Tokyo August 16 and 17th

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We left for Geoff's two art show in Tokyo on the morning of August 16th. It was a particularly rough start when our shuttle to the airport was late and the security line wrapped around two blocks. We had the three boxes of paintings that we had professionally made (they weighed 35 lbs. each) and our one suitcase. We were both upset when two of the handles broke on the boxes before we even checked our luggage in. And then we were told our main suitcase was 9 lbs. overweight. With some tricky shifting into our carry-ons we were able to get our bag to the 50 lb weight limit. When we finally made it to the other side we had to use a roll of tape that I had in my carry on to make tape handles. Thankfully, it worked well.

We made the mistake of taking a commuter train to Ueno where we were meeting Yasanuri who was taking us to our guest house. It took us two hours and up a gazillion stairs with all of our 200 pounds of stuff to finally make it to Hiyoshi where our guest house was. Unfotunately, it was a two mile walk from the train station. Yasunari put Geoff and all of our stuff in a cab (that was all that could fit) while we walked. We finally made it to find a very worried Geoff standing in front of a lumber yard.

It was such a wonderful feeling to get all of our stuff in the guest house (which turned out to be a sweet traditional Japanese style room). We were so lucky to be offered a free place to stay through the gallery. And we fell asleep on our very comfortable tatami mats in the cold air conditioning.

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