Our rest day was spent sleeping in (yay! no alarm!) at the hotel catching up on washing and icieng Grant's groin till late afternoon. I'd spoken to Mari (our wonderful friend who I spent many hours at the pool swimming with back in 1994-95) earlier and we'd decided to meet for dinner that night. She had a couple of things to do in Shinjuku before hand and although she wasn't keen to come to the hotel, she kindly 
did. Thankfully, cause when we tried to find our way round the Shinjuku station we were totally lost. Not sure why, but I assumed being Japanese she'd have no problems finding her way around, but as she'd said to me many times before, she hates Shinjuku because of the crowds and almost never comes here.
did. Thankfully, cause when we tried to find our way round the Shinjuku station we were totally lost. Not sure why, but I assumed being Japanese she'd have no problems finding her way around, but as she'd said to me many times before, she hates Shinjuku because of the crowds and almost never comes here. We finally found our way after asking several people along the way, to the Isetan Department store and after having a wander around, we decided to have Chinese for dinner on the 7the floor a the Ginza Asuta. Earlier in the day we bought Grant some 'ice bandage pads' to put on his groin to keep it cold and help it heal while we were out and after we'd made ourselves comfortable at the restaurant, he went off to the loo (which we'd passed 2 mins ago) to stick one on. After 5 mins or more, when he still hadn't returned, I did what a worry wort of a mum would do and went looking for him. I decided to go the toilets closest to the restaurant, thinking he may have decided to go to these ones, and stood outside the door to the mens shouting out his name. After not hearing from him no matter how loud I shouted, I ran off before whoever was in there came out.
I decided to go via the restaurant to the other toilets, and by the time I got back, he was sitting there quietly chatting to Mari. When I asked why it took so long to put a sticky pad on, he explained that when he tried to take off the strapping that the trainer had put on the night before, it pulled off a layer of skin and said he thought he had drawn blood! As the sticky bandage wrapped around his thigh several times, I imagine it was very painful and he did it as slowly as it could.
Anyway, after a lovely dinner, we walked about 20 mins back to the hotel and had to walk through a covered walkway where the night before there had been many homeless men sleeping, but only had 3 there tonight. They had taken refuge from the rain there the night before. Mari was a little worried about walking back through there late at night and so we accompanied her half way, and then walked back to the hotel together. It was so good to see her again, and though we hadn't spent time together for about 4 years, it felt like only yesterday. She seemed happier in herself since last we saw her, even though her step dad had passed away only a few weeks ago from cancer, but other areas in her life had changed for the better, so she seemed wistful, but happy. We look forward to seeing more of her, since we'll be living literally 'down the road' (one block away), over the next few weeks.
Tokyo Disney – 29 Sept
Once again we had an early start to the day, and a very late finish. Most of our days finished around 10- 10.30pm, so the kids have done extrem
ely well playing and training with little rest. We had breakfast at 7am and then left for Disneyland at 8am, thankfully the weather had cleared up and it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day. Tokyo Disney is about an hour away from the centre of Tokyo, on the way to the airport and once we all de-bussed, we were given instructions on where and when to meet later tonight. After a security check before we entered, we joined the droves of people lining up 
to get in. Being a Wednesday I had errant expectations that it would’nt be a busy day and we wouldn’ have to line up. Boy was I wrong! After Andrew (Jacksons Dad – a good friend of Grant’s) and I decided to stick together for the day, we started straight for the Pirates of the Carribean ride. Getting there on opening we only had to wait 20 mins, so were hopeful. By the time we made our way round to Thunder Mountain, we realized it would be wise to make use of the fast passes. So after waiting 50 mins or so to ride, we quickly grabbed some fast passes and moved on to the next ride. Luckily for us, Andrew and Jackson have also been to LA Disney and were totally uninterested in Souveniers etc, so we focused on the rides. By the time we went over to line up for Splash Mountain, the wait time was listed as 11
0 mins! We decided not to wait but pick up a fast pass, not realizing that we had to wait two hours for our next fast pass. So we decided to go to some other rides which may not be as popular, but found all had over an hour long waits…..except for, you guessed it Spike – It’s a small world. Only 10 mins J Our biggest worry was picking up the ‘small world virus’ for the rest of the day, and as I write this I can feel the song
infecting my brain again!
We had a fabulous day, though very
tiring, riding attractions that we hadn’t ridden on in LA because of time restrictions and also because we spent so much time of our time at California Adventureland. I should write down a couple of the ways the kids entertained themselves during the hours we waited in line. One was to play a game called 'Tick Tack Toe' though it was a slighly more violent game than I'd seen before requiring pinching and slapping the losers face and during one line for 'Space Mountain', the kids broke out in song and had the surrounding Japanese singing out loud to Bon Jovi's 'Living on a Prayer'! and a few other songs. We all enjoyed the break from the monotony!
Once again we had an early start to the day, and a very late finish. Most of our days finished around 10- 10.30pm, so the kids have done extrem
ely well playing and training with little rest. We had breakfast at 7am and then left for Disneyland at 8am, thankfully the weather had cleared up and it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day. Tokyo Disney is about an hour away from the centre of Tokyo, on the way to the airport and once we all de-bussed, we were given instructions on where and when to meet later tonight. After a security check before we entered, we joined the droves of people lining up 
to get in. Being a Wednesday I had errant expectations that it would’nt be a busy day and we wouldn’ have to line up. Boy was I wrong! After Andrew (Jacksons Dad – a good friend of Grant’s) and I decided to stick together for the day, we started straight for the Pirates of the Carribean ride. Getting there on opening we only had to wait 20 mins, so were hopeful. By the time we made our way round to Thunder Mountain, we realized it would be wise to make use of the fast passes. So after waiting 50 mins or so to ride, we quickly grabbed some fast passes and moved on to the next ride. Luckily for us, Andrew and Jackson have also been to LA Disney and were totally uninterested in Souveniers etc, so we focused on the rides. By the time we went over to line up for Splash Mountain, the wait time was listed as 11
0 mins! We decided not to wait but pick up a fast pass, not realizing that we had to wait two hours for our next fast pass. So we decided to go to some other rides which may not be as popular, but found all had over an hour long waits…..except for, you guessed it Spike – It’s a small world. Only 10 mins J Our biggest worry was picking up the ‘small world virus’ for the rest of the day, and as I write this I can feel the song
infecting my brain again!We had a fabulous day, though very
tiring, riding attractions that we hadn’t ridden on in LA because of time restrictions and also because we spent so much time of our time at California Adventureland. I should write down a couple of the ways the kids entertained themselves during the hours we waited in line. One was to play a game called 'Tick Tack Toe' though it was a slighly more violent game than I'd seen before requiring pinching and slapping the losers face and during one line for 'Space Mountain', the kids broke out in song and had the surrounding Japanese singing out loud to Bon Jovi's 'Living on a Prayer'! and a few other songs. We all enjoyed the break from the monotony!
By the end of the day when we all met at the designated point at the front gate, we were totally exhausted and although it was late, only a few of the younger kids fell asleep on the bus, while the others we way too excited recounting the days events, to any sleep.
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