Limbo

We are sleeping. A lot. All of us. It's the jet lag of course but I also drank some children's cough medicine and lost an entire afternoon. This morning we went to Muji, a department store in the Ginza shopping district (5 minutes away on the Yamanote line) that is half Target, half Ikea, and decided on some squarish bean bag chairs and a charcoal couch/day bed with back cushions that literally flip out of the way to make room for sleeping. It's a start.

Being in this hotel (and it's a very nice hotel, the Intercontinental Tokyo Bay, and we have a beautiful view of the bay, a bridge, and part of the Tokyo skyline) feels a little like a hospital stay after giving birth. You know this major life event has happened, that everything has changed and you'll never be the same, and yet the reality hasn't set in, there's a delay, a reprieve, before you have to deal with the new routines and responsibilities. You're not exactly happy to be in the hospital/hotel, you're a bit bored actually, and ready to get home and get on with it, but it's nice to have somebody else take care of things. I didn't mind when the nurse changed my baby's diapers then, just like I don't mind having someone else clean the room and cook the food now. But it does get old. We're here, but our new life hasn't started yet. We're too jet lagged to deal with much anyway, so we eat, and sleep...

After Muji, we take the boys back for naps. T hits the gym, then it's my turn to go out. I don't go far, just to one of the hotel's restaurants, Wake-tokuyama (promising traditional Japanese cuisine) and sit alone at the counter (where is everybody?). I order what turned out to be a tasting menu of sorts, a collection of small items presented to me in pretty little bowls and on pretty little trays. There is miso soup, with tiny cubes of tofu and minuscule button mushrooms; a fish cake wrapped in tofu and deep fried; bream sashimi (slices of raw fish that reminded me of yellowtail but looked like snapper); some sticky rice; a bit of salmon fillet cooked in almonds; shrimp tempura; a cold cube of sweet potato that had the texture of flan; Japanese pickles; some grilled fish (I think it was monkfish) topped with a creamy vegetable mixture; and a hunk of grilled meat that tasted like pork. I skip a couple items, including the shellfish (was it a snail? not sure) and a cup of roe. Dessert is a sweet and sticky blood-red confection that I have to sort of attack with this tiny skewer-like utensil. (The waiter advises me to cut it up first then spear the smaller hunks.) It is served with a perfect cup of green tea.

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve... will we go to a shrine at midnight? We'll see. On Jan. 2 the Imperial Palace grounds will be open to the public and the Emperor will make several appearances throughout the day. Apparently he waves to the crowd from a balcony that's enclosed in protective glass.