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6/25/97: Arrival in Tokyo and first impressions

6/25/97: Later, that same evening , after a day of house-hunting.

6/26/97: A worthwhile prospect and visit to HPLJ

6/28/97: A deal is struck!

It's Wednesday morning, just a bit before 7AM, as I write this. Kate is a great traveler, having made it on the 10 hour flight with very little fuss. Our plane, which took off around noon Monday, touched down at 2PM Tuesday at Narita. Kate spent most of the flight listening to the kids' audio channel on her headset and singing along with all of the songs. She was also taking care of her Tamagotchi. Once we got to Narita, we cleared immigration and customs, and got on the Narita Express train at 3:13PM. Kate loved the train ride, especially when the young woman with the ice cream cart came down the aisle with some treats. We found our way out of the Shinjuku station and had a cab take us to the Century Hyatt. We checked into room 2413, and Kate promptly found a kids' TV show that is in both Japanese and English for entertainment. We took the subway to get over to the house of some friends from Palo Alto, the Oppermanns, for dinner and had a good time visiting with them. By this time, we were all starting to feel just a little bit jet-lagged though, so we got back to our hotel by cab (Kate fell asleep) and were tucked into bed at 10PM.

Kate bounced up about 6AM, so we took showers and she's now exploring the TV again. There are a lot of "Good Morning Japan" type shows on right now, so I think she's a little disappointed.

We'll go get breakfast as soon as Kent finishes washing up, then at 9AM we meet with the H-P relocation coordinator. She'll turn us over to a real estate agent at 10AM, and we'll spend the day driving around the Setagaya area looking for a house. Should be fun.

Talk to you soon .... !!!

• T.

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Hello again from the Fife Avenue Carey Relocation Base Camp.

Now I'm writing at a little after 10PM on Wednesday night. We wore two realtors out today and were a little disappointed with what we were shown. The first house was great but in a not-so-great location -- it would take Kent over an hour to get to work from there. The second house was big, but on a busy street, over our budget, and it had all the ambience of a doctor's office.

We went back to our hotel after the first two, but were contacted by a second realtor during the afternoon, so after Kate and I went for a dip in the hotel pool (on the 28th floor!), we took the subway out to the Sakura-Shinmachi subway station to meet her. She showed us a townhouse in a triplex that was very nice -- huge living/dining room combination (about 30ft by 28ft) with a galley kitchen and 4 bedrooms. It would do the job, but it's also in a geographically difficult spot. We'll find out tomorrow whether it's on the Seisen bus line; it's not on the map that we have that's about 2 years old.

A third realtor will take us out tomorrow and faxed us three listings this evening -- one is the unit in the triplex that we saw this afternoon, but the other two look like good possibilities. Both are a bit over our budget, but from what we've heard, there's room to negotiate this stuff. The relocation contact H-P uses is trying to find us a few more agents to see this week.

Kate got a little whiney and fussy on the way back to the hotel from the Sakura-Shinmachi adventure, and didn't want to go out for dinner. Unfortunately, we had no babysitter available, so she had to accompany us on our 20th anniversary dinner. We ended up going to an indifferent Italian restaurant, Ristorante Uno, on the 51st floor of the Sumitomo Building (which is right across the street from the Century Hyatt) but Kate was a grump through the whole meal. She finally lightened up on the walk back to the hotel. She's asleep now and Kent is cussing at Lotus Notes trying to get it to work with the network he's logging in through as well as the hotel phone system. It seems to be working; he's playing some Real Audio broadcast off NPR right now (Morning Edition).

Kate is snoring and sounding so cute. I'm starting to fade so I'm going to wrap this up and try to catch another 8 or 9 hours of Zonk Time. Stay out of trouble if you can ... ...

Love,

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Dear Folks --

The house search goes on. This morning we saw an excellent prospect and authorized the real estate agent to make an offer on our behalf. It's in Seta-ku, which is close to the Tama River and about a 5 minute walk from a subway stop (Futago-Tamagawaen). It's a 4 BR house with a good-sized living room and dining room. The kitchen has two refrigerator/freezers in it for some reason. One of the bedrooms appears to be wired for three phone lines -- instant office! -- and there's a satellite hookup available. There's a little sushi shop right at the end of the street, about 60 steps from the front door. It's also close to a great shopping district and a bunch of parks as well as the brother school to Seisen, where the girls are enrolled. They can walk to St. Mary's (the brother school) and then take a shuttle bus over to Seisen, or they can walk for about 15-20 minutes. It's about the same distance as the Fife house is from Jordan but I have to admit that my kids aren't exactly the world's greatest walkers. The subway stop is one that's on the express line, which would make the trip from the airport a little easier. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but it would be nice to get this place. The asking price is about $750 more than H-P is willing to pay, but I think there's some room for negotiation on both sides. We just got word from the HP relocation coordinator that they're holding this house for us through Monday while we get all the paperwork done. Keep your fingers crossed.

