It's official

We are ready to come home. We are slowly beginning to implode.

It's still freezing cold and raining and Tokyo is not the most upbeat of cities even in great weather. We are trying hard to find things to do indoors that don't involve shopping or temples and we aren't finding much. We visited a museum today and although it's highly recommended we felt it's interior matched the mood outside. The formalness of the Japanese is starting to feel disconsolate.

Today, Elle shouted "wait up for me and my best friend". I said "who's your best friend?" and she replied, "the stroller". Justin looked at me and said, "it's time to go home". We laughed but with a bit of a heavy heart, when your daughters best friend is a stroller, it's time to go home. She needs her friends and her classmates.

Liam is such a trooper and has been amazing throughout the trip, adapting easily to each new place without complaint. (and really Elle has too, great travellers both of them) But, a baby needs to know his home and have some kind of pattern or schedule he recognizes. Also, because he is carried all the time or in a stroller, with almost no time on the floor, the poor baby can barely roll over yet! He's not even close to crawling. But he does understand 3 languages;)

Justin and I miss the comforts of home, we miss the sun and clean air, we miss friends, we miss speaking the local language and knowing what we are eating. I miss having my clothes on hangers and having more in the fridge than bread and butter and jam and milk. We miss curling up on the couch and watching a movie, in English.

We at least are keeping our senses of humor though even in the final stages of our meltdown. Justin looked around the subway today and said, "jesus the men in Japan could hair the entire world." I looked around and sure enough, every single man had the fullest, bushiest, most incredible head of hair you have ever seen. We laughed maniacally and couldn't stop. The people around us didn't even make eye contact with us, so certain they were that we must be crazy.

The subway trains here are so silent you could hear a pin drop. No one speaks, let alone smiles. They sit with their hands on their laps and stare straight ahead. Not even Liam or Elle are given a second glance. At best they are ignored. You don't see many Japanese small children about, Justin asked me if they even exist. You almost never see a baby.

There is a whole other city underground here in Tokyo. I swear the entire city has another city underneath it, all linked by subways and tunnels. We spent half our day yesterday in Shinjuku Station (the largest in the world). We were lost but didn't really care because outside was nasty and inside the station we kept discovering new places and goodies. We loaded up on "New York Style" bagels and macaroons and shiny frosted donuts, so tired are we of rice. They both looked authentic, but unfortunately didn't taste so. Generally speaking, bread type food items are not very good in Asia.

We've eaten at a restaurant in our neighborhood twice already and are headed there again tonight. They have great food, cheap and lots of veggie options. And an English menu. The proprietor, Lee, is very kind and has taken to giving us free food. I think he likes us. Which is more than we can say for two other restaurants in our neighborhood. At one place, the hostess literally blocked us from entering, although there were plenty of Japanese eating inside. She kept saying something to us that we didn't understand, but she would not let us past. At another, the guy at the front made a large cross with his arms and said, "No! No baby". Oooookay. And at most others, the menu is only in Japanese and I just can't chance it. We are definitely not in a touristed part of town. So tonight, we head back to Lee.

It's only 4pm though and we are all inside our immaculate but very tiny apartment cube. We are all bored and losing our minds a bit. If only the weather would turn...