The girls are here!

They made it to Japan!  Their flight was long and arduous ( no individual tv screens in the backs of the seats!!) but they made it.

Yesterday I had the day to myself while Petrie was at work and we waited for the girls to arrive in the evening.  I went to Ueno Park, a beautiful public space, even in the winter.  In fact, some of the trees still had their fall colors, and there were a ton of evergreens, so it was really gorgeous.  There are also a ton of museums in this area – something like the National Mall in DC, although these museums are definitely not free.  Unfortunately, it was POURING rain all day long, so I couldn’t walk around too too much, but I made it a museum day.

My first stop was the Tokyo National Museum.  It’s actually really quite big, but unfortunately the top floor was closed for renovations, so I missed out on the “Highlights of Japanese Art” part.  Instead I saw some sculupture, some ceramics and laquerware, and some textiles.  At the end, they had this neat activity where you could make your own kimono – except it was a postcard. 🙂  They had all these stamps with beautiful Japanese designs and symbols, which I started using right away.  It was only when I was finished that I realized that there was an explanation sheet that detailed all their meanings, and here I was haphazardly stamping my kimono.  Oops.  It came out really cute anyway, though.  It was funny, I wasn’t the only adult doing it – lots of older ladies were stamping away too!

After this, I went in search of tea to warm my freezing self, and I amazingly navigated that transaction with as little confusion as possible.

We are out the door, so I”ll tie it up later!