Wow. We made it. The flight here was tough, but not as hard as it could have been. The baby travels really well, for a 2 year old. The flight home will be easier as it is a night flight and the baby will sleep more. I ended up having to take some tylenol for a migraine on the plane. I hadn't taken tylenol for years, but it helped.

We got here at 7 pm, but for our body clocks it was 4 am. We all fell asleep on the airport shuttle. I tried to keep my eyes open, and saw lots of cars, bigger models than I expected after travelling to Europe, lots of luxury cars. It's very crowded here, but not too much of a shock even though I'm from the Western US where we have soooo much space.

I was a bit nervous about finding food at restaurants, though soysauce is really the main thing I have to look out for. My first meal by myself was spent at Mos Burgers. I wandered up a busy street until I saw something that didn't look like it had wheat or soysauce in it, a lettuce-wrapped Mos Burger. They had it on the photo menu, so no language skills were required. It was a winner. I got it to go so the sauces were on the side. I'd have to say it was the best burger I've ever had. My friends have since told me that Freshness Burgers are better, so maybe I'll try that next time.

My first Kanji was soymilk. I had to pick some up for my son the first day. It took a while for the symbols to stand out.

Some rules of traveling with children: they will drink and pee more than you can imagine on the trip. Bring lots of extra diapers and clothes. Love that beverage service!

The food on the plane was good too. They offered gluten-free meals, and these were fairly decent. They still added the cookies and rolls, which created a bit of a fuss since the baby wanted these and we had to quickly hide them. The GF omelette came with vegetables instead of bacon and sausage...that was nice. The plane was nice too, a new airbus. Coach class was more like business class, and the back of each seat had a TV screen where you could pick movies or games, etc. They didn't have any kid shows, but he liked Around the World in 80 Days. I was hoping for Shrek 2, maybe on the way back.

Konichiwa Sarah!

I got to meet Sarah today, she's on the yahoo board and helped me with my questions before the trip. It was so nice to meet her. She brought me some food for my fridge, all very good, and some wolfberries, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, sesame oil.

It was rainy, so we just went down the street to a Chinese restaurant. She just had tea, and I ordered some soysauce-free chicken fried rice that my son just loved. I had to have some of the soft tofu dessert they brought out, I used to love that in my tofu eating days. I'm not sure what it's thickened with, but it's good. My son even tried a bite or two, but still hasn't warmed up to tofu. So far, I have still managed to avoid dairy, and of course gluten, but everything else has been fair game.

Then we went to an organic market nearby that my husband had taken me walking past that morning. It was quite a find for Tokyo, and we were both happy to go there and stock up on a few things. You can buy sprouted brown rice there...I couldn't think of what to do with it, but it sounded like a good idea.

I have to say that sesame oil with garlic or just salt is a great substitute for soysauce, and a great salad dressing. A couple restaurants have brought it out to me when they understood I couldn't have soysauce. I can't believe how much food I can eat when I know it's gluten free and it tastes so good. I've eaten a lot of food here.

That's all I have time for now...I'll blog again soon! So much to take in here. This morning we slept until 7:30, so the jetlag is finally wearing off. Oh, I have tried a little sashimi. Tuna and salmon are as far as I ventured, but it was good. Not quite the same without soysauce (or saki!), I'm sure.