Since this was our first time taking our daughter abroad, we kept the itinerary very loose. The original plan for the day was to take her to Ueno Zoo, spend the afternoon there, then meet a friend who works in Tokyo for dinner near Ueno, and finally stop by to visit another friend who was expecting a baby.
To make the evening plans easier, we did not leave for Ueno Zoo until close to noon. Ueno was very near our hotel. We took the JR to Akihabara, changed trains once, and got there two stops later.
Just before we got off the train, an elderly man came over and said a few things to us. I could not understand any of it, but I vaguely guessed he was saying our daughter was a lucky child. When he realized we were not Japanese, he seemed startled too. We felt bad for startling him.
We entered the zoo through the Shinobazu Pond entrance. Once inside, we rented a stroller, then stopped at the rest area next to the entrance restroom for a snack and some water before moving on.
Maybe the zoo was just too crowded, but our daughter looked miserable. She seemed sleepy and out of sorts, but could not actually fall asleep, and kept asking Mommy to carry her. After we crossed the footbridge to the other side, she burst into tears and kept crying for Mommy. We decided Mommy would carry her in the baby carrier, but she cried and said she did not want the carrier either. Only after she was strapped in did she finally calm down.
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Our daughter had clearly had enough, so we changed the plan and decided to go back to the hotel to rest, then return to Ueno later for dinner. Before leaving, we stopped by the souvenir shop near the entrance. The moment she walked in, she said, “I want a big one, not a small one,” and picked out a panda plush that cost more than 12,000 yen.
Since it was far too big to bring home, we asked her to please choose a smaller one instead. Thankfully she did not make a fuss. She very cooperatively picked a small one and even said, “Yumi is little, and the panda is little too.”
After sleeping at the hotel for a little over an hour, we headed back to Ueno. Our daughter was extremely shy when she saw our friends, a married couple. She insisted that we keep holding her while standing and would not let us sit down. It took quite a while before she was willing to sit and eat.
On the way back, we stopped to buy the HARBS cake my wife had been craving. Since it was so close to closing time, there were only a few cakes left. We then carried the cake over for a quick visit to another friend’s home.
Note: This article is translated from Traditional Chinese.
