Heigh ho heigh ho, it's back to Tokyo we go

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Mr and Mrs G decided that as HB was “unwell” that it would be better to go back to Tokyo a day earlier than planned. Mrs G told me later that HB had miraculously got better as soon as they had decided to go back, although HB didn’t know that. No - she was never sick to begin with, she had dry skin. Secretly I think that they were trying to get out of staying in a Buddhist temple for the night. The schedule that they would have had to do would have been gruelling; it also would have been freezing with all the snow around as I am pretty sure that there wouldn’t have been any heating.

Again it was a slower start to the day; it would have been even more relaxed if I had been told the right time for breakfast - 9:30 instead of 9. Never mind. This was also the morning that HB managed to put her book through one of the paper screens. Woops. Our room was made up of a few rooms that were sectioned off with the paper screens. There was the main room - which is where HB’s and F’s futons were made up at night. To get into this main room you come through a corridor that had the bathroom, toilet and kitchenette. Now off the main room was a small changing room, which is where I slept, and then off mine and the main room was a tiny room, little bigger than a cupboard. In there were 2 small chairs and a table. Basically a room to have a read or smoke in. HB was having some much needed “private time” (as she likes to call it), and so she shut herself off in this tiny room with her books. As you have probably learnt HB is not one to sit still. This is true even when she is reading her books. She likes to jump around. Paper screens + small room + jumping child with no awareness + a book = a hole in the paper screen. I heard the rip and thought she was falling through it. I think my yell of HB was enough to scare her. I wasn’t telling her off, it was just a Pavlovian reaction. We have all had moments when you respond automatically. I normally do it when I hurt myself and say ouch, even if it doesn’t hurt. The hole was about the size of a 10p or quarter. Not huge, but still. We were so close to completing our time without destroying anything. These Roykans don’t usually let children stay in them; this is exactly the reason why. Apparently when it was being booked our tour operator was told that if the children damage the screens the entire door has to be replaced, which costs a fortune. In reality (as good honest people we told the manager) all they do is replace the paper, which they have in the store room, and doesn’t cost anything. Plus management told us that the adults do it all the time. HB was very sorry that she had done it, and very worried that she would get into trouble. Which she didn’t. We all just laughed about it, as you have to admit it is rather funny.

Once we had finished demolishing the room it was time to beat a hasty retreat to the airport. The airport was nothing special, just a small regional airport, although we did come across the nicest security man ever. He made a little origami box thing for both F and HB! He just came up to us while we were waiting to check in and first handed one to HB then went away, a few mins later came back and gave one to F! How nice is that? We did eventually go through and said goodbye to Motoi, who stayed and waved us off till we disappeared from sight.

The flight was only about an hour with JAL, nothing special happened on it. A perfect time to catch up on some diary writing with HB as we were still writing up the days in Cambodia. Only a little bit behind then (although not as far behind as I am with this blog - sorry). We managed to get one day done in that hour. What, only a day you say. Yes only a day. As I have said over and over again doing HBs diary is a very painful process. I want to hit my head against a wall every time we sit down to write it. Ripping off an Elastoplast (those nasty plasters/Band-Aids that I swear have super glue in so that they are buggers to get off) slowly would be less painful than doing HB’s diary. At Tokyo we were met by Shinji who took us to the Oriental Hotel. This was yet another luxury hotel that I won’t be able to afford to stay in ever again. This hotel was an inverted hotel. The reception was on the top floor so that you got the best view of Tokyo as you checked in. Then you went down to your rooms. I found it very difficult to remember where our room was in this place. I normally have trouble remembering the number of the room, but I can usually find the room. Here I could do neither. It was rather disconcerting. The room was lovely, and the beds very comfy - or at least compared to what we have been sleeping on for the last few days. The one thing that I was glad to have was a nice bath! Oh how I had longed for a bath to warm me up and take the chill out of my bones. Had I mentioned that it was cold? Well let me tell you again, it was cold, it was freezing, and my body had become a freezer it was so cold. I have bad circulation in my hands and feet, and they normally spend the autumn, winter and spring in a state of coldness. If I am lucky they warm up for the summer, so a nice bath would help get that blood to all my digits.

After a lovely lunch, were I spent most of it colouring. Not with HB though, I was colouring by myself! Ahhhh, I have developed the inability to sit at a table and not colour. God, I am regressing back to 5 years old. I won’t bore you with the details of lunch - mainly because I can’t remember what I had or what happened. The rest of the day was spent in the room, doing nothing. HB loved this. She was given plastic fish in a dish as a bath toys and she spent the afternoon playing with them. Just before bed Mrs G came in and asked us what we fancied doing tomorrow as they were going to spend the day doing ‘admin’ (that is the code word for shopping and having a kid free zone). F was straight in with wanting to go to Tokyo Disney Sea (he had prep from me), Mrs G had to go away and ask Mr G if this was okay. Answer yes! Yay, back to Disney. We had the added bonus of having Shinji taking us and being able to translate for us.

Once HB was in bed, I spent the evening in the bath watching CSI. A very enjoyable evening indeed. So once again, it was in to my nice warm bed and grab some shut eye before a day filled with Disney fun.

To be continued...

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Photos

Snow
Lots of lovely snow, which I thought I had left behind in England

A wonky road
Just look at how wonky the road is