Luka and Leiya's first week in Japan

Already nearly a week has gone by since Leiya and Luka arrived in Japan.  In a nutshell, jetlag and sleeptime has been a major challenge.

Before Leiya and Luka even arrived, Leiya was sending us emails saying that she and Luka had arrived at the Indiana airport, then at Atlanta airport, then a few hours later that they had boarded their flight and were taking off.

She said the 14 hour flight was fairly easy as the plane had hardly any people on it at all so they had a whole row to themselves and there weren't that many people who could be bothered by any fussing Luka did.

In the meantime, Tetsu and I drove the three hours from our house to Haneda Airport and kept out eyes on the arrivals gate when we began expecting Leiya and Luka to come through...  And there they are!

But as I say, jet lag is hard enough to manage on one's own but trying to get a two year old to adjust takes a lot of strategy or else mom and child get on different sleep cycles and mom is the one who loses out! 

When everyone has been awake (and in a good mood) we have hit the toystore and the second hand store to get at least a FEW toys for Luka to play with while he is here (thankfully he really likes digging in Jiji's (grandpa's) garden.  And at the supermarket Leiya found lots of snacky foods that she has really missed and so now she is introducing them to Luka.

Each of our cats is adjusting at various degrees to having new people in the house.  Toi is terrified and runs from the room whenever Luka bounds in (and Luka does seem to like to jump up and down when he sees Toi.)  Cleo tries to ignore the added noise in the house.  We early on warned Luka that Chip would not tolerate petting or being chased and so in Luka's mind, Chip will forever be "the scary kitty".  As expected, Mi is her sweet self, curious about Luka and wanting to sit next to him and she gets kisses and hugs...  I can't say enough what a right decision it was to board John at the vets...  Luka is mostly tumbling around on the floor and occasionally throwing things and John would not have been able to stand the confusion.  Poor John!

Some friends with their own two year old grandson, recommended a park not too far from us where children can go on rides to their heart's content and we've already been there twice this past week.  The flowers are beautiful.

Everything is green and lush.

There is a bit of walking involved so I get parked at a picnic bench and watch over backpacks while the others go play.

Off to ride on a train!

Kiddy size train that is free for children under three and only fifty cents for accompanying adults.

A ride around with Jiji,

and mommy,

and Grandma Tani.

Everyone's having fun!

Riding the ferris wheel...

and a helicopter.

As you can imagine convincing Luka that it is time to go home can result in tantrums but we do get home and he quickly finds other things to amuse himself with.

One such object of interest was the string system we have with all our bedroom doors to keep the cats out of the rooms (the cats know how to open the doors).  A length of string is hooked around the door handle and then to a nail in the wall so that even if the door opens, the gap is not enough to allow a cat to enter (frustrated felines tend to pee and puke on things...  It seems to be done with purpose!)  Anyway, while Leiya and I were doing something in the sewing room, Luka took the opportunity to put the string over the nail, effectively locking us inside!  And then we couldn't get him to focus enough to take the string back off the nail!   In the end we had to telephone Tetsu to come upstairs to release us two captives.  I have since taught Luka how to take the string off the nail...

Anyway, lots of activity and lots of fun around our house these days!