Symphony Cruises

One new adventure during my family's visit was a Tokyo Bay lunch cruise. I've never had the cruise ship experience and sometimes even the thought of open water sends me running for the tallest mountain. I am a mountain girl. But I am also a hungry girl so food was an enticing factor.

We decided to go with Symphony Cruises because they had a buffet that would provide more options for vegetarians.

It was definitely a fun experience, but not one I would repeat. Tokyo Bay is very industrial so circling the area provided only a few new sights. It doesn't help that we had already done a day and night city-scape viewing.

Seeing Disney Sea from (hehe) the sea was enjoyable. Also we were able to view Haneda airport for a while.

The Pikachu Plane!

And as usual with Japanese restaurants, the food was superb!

MegaWeb & Shibuya

So my lack of posting is not from a lack of adventures. My family made the long flights out to Japan. Dustin and I took off two weeks to show them as much of our beloved host country as we could. Unfortunately the weather was a nightmare. SO HOT. In fact, one day we were in Kyoto was the hottest day ever record. Ever. Seriously, really hot.

Despite all the heat we had a great two weeks. While in Tokyo we came across some excellent finds. For example, my future car:

Or my weekend car:

!! So cool! We were visiting Toyota MegaWeb in Odaiba. One can test drive vehicles here on their indoor/outdoor track. Unfortunately we weren't able to test drive these beauties.

While visiting the busiest intersection in the world we found this eye-popping advertisement.

And a trip to Tokyo isn't complete without a visit and dessert at Square Enix's Artnia. This time they were running a summer special and I was able to snag a Chocobo collectors mug!

We are such nerds.

Birthday Kid

I am a total kid when it comes to my birthday. On our most recent trip to Tokyo we visited the Legoland Discovery Center again.

This time I came home with a treat!

It's about a foot tall and has more whistles and gadgets then expected. Great birthday gift!

Wordless Wednesday

Baths

Recently I have been planning a jam-packed itinerary for my visiting family. On the heels of my mother's visit, Dustin and I get to show our beloved host country to my father's side of the family.

Through all the e-mails and Skype I think we have cemented all the logistics of their visit. During this process I had to explain why bathing suits would be necessary. It was during this conversation that I realized I have never fully explained bathrooms in Japan. The video below does a great job of explaining bathroom and toilets in most households.

Additionally, we often stay in hotels with public baths. These areas are segregated by gender and are just larger versions of the bathroom in the video above. However, I have prudish tendencies and still wear my bathing suit. Maybe next year...