We are in Japan - Tokyo

This holiday we decided to go to Japan, Why? One of the reasons is that we have never been here before, second reason is that it is Anna`s dream, and third because this has been a challenging year for us as a family. It has been the most amazing year when it comes to traveling, but the change from being 6 till "only" 5 has not been easy for anybody, and one way of dealing with grief is to distract ourselves with new experiences building new memories and share a good time together as the family we now are.

We been lucky to have two other great "kids" traveling with us, they are my cousins children and they also like to visit Japan. So far we are having the best time together all 7 of us.

We started from Gardermoen December 20th, and the weather was not the best so we had a delay...

"killing time" the best way we could. First flight was Oslo-Copenhagen, and we thought we would not make it till the next flight. Luckily for us, the pilots were at the same flight as us, in Copenhagen we were running between the gates and we made it.

Our next flight was Copenhagen-Tokyo, about 10 hours in the air...flying over areas that we never been before...

Flight was long, but the plane had movies and even games (tetris - hurray:) so it went quite ok.

Finally landing in Tokyo, of course our suitcases were left in Copenhagen...which was both good and bad. At the airport we met the sample of how extremely helpful the Japanese are. When leaving the plane it was a note with our name, with a message where to go to get information about our luggage. Once there, we filled up the papers, got some compensation and this great woman lead us to the right bus.

After the bus we went on the subway, and we really got a feeling how huge this city is. With a population of 13 million, it is crowded...and the subway system have so many lines. But we made it, and at this point we were happy we did not have 6 suitcases to carry.

All set in the hostel we are staying at now, we went out to buy food. "Normally when we travel we find things we are used to, but that is not the case here, since Japan try to import as little as they can.
The stores are full, they are really not missing anything, but it is not so easy to understand what the products contain of...so we just had to try.

Anna is probably the person I know who is best with communicating through body language, and in her mysterious way she managed to find butter, noodles and toothbrush among the other things we wanted.

Back at the hostel we ate, and went to sleep. It is 8 hours time difference between Norway and Japan, and I have to admit that for me jet lag is never easy. The boys seems to be the same as me, but the girls have adjusted better.

For now, we are staying close to one of the most popular places for tourists, the Senso-ji temple. (Later we will move to a different location)

At the temple you can get a prediction for the future, by an interesting system. You shake a box, out comes a stick, you recognize the symbol of your stick with the drawers and take out  a note....I am happy to say that our future looks bright and happy according to this..

The whole area around the temple is beautiful and interesting. It was founded in 628 and even though it has been destroyed by fire many times it has been rebuilt. Last time was in 1958.

In this area it is also a tiny amusement park which Adam and Helene visited, and a ninja class that Ellen and Anna participated in.

This city has so much to offer, and this is only just outside our doorstep. We have done lots already, and will do much more. Bottom line is, we are having the best time.