Our new home: told through pictures with either a Sam or a tree in the foreground

On Wednesday, we travelled to Heathrow. The most stressful part of this entire day we having to go and get our Rapid PCR test and wait for the results knowing that, if we had caught covid, we wouldn’t be allowed in and all our hard work to get organised would have been wasted. SPOILER ALERT: it was all fine and our tests were negative and we got to check in to a Premier early and relax that evening. To avoid getting covid, we isolated in the hotel room and didn’t go out for dinner, but luckily we had brought plenty of ready meals and snacks for this exact reason. We also got bath in our hotel room, despite it telling us we’d only have a shower, so that was a really nice surprise. Also, that night, I didn’t sleep very well. I assume this was just anxiety, but honestly I could have done with a good rest before the days ahead travelling. 

On the Thursday we got to Heathrow early, checked in and got through security within a couple of hours, and then we sat and ate a wonderful breakfast. I had the Moroccan breakfast without eggs or Labneh and Sam had the avo toast. They were lovely! We also bought lunch from pret, where he had the vegan meatball wrap and I had the falafel salad. Again, they were both wonderful. We also bought cookies each from Pret. We’re going to quickly skip over the matter of the cookies as Sam accidentally threw mine away and I got very upset in Frankfurt when I was craving something sweet and had no cookie waiting for me when I opened my bag. But of course, I soon got over it because before we knew it, we were on the plane to Tokyo! The flight was a bit delayed taking off, so our meal was delayed that night, causing us to be served dinner at 11pm, and not finish until nearly midnight. Luckily, to our surprise, I also could eat most of the meal (as a vegan who is massively intolerant to soy and allergic to milk, trust me, it is very difficult to find things I can eat, so it really was a miracle!)

On the plane, we Sam and I watched House of Gucci and Dune together. Not really going to talk about the films though on this blog. They were okay, we didn’t love them, so there’s not much to say.

We got a flight to Frankfurt, then from there caught our flight to Tokyo

Most of our Friday was spent in the air. At around 4.30pm we landed in Tokyo and then subsequently went through immigration and the covid tests, which took a few hours (not as many as we expected though honestly, that was a nice surprise).

We then got a taxi back to our apartment, because we were too tired to work out the bus or train or figure out sending our luggage etc. The taxi driver was lovely, but accidentally took us to the wrong address at first. My very jet-lagged brain struggled a bit to figure out Japanese, but at least I managed to make some small talk to make the driver feel better as he, finally, drove us to the right place. that evening we quickly put away our suitcases and then went to the local convenience store to get some food, tea bags, toilet paper and soap (of course, the only necessities we needed… or at least, the only ones we could get at the 7-Eleven). We ate the food quickly that night (we literally had an instant noodle pot and an instant rice pot split between us with some pickled ginger on top and then went to bed early because we felt DEAD).

Today, Saturday 9th April, we have done so so much I can’t even believe it’s only been one day. To be honest though, I only got 5 broken hours sleep because my neighbour woke me up at midnight and kept me awake for like over an hour as they were shouting on a video call from 12am-1.20am. Then, as I am a light sleeper, I awoke at just before 5am, as the sun lit up our apartment, even with the curtains shut.

For breakfast, we had some green tea and some bourbons biscuits which we had brought from the UK, because we had no breakfast food in (the 7-Eleven didn’t have milk I could drink nor bread I could eat, and we weren’t putting the rice cooker on that Friday night). After breakfast, we walked to try get our residency forms filled out at the town hall. This is where we took our elevator picture (shown above). Unfortunately, we found out we could only register on weekdays, so we had to walk home without that job completed. We will go first thing Monday morning though, so it’s all okay. 

After that, we went home to drop off our coats because it was over 20 degrees already, even though it was like 9.30am. Honestly, the weather today has been STUNNING! I think that’s actually why we ended up doing so much. It seemed a shame to waste the beautiful day.

Then, we walked to the supermarket to get some groceries (I took a picture of our little food haul). We then walked home, put the groceries away, and had some Jam and bread for brunch (I know, not very Japanese, but my sugar levels were low and we needed something fast). After I had perked up again,

we walked to the main shopping centre in Sunshine city and it was here we got ourselves some homely bits and bobs. This included:
A bath mat

A new pillow each

Some towels

A chopping board

Refillable detergent, washing up liquid, shampoo and conditioner

Deodorant

Sponges 

Some tubs to organise our pantry 

And some really nice coffee beans

We also saw the irl pokemon centre in the mall and had a really good iced coffee. After that, we walked home to drop off the stuff and I rested my shoulders for a bit. Sam put some herbal cream on my shoulders at this point because they are so painful at the moment from the luggage carrying yesterday, the difficulty I had trying the sleep on the plane (and the stiff neck it caused me because of that), and the bad pillows we had in the apartment. After resting a bit, I made up our picnic dinner. It was only something quick: some brown rice with roasted sesame seeds, carrot, avo, pickled ginger and some sesame seaweed (see pictures above for a look). Around 4.30pm we walked to the tram stop to go to Meguro River. We had a bit of a kafuffle at the tram stop because we got confused when the right tram never arrived. Eventually, we realised we had to find the underground stop that was badly sign-posted due to roadworks and also it happened to be directly under the tram stop so Google Maps made it look like the same place. We made it though in the end, however we did mess up our tickets because of the time-pressure we were on due to the fact the sun was due to set at 6pm and we wanted to have seen the sakura by then.

When we got to Meguro, we walked to the river and then down the embankment. We saw the last of the blooming cherry blossoms and took some pictures. It was very beautiful and lovely. Then, we found a spot to have our picnic and we ate whilst watching the sun set over the city.

After that, we got the metro to Shinjuku and walked around the city in the dark. We loved seeing Tokyo and all its neon lights in all their glory, so took plenty of pictures of them. Some of which I have posted above. (I hope you like them!) After doing a bit of shopping in Shinjuku (and getting a new charging cable for our camera which is literally dead and we had no way to charge it,) we finally caught the metro home. I’m now I’m sat with a cup of tea writing this while Sam has a long, hot shower.