I fell out of bed early this morning trying to catch an errant pass.  In my dream.  To be fair, she claimed she’d played quarterback so I was expecting a much further throw and ended up having to compensate and make a play on the ball.

Anyway, that was about par for my sleeping experience in Tokyo.  Absolutely love the location of the hotel, but positively hate the bed.  But that’s a problem for next trip.

We got up to the news that our flight had been delayed by 90 minutes (later 60).  Not the news we wanted to hear as we were hoping to get in reasonably early and pick up Sharky from his home-stay family.  Guess we’ll see how it goes.  What do you consider a reasonable time to stop by and pick up your dog?  We were thinking 8:00 p.m. but it’s looking like closer to 9:00 p.m.  10:00 p.m. is definitely pushing it.

Having decided NOT to buy an extra suitcase, we shoved everything into my single giant 20-year-old suitcase, then headed out for lunch.  Today, it was Chikuyotei for unagi.  This place holds a special place in Akemi’s heart given that her grandfather used to always take her to the Osaka branch when she was a kid.

We shared the shirayaki (white eel), Akemi’s favorite.  While good, the Tokyo steamed version pales in comparison the Kansai-style crispy take.

While Akemi went with the snapper as her main course, I stuck with tradition – the lacquer unagi.  Very good, but a little bony.  The elderly man seated beside me (On what Akemi assumed was a date.  How cute!) seemed to agree.

Afterwards, we swung by the Mitsuioshi department store whose basement floor is packed with all sorts of goodies, both sweet and savory: cutlets and yakitori and tempuras and cakes and pies and chocolates and on and on and on.  I picked up a Maisen pork cutlet, a lotus root salad, two mini kouign ammans, and a tiny canule for the trip.  In addition to whatever I would find at the airport.

The gals

Happy Christmas from the demons!

Our last stop was Cafe de L’Ambre, a place for serious coffee lovers in Ginza.  Saddle up to the bar and let them know your flavor profile.  They’ll recommend a bean and preparation: hot, cold, straight, blended, with liquor, as pudding or jelly, or maybe with an egg yolk.  Choose from 30 different single origin varieties.  Ahem and Dr. Blackjack had the coffee jelly.  I went with a simple cafe au lait.

Then, it was back to the hotel for check-out after which we lugged our heavy suitcases across the street and two blocks over to the Higashi-Ginza station where we caught the Asakusa line straight to the airpot.  Surprisingly, it wasn’t that busy and we breezed through check-in, security, and in no time at all were cooling our heels, waiting to board.  In three hours.

I ate my katsu sando.  Had the lotus root salad that really should have been called a purple onion salad.  The canule was delicious.  And I instantly regretted not having ordered three more.

So, the flight leaves Haneda at 7:20 p.m. local time.  I figure I’ll try to sleep for much of the 12 hours so I can be fully rested when we touch down in Toronto at a little before 7:00 p.m.  That will hopefully give us time to go home, drop off our luggage, grab and uber, pick up Sharky, get back to the apartment, unpack, and be in bed by midnight (approximately 2 p.m. Tokyo time) where we’ll no doubt lie awake through most of the night.  We’ll have two days to readjust before we get back on a plane and head to Montreal for the Christmas holidays!

See you in Toronto!