tiny TINY space

For two weeks after we arrived, we stayed at a service apartment near Graham's office in Ginza. The space was about 450 square feet with a kitchen, bathroom, living area, and bedroom all in one big room about the size of our sunroom back home. Which meant that whenever one child woke up in the middle of the night adjusting to the time change everyone woke up! We unearthed the noise machine and stuck Wiley at one end of the room (the kitchen) and Blue at the other. To say that was a success would be an exaggeration but it got us by. Blue developed some bad sleeping habits with his bed being right next to ours. We are still working to overcome them weeks later. 

 

 

   

 

 

   

The kitchen was tiny but we still managed to cook oatmeal each morning and spaghetti and ramen a couple times for dinner. After sleeping, the second hardest thing about the apartment was having to eat out for every meal. Eating out is NOT kid-friendly here. No high chairs. Small, quiet restaurants. And unfamiliar food. I have never been so happy to grocery shop and meal plan as I am here in Tokyo. 

The bathroom was the one bright spot. I should do a separate posts on Japanese bathrooms... But until then, just know they are nice. 

 

 

The other semi-bright spot was the location. I say "semi" because it was not close to Blue's school which he started during the second week of our service apartment stay. Which meant my mornings were quite the ordeal and totally exhausting. But it was close to lots of fun shops (Ginza is sort of the Tokyo version of Fifth Avenue, but bigger) and the Tsukiji fish market which meant good sushi for Graham. Blue was a particular fan of a nearby toy store. On our last visit we let him pick out one thing and he got the dinosaur from Toy Story. He calls is Japanese T Rex. Because it speaks Japanese.