Yokohama

We arrived in Yokohama in the early afternoon and even though we were pretty tired and wanted to check into the hotel and take a nap, our rooms weren’t quite ready. So, we went to Landmark Tower, which had a big, very nice mall inside (see picture below) and lots of places to eat and had some lunch. 

We also searched for diapers since we hadn’t found any while in Tokyo despite looking seemingly everywhere and we were running low. We went to a drug store where they didn’t sell any but could at least tell us where they did sell them.  Since we were tired and wanted to head back to the hotel, Yusaku’s parents offered to run out and pick them up for us, which we appreciated!  Here are two pictures of our hotel.The first is the outside and the second is of our room.  We had a great view (p.s. check out who's in our bed)!

After a nice little nap back at the hotel, we met up with Yusaku’s aunts and uncles – his dad’s older brother Katsuhiro and his younger brother Shunzo. We had dinner with them at a "viking" restaurant. Apparently, they call buffets "vikings" there. Here is a picture of all of us at dinner (minus Yusaku’s dad who was taking the picture).

The next morning, after having a "viking" breakfast, we headed out for a chilly walk around Yokohama Bay. There was hardly anyone out. I suppose that's because the area where we were staying was mostly filled with businesses.  After our walk, we bought some sandwiches in the basement of the subway station by our hotel to take with us for lunch and then hopped on the train for a 45 minute ride to visit Yusaku's grandmother at her nursing home.  All the subway stations in Japan have very nice places to buy food to go - everything from sandwiches to sushi and everything in between. See picture below.

I was amazed at how clean the nursing home was. Not that I should be surprised - everything in Japan was very clean. It seemed like everywhere we went, people were cleaning. When we walked in with our stroller, a woman came out from behind the front desk and asked permission to clean off the wheels of our stroller. We were then instructed to wash our hands at a sink in the lobby before we headed upstairs to meet his grandma. 

Even though his grandma doesn't speak English and I don't speak Japanese, it was so nice to finally meet her and for her to meet Olivia and see Yusaku again after so long. We had lunch together in a private room that his dad had reserved. His dad's cousin was also there. We had a great visit and one of the best parts was that while we were sitting around visiting, Olivia rolled over for the first time. We were so excited and proud and luckily, caught it on video. I will put the video up in the next post. For now, here are some pictures from our visit.

Olivia meeting her great-grandma for the first time!

Group shot

Yusaku's dad's cousin - not sure what that makes her to Olivia :)

Saying goodbye! :(

Four generations

I found it very sad to say goodbye, but hopefully we will be able to see her again before too much more time goes by.  When we got back to our hotel, we met up with with Yusaku's cousin Yoko and her son, Mahiro.  It was so nice to meet her. She actually spoke English fairly well, which was really nice for me.  We headed over to Landmark Tower for dinner with them. I got a kick out of watching Mahiro, who is 8, and Yusaku's mom, play. They played many rounds of rock, paper, scissors - the Japanese version...pretty funny! Here's a picture of Kazumi and Mahiro and another picture of all of us after we had just enjoyed some gelato and crepes for dessert.

Finally, back at the hotel, we squeezed in a quick visit with Yusaku's other cousin, Maki and her husband.  Even though it was a short visit, it was really nice to meet her as well and for her to meet Olivia.  I'll wrap up this very long post with this picture of Maki and her husband.