a visit from the li family

May was a fairly unremarkable month, but on one Saturday, I met up with Anqi's family (minus Anqi), who happened to be in Japan for a few days!

The day started off with a bit of confusion as we planned to meet at the entrance of Hamarikyu Gardens,  where my parents had gone crazy over sakura a month before, but they went to another nearby park instead and so it took us a bit too find each other (I probably should have just gone to their hotel). At any rate, we did manage to meet up and had a quick stroll through the park while making our way to the dock to take a sightseeing boat to Asakusa!

I think it was nice to have a suit after they had been wandering all morning, and for some reason I remember waving to people on the bridges haha. After we got off the boat, we had some ice cream before heading to see the famous temple. Everybody got some names engraved on chopsticks as souvenirs too, which I thought was nice.

We had lunch at a restaurant in the area and then went to Akihabara, because Andi wanted to see the store as big as a football field (Yodobashi Camera), as somebody from the hotel had described it. Unfortunately the store is so full of stuff that it didn't look nearly as big as I think he imagined so I think he was a bit disappointed.

Originally the plan was to see some museums in Ueno or the imperial gardens, but everybody was quite tired (especially Andi, who was carrying a gigantic backpack of camera equipment for his dad that didn't get used) so we ended up going back to their hotel for a rest and some more ice cream.

For dinner I looked up some restaurants nearby and suggested we try yakiniku, but unfortunately the most recommended restaurant was full with reservations at both branches, so we settled on somewhere nearby. I don't think it was as nice as the other (they apparently went back another day and it was amazing) and they had no a English menu which was a bit difficult, but we had Japanese beef and it was very, very tasty. :)

I couldn't see them on Sunday because of a yosakoi event, but I was glad to have been able to see them for their first full day in Tokyo! I hope they had a good time too. :)