The three of us took the train this morning from Kyoto back to Tokyo. After escorting my mom to the correct track for the Narita Express, we said our goodbyes and she headed to the airport to catch her return flight to the US. It's been fun showing her around for the last 10 days - hope you liked it too, mom!
Sarah and I found our way to our hotel for the night in Shinjuku, dropped our bags off, then went to find a late lunch nearby. After having a quick bite we wandered around the neighborhood for a bit...until we found something Sarah's been on the lookout for ever since we got to Japan in November: a Japanese photo booth. We've heard legends about how funny these things are so we had to try it out for ourselves. As we posed for silly pictures, we were surprised to see that the images looked like cartoonish caricatures of ourselves: wide eyes, extra soft skin, shiny hair and elongated features. That wasn't the end of the experience though...then we went to the "editing booth" to add our own finishing touches. Needless to say, Sarah was laughing out loud the whole time!
This is just one of the six pictures we got. Thanks for adding the eyeliner, blush and lipstick for me babe!
Giddy over our photo booth experience, we headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up for dinner. We'd been saving Tsurutontan Shinjuku for our last meal in Japan since we enjoyed it so much the first time. Fortunately for us, it was just as good as we'd remembered (yes, we prioritized revisiting all of our favorite restaurants - can you blame us?!). We both got the curry tonkatsu udon and loved it. Seriously this is one of our highest recommendations if you ever visit Tokyo!
One happy customer!
After dinner we walked along Shinjuku's busy streets to the Park Hyatt for our last activity of our time in Japan: spending a few hours at the famous New York Bar.
Shinjuku's busy streets.
Jazz at the New York Bar.
The perfect end to our trip.
Bill Murray's favorite view of Tokyo.
Tomorrow we plan to do a little shopping before heading to the airport and flying back to the US. We're not headed straight back to New York - we have a stop over in San Francisco to celebrate a friend's wedding. But after that, we'll be officially done with this whole crazy trip. I can't express how fast the last 13 months have gone by!!