22nd NOVEMBER 2006
Three exhausted and jet-lagged individuals arrived in Tokyo on a grey Wednesday at the end of November 2006.
Nobody had slept during the twelve hour flight from London to Tokyo. Our incredibly excited and talkative daughter kept us (and everyone else on the flight) awake with her incessant chattering about our impending new life. However, her five-year-old logic didn’t quite understand the concept of the distance from England, because she kept asking, “can my friends come for a sleepover tomorrow?”
Our first view of Japan was through the windows of the plane – Mount Fuji emerged above the clouds looking every bit as magnificent as expected.
Moving through the airport was a joy compared with the maze of incompetence that is Heathrow and we soon reached ‘the outside’ where we were collected by car for the final leg of our trip to our new home in Tokyo. Gazing out the window on the way from Narita to Tokyo, I was in a kind of sleep-deprived limbo so recall little of the journey. However, I do remember expecting to see glamorous skyscrapers, similar to Hong Kong’s spectacular architecture, and being slightly disappointed at the expanse of bland, grey concrete greeting me out of a layer of smog. But I remained open minded and was pleasantly rewarded. Most obvious was the exceptional cleanliness of Japan, with teams of cleaners on every street corner sweeping up the falling autumn leaves. Tokyo was greener than I was led to believe, with tree-lined streets and a profusion of potted plants outside most homes and businesses.
Even the driver’s state-of-the-art GPS had problems finding our new house – I never expected there to be such narrow side roads in the city! By the time we stepped inside, Tim and I were almost comatose with tiredness but still Rhiannon didn’t take a breather! She zoomed at top speed through the house, immediately laid claim to her new bedroom and proceeded to plan exactly how it should look. Amazingly she chose the smallest room, which was fine with us. With wonderful forethought, a colleague had left some life-savers at the house: tea, milk, food and a large pack of colouring paraphernalia which finally kept Rhiannon happily and quietly occupied while we sorted ourselves out by drinking tea and getting our bags unpacked.
Somewhat restored in mind, spirit and body, we explored our immediate neighbourhood with its one-car-width streets, little shrines and interesting private homes. Since it was nearly December, we were pleasantly surprised to see camellias and daffodils blooming and a nearby house with grapefruits growing in the garden.
Finally, we all collapsed into bed early in the evening and managed a full and refreshing sleep before I was rudely awoken at dawn by spine-chilling screams and guttural shrieks. With relief, I soon realised this was the Japanese birds’ dawn-chorus; far more discordant than the melodious British songbirds.
Our new life was about to begin!
