out and about

It goes without saying that exploring any city with young kids takes the travel experience to a whole new level. We're constantly on the look out for a good park, a child friendly cafe, an exit on the subway with the least stairs or even better a lift - which then becomes a preferred station to commute through. Despite living in the thick of Shibuya an extremely busy and electric city within a city, we've been surprised how many fantastic places there are close by perfect for our kids.

It's not always easy getting around. Anna told me the other day 'Mum, I'm over this walking thing'. We have explored solely on foot, scooters and public transport and while it's given us a great feeling for city life, it's not always easy as the girls get tired.

On our third weekend in Tokyo we took the children to the Imperial Palace Gardens, home to the Emperor of Japan and built on the site of an old Edo castle. The East gardens are the only part of the palace that are open to the public and were well worth the effort of walking through. We discovered beautiful manicured Japanese gardens, pretty ponds, bonsai trees and large grassy areas to play ball.

Another great afternoon was an outing to Ueno Park. We decided to visit the Science Museum (Ueno is famous for its string of museums) but once we arrived in the park we had so much to see we never actually made it there.

Tokyo Green 2012 festival was in full bloom. It's a festival showcasing floral displays and miniature gardens across several of Tokyo's parks. Turns out Ueno park is also a fabulous place to come to enjoy street art, so we were captivated for hours by amazing performances, acrobatics, comedy and random performers in some very strange costumes.  At one point this freak half human/ half monster (dress up of course) grabbed Anna's razor to ride it. The audience laughed and she started to scream - it was quite a site.

Next to the Ueno Zoo (600Y/ $5 - how cheap compared to Taronga??) was a little amusement park and also a nice playground. Our troop of 3 were in child heaven. There was also some cool Japanese exhibits scattered around, didn't quite understand what their purpose was, but it all felt very 'Japanesey' and we spent hours captured by the fun vibe and taking photos alongside interesting artefacts.

During half term I took the kids to one of the best playgrounds I've ever seen called the 'Niko Niko park' - meaning 100 yen park (as in you pay Y100 to enter.) A very large, safe enclosed area with brilliant slides, climbing equipment, flying fox and a climbing zone up a wooded and hilly part of the park which my girls loved. Unlike many of the playgrounds which have sand only (not ideal for a baby who eats everything off the ground) the Niko Niko park has tarmac so perfect for baby Jonah.We met some school friends there and spent the whole day there until the park closed at 4:30pm. There was no worry about running out of food as Japan's best selection of vending machines were present at the Niko Niko park and we managed to source everything from hot tea, ice-cream, biscuits, miso soup - you name it from these super awesome vending machines.

KidZania - a mini kids city - was an expensive outing but also worth a visit. It's in Toyoso (in a great shopping centre which I never got to see much of) and is probably best described as a kids world with over 80 different real life experiences for children in a educational realistic environment where the kids role play adult actiivites. Kids either do a job and are paid or have to pay with their kidzania money to do a job. The area is built just like a real city, paved streets etc with real life brands and was pretty impressive for kids and adults. My girls were hooked and would go back in a flash.

Autumn is proving to be a very beautiful time in Tokyo. Over the last few weeks we've been exploring some fantastic spots to take in the gorgeous colours and I have to admit never before have I taken so many photos of trees. I keep my camera close as its so pretty I want to keep the colours alive in my memories of this place. A day out in Showa Kinen (a park about an hour west of where we live) was one of the most spectacular parks I've ever been to. We hired bikes and spent the day riding and soaking up the amazing scenery: ponds, gardens, cosmos fields and more.

Today we found Shinjuku Gyoen another magnificent park with lots of traditional Japanese gardens,water lily ponds and massive cedar trees. The colours were so alive and the kids had a ball playing in fields of massive leaves.

Winter is fast approaching and we'll need to start trying out some indoor stuff. Weather has been great until now, so we've been lucky to spend so much time outdoors in the parks. And if Cherry Blossom season in the springtime is anything as pretty as the fall we've got lots to look forward to.

We got wheels

After about 3 days in Tokyo we realised we'd need a car to keep our pace and explore our new environment with our young family. Tokyo's incredible transport network has to be amoung one of the most sophisticated in the world with an extensive subway (Tokyo metro) and overland train system (the 'JR') which connects every area of the sprawling city. 