We had a great lunch at an Italian restaurant in the building where our friend Mark Oppermann works (for Sun), then walked over to Seisen. We spent about 90 minutes touring the school this afternoon, and spent time with both the admissions officer (Kathy Nicolai) as well as an administrator who knows the bus lines well (Mrs. Shono). Mrs. Shono says the Seta neighborhood is excellent and encouraged us to go for that particular location. We pointed on the map to all the places we've looked at so far, and she kept saying how great the Seta area is. OK, so we got the point.

The first realtor we met with yesterday picked us up and took us over to a neighborhood close to Seisen that has 8 similar houses owned by one family. The houses are very nice, and were built to appeal to gaijins like us. We couldn't look at the house that's actually on the market though; it's not technically available until 7/5 but the realtor wants us to make an offer on it anyway, sight unseen. It's a screwy situation. If the Seta-ku house doesn't work out, this one might be an interesting alternative if it's actually available. After that we went out to see Kent's office, which is on the third floor of the H-P building, right next to the Kanagawa Science Park. I met his boss, secretary, and a bunch of other people, and I hope I didn't say anything stupid in Japanese during my attempts to be polite. Kate and I found a fun way to spend time while using the bathroom at HPL-J: play with the toilet seat. This particular seat is designed to spray heated water at one's nether regions; it will also blow warm air at whatever is parked on the seat. Kate and I decided it would be fun to have one of these things in our house, though I suspect our reasons differ.

Following the visit to HPL-J, we took the train back to the Shibuya station and wandered around the 9th floor of the Tokyu Department Store looking for a restaurant. I insisted on having Japanese food for a change -- we've had two dinners, two breakfasts and two lunches without touching any sushi or tempura or udon or any of that good stuff. So Kent had BBQ eel over rice, and Kate had a bowl of rice covered in soy sauce, while I indulged in some sushi.

Yum! Then back to the hotel; Kate is falling asleep as is her Tamagotchi. Sylvester Stallone is on TV right now talking about ham. I heard he got a lot of money to do these ads -- I wonder if he's selling any ham?

Don't touch that dial ... film at 11!

Talk to you soon,

-- T.

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Bob (with copy to Family List) --

Thanks for the Hershey Report -- we've been wondering how he's doing. He loves Dolly's food when it's at Dolly's house, but when it's in his own bowl at his house, he doesn't like it as much. He's a strange dog, but we like him anyway.

Our offer on the Seta-ku house was accepted, and now someone at H-P has to fill out a pile of forms and get them sent to the realtor on Monday. We will go out to the neighborhood today and walk around, and the realtor will meet us on Monday at 10AM so we can measure the rooms and go lease some furniture. We faxed the floor plan to Mom and asked her to send a copy to you, so you may have an idea of how the house looks (complete with my scribbled notes) by now.

We may have a chance to do something fun with Kate on Tuesday, which would be a good thing for everyone. Kate is playing with her new friend Kelly right now, but pretty soon we're going to head out. It may rain later this afternoon so maybe we'll find a movie theater.

Yesterday morning we had a great surprise -- while waiting to be seated at the restaurant for breakfast, Gino Addiego walked up and said hello!! He sat with us for a few minutes and we talked a while. Gino is working for Applied Materials these days, and is the General Manager of the Chemical Mechanical Polishing division. We know a couple of other people at AMAT with General Manager titles, and they're all a lot older than we are, so Gino must be a major hot-shot. He spends a lot of time in Japan these days so I'm sure we'll see him again. He was happy to get the family news about Lynn and Glen's baby. If anyone wants to bug him, his email address is addiego_gino@amat.com.

We've been trying to call Mom and Colleen all morning, but I guess they're out doing something fun after Space Camp graduation.

It sounds as though you're having a fun weekend. Enjoy enjoy! See you soon.

-- T.

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