vietnamese strangers gave us their packs of wet wipes after James barfed on the airport shuttle bus. People are awesome.
And…I got my PJs back!!!!! Wooooooooo!!! And now they have a story!
That was enough excitement for the day. We trained back to our hotel — last ride on the Yamanote line! — and piled into the van transfer for an hour-long ride to the airport.
By 9 pm we were taking off for Honolulu, heading home to American soil for the first time in a year. Crazy.