Throw 3 kids (under 7 years old) with a buggy into the mix of numerous subway interchanges involving kilometres of walking between platforms and the insane number of people who commute on this network daily - it was pretty daunting and exhausting getting around. For for the first 6 weeks we took a lot of taxi's which are expensive; about 710Y (nearly $10) before you get in. Busses although easier with our baggage are way too complicated to figure out as their route maps and schedules appear to be in Japanese only. 

One Saturday evening we arrived at Shinjuku station (thankfully the children were home sleeping with a babysitter) and were stunned that it took us about 20 minutes to walk from the train platform to the station exit! Turns out Shinjuku station is the busiest metro station in the world with over 200 exits and 3.6 million commuters a day. Just a little more intense than Bondi Junction at rush hour. Typical choice for our quiet date night away from the kids. 

Despite the highly complex subway map consisting of hundreds of squiggly lines in different colours and routes many of the signs are in English and although I wouldn't recommend a claustrophobic individual or one who suffers from panic in crowds travel Tokyo's metro - Japan's network takes the cake in terms of efficiency and handling so many millions of people. 

People are patient, courteous and there is an amazing train etiquette: no talking, no mobiles (playing on them is ok, but no talking at all) so much so that you can hear a pin drop on the subway, no food, no drink, no talking to fellow passengers, no loud music blasting and definitely no pushing. I am stunned everyday at the amazing politeness at all times on the metro. Mind blowing in fact. 

We've had a few laughs that when ones changes platforms in any given Tokyo subway station it's absolutely no guarantee you're anywhere near your next train. Strong possibility you'll need to walk a distance of up to a kilometre underground. This is definitely not a stroller friendly system either. We often find ourselves transporting scooters, kids, baby bags, and a mountain buggy ....only to realise there are no elevators and endless amounts of stairs we need to climb.

So we found our second hand car in the school newsletter. An expat family was moving onto their next post in Kenya and we bought their Honda Odessy during our second week here. A 7 seater that had done around 37, 000km.  Much to our ignorance, we were actually about 3 weeks away from actually owning the car. 

Atholl could write a book on how he decided to avoid the $500 dealer fee to manage the paperwork and transfer the vehicle privately into his name. Not sure many expats have lived to tell this experience. So much so that when he told his Japanese work colleagues he was taking this on himself, they were stunned, even the locals find this process a challenge, described as an impossibility. 

So I'm extremely proud to say that my husband undertook the following challenge: a trip to the Australian embassy in Tokyo to verify his signature, 2 trips to the local police station with proof that our home has a legal car space (this is such an issue here, as space is so scarce) a few trips to the local ward office in Shibuya (our council) to verify our new house details, about 10 calls and emails between the current owner, filling in endless forms in Japanese, obtaining international drivers permits (as the Japanese licence was way too complex) and finally a day trip to the registration office which he described to me as watching himself in a Japanese Benny Hill movie: moving between various office buildings to get papers and forms stamped and then stamped again! So despite an amazing subway that works like clockwork we have now experienced the red tape and ludicrous process that comes with buying a car in Japan. But he accomplished this with great effort and an excess of 30 admin hours. 

Atholl collected the car and took a wrong turn trying to get home only to find himself driving across the famous Shibuya crossing. Go Ath. Our tank was on red so the next challenge was to try find petrol. Most of the petrol stations are not obvious to westerners as the pumps are suspended from the ceiling. What appeared to be a car wash was actually a gas station. 

So our Honda is happily sitting in our garage - the girls were so excited to see a car but I must admit I only looked at it after about 4 days.  I've braved the subway with my kids but driving in a city where streets have no names, our GPS is half english and half Japanese, road signs are in Japanese and you need a foreign degree to work out parking regulations and meters driving my kids around feels a bit daunting to be honest. 

Although I'm proud of how fit the girls are after 6 weeks on foot, it's getting colder and as winter approaches I will need to get into the drivers seat. I reckon it's like any first time and will get easier. I'm also hoping that if I do get caught out by one of the thousands of traffic wardens who roam the streets, I'll have my 'gaijin' (foreigner) ignorance as my shield to save me some yen in traffic and parking offences.