Adventures in Babysitting- My Parents in Japan

The moment I met my parents at the airport our roles reversed. For the next week I served as:

-interpreter (which was really difficult since my Japanese is barely good enough to get by on my own in normal situations- and they may have thought I knew more than I do)

-tour guide (often of places I hadn't been to before)

-navigator (thank god for my sense of direction and ability to read maps, because apparently they left those skills in the US- despite thinking they knew where they were going half the time)

-food suggestor (so my dad wouldn't eat ramen for EVERY meal)

-money payer (granted it took me awhile to get used to using Yen too)

-and then there was the task of keeping them from hitting, teasing and quarreling and getting lost. At one point I considered buying those leashes for children so I wouldn't lose them in the train station.

Other than acting as their parent for most of the trip (or maybe because of that) we had a really good time. It started out kind of rocky, but once I started warming up to them again it was time for them to leave. Although it was a short trip we saw a lot, experienced a lot and for the most part avoided bad weather (by bad weather I mean rain, ask my mom and she'll say the only good days were the days it rained, not a fan of the hot humid).

The highlights:

• Kawagoe: walked a lot, probably more than we should've, but we saw some cool things. They saw my school (which, low and behold is a college more than one buidling, because apparently those exist) and met some of my friends. *First instance of Japanese men telling my in Japanese that my mom is cute. We also went to karaoke, which they LOVED. Not only was it a lot of fun and cheap, but it we were in air conditioning for 2 hours.
  

• Kyoto via Shinkansen. Walked the Philopshers Path from our hotel to Ginkakuji. It was really nice. * We were talking to a rickshaw driver and he told me in Japanese that my mom is cute.
  
• 
  Ate some good rame and introduced them to Okonomiyaki, which they loved.
  

• Nara- rented bikes, almost rode in the completely wrong direction (until I took control of the situation), saw deer, had the potentional of seeing my friend Jeni who was also in Nara, but we missed each other, saw the Daibutsu (Big Buddah), bought a whole bunch of Omamori and went home.

• Back in Kyoto we saw a rock garden that just wasn't that cool and discovered bus travel kind of sucks.
  

• Finally back in Tokyo, we went to Akiba where my parents were so close to buying a new camera since their's is about 7 years old and the size of a small child. We ate at the Doner Kebab truck and my dad spoke to the guys in Turkish, which was cool.
  

• MY BIRTHDAY! We went to Meiji Shrine, which was a fam favorite, went shopping in Harajuku and Shibuya (which I enjoyed...). We had plans to go to the Park Hyatt Hotel in Shinjuku because at the top is the New York Bar, featured in Lost in Translation. I mean, this just turned into a ridiculous fiasco. We got lost... twice (at least), ended up at the wrong hotel... twice and walked at least 4 miles. When we finally arrived at the bar we get turned away because there's a dress code.... you can't wear flipflops. gah. At this point we were all hot, sweaty, tired, hungry and thus... cranky. We decided to go down to another bar in the hotel, on a lower level, so not as classy right? Too bad one drink was an average price of $20 and it was a cloudy/hay day so the view sucked too. Needless to say we didn't go there and settled for some Chinese food and a a taxi ride to the station. We bought two pieces of cake and ate them at the hotel, then went out to Hub Pub for a drink. *A very drunk Japanese guy started waving at my mom, she's just too darn cute.
  

Today we checked me into my new room and then I took them to the airport. It was sad to see them go, but I'm really glad they came- they brought me cookies and candy. We had some fun too I guess...