The flight was pretty uneventful, except that Joseph was a complete ham on the flight. Christian and I are kind of worried that this may all be a facade. Maybe Joseph will turn out to be a big con-man someday. I mean, he gets away with murder because he's so stinkin' charming.
Coming back to our house was really great. One of our neighbors turned up the heat and bought us groceries. It was like we hadn't left. Joseph went immediately to his toy room.
The next few days are kind of a blur because the jetlag was pretty awful. Well, it was hard on Christian and me. Joseph really had no idea. Because there's a 15 hour time difference between Tokyo and Milwaukee, Joseph got up in the middle of the night for several hours at a shot. Our pediatrician recommended some tactics, including giving him some melatonin. That didn't seem to work too well. By night 3 of these shenanigans, I was a complete zombie. I would count down the minutes until Joseph would take a nap in the afternoon; then I would dive into bed myself. I have no idea how Christian functioned at work, except that he probably had lots of coffee.
Anyway, enough about jetlag. The real point of this post is to tell you that I've single-handedly revived Milwaukee's economy in the time that I've been home.
There are two reasons for this no-holds barred shopping: (1) we now know the things we can't buy in Tokyo, and (2) non-Tokyo prices are CHEAP.
The day after we arrived back home, I headed to Target. Talk about an easy shopping experience. I bought a bunch of things for Joseph and for our apartment in Tokyo. I did a little more grocery shopping, too, and I bought things without looking at prices. Normally, I can't bear to buy things without a sale price or a coupon (thanks, Mom), but now I don't care.
And here are some things that we can't find (at least easily) in Tokyo:
1. cereal. The only things we can find are corn flakes, bran flakes, and weetabix. No cheerios, no life, no lucky charms....you get the picture.
2. American brands of gum.
3. convenient packages of ANYTHING. There are very few snack packs of any product. I guess I wouldn't normally care about this sort of thing, but with a 2-year old, those little packs make life easier.
4. dairy products (except milk). Poor Christian can't get his half and half for his coffee.
5. shoes and clothing for people who are not petite-sized.... I kind of feel like a huge person in Tokyo, even though I wear a size medium here in the US. I had to get this pregnancy belt, and the nurse gave me an XL. It fit perfectly.
We can find a bunch of things in the international grocery stores, but there aren't many choices on things. You would only be able to find one brand of peanut butter, or one brand of potato chips.... So, as you may have guessed, my first trip to Target after arriving back home was like going to Disneyland.
Oh, and as for R.O.C.K., I have not listened to much radio in Tokyo. I come home to Milwaukee and can't recognize the songs. I am embarrassed to say that a Miley Cyrus song was kind of entertaining. It's either listen to that or sing the ABCs to Joseph.
That's the report on this side of the Pacific. We hope you have a wonderful Christmas and New Year!!
