Many of our friends think our trip to Japan sounds like a situation comedy:

• a family of five vacation during one of the busiest holiday periods in Japan;
• the mother of this family is of Japanese descent so looks like she should speak Japanese but can’t even count without using her fingers;
• the only member of the family who speaks some Japanese is a red-head; and
• no one is tall enough to stand out among a group of Japanese people.

How soon will someone get lost in the crowds? How will they ask a Japanese person if they have seen a short, black-haired…? Who will ask, “Have you seen a pink man?”? Should they all wear tall, striped Cat in the Hat hats?

Scott and I land at Narita airport outside of Tokyo, where we will meet Sidney, who lands one hour after us. Then the three of us will go into Tokyo to meet up with Robin and Allie. At least, that’s our plan. Hmmm, a lot of these people look like they could be Robin or Sidney.

Robin flew from London to spend a week in Seoul visiting his cousin Matthew, then flew to Sendai in the north of Honshu island on the east coast. It’s marked on the map below. Allie’s city isn’t on this map. It north of Morioka in the northern most part of Honshu. Robin and Allie plan to snowboard for a day then take the overnight bus to Tokyo.

We will mainly be in Tokyo (9 nights), one night in Hakone near Mt. Fuji, and three nights in Kyoto. We plan to travel between the locations by train.

Travelling to Japan comes with the added challenge of taking Christmas gifts and goodies. Many guidebooks warn that you should not take large suitcases because Japanese trains have limited space for luggage. Oh well, mincemeat tarts don’t travel well. So, we’re off with medium sized luggage–mine is rather heavy. Maybe I’ll get some weight training in during this holiday. Hope I can post more while we’re there.