After making the two hour trek to Narita airport and then an eleven hour flight to Tokyo, I joined hordes of spring breakers heading south. I'm so excited to see family and stay on the beach for ten days. Unfortunately, Sean is staying behind in Tokyo to work especially because he'll be back in the States in just two months.

I was supposed to leave on Tuesday, but American Airlines cancelled my flight due to mechanical issues and rebooked me to leave Wednesday night - a big disappointment. Other than that, however, the trip was pretty painless. The plane was new with lots of legroom, the food was plentiful and delicious and the wine was flowing. I watched a lot of movies that I had been wanting to see such as "Spotlight", "The Danish Girl", "Steve Jobs", "Truth" and "The Big Short".  And that pretty much took care of the entire flight.

In Chicago, I was wowed by the plethora of trash cans available along with the fact that I wasn't the tallest person in the room. Flying in to the city, we had a great view of beautiful Lake Michigan which was a very welcome sight, indeed. Before heading south, we had to wait a bit on the tarmac for some pretty spectacular weather to pass.



Now it's midnight and I'm in my room in Mom and Dad's beach house rental for the next ten days. I'm wide awake but so happy to be here with family and enjoy the warm weather and sunshine. Sue arrives in a couple of days and the rest of the Sandersons will be here this weekend.  It's looking to be a great spring break!

You can tell by my face that I'm a little nervous - the cats would do pretty much anything for the tuna

One of the things that Tokyo is famous for is the creative variety and assortment of animal cafes.  I'll admit that my first venture into a dog cafe was less than thrilling. It wasn't exactly appetizing sipping coffee while getting wafts of urine and canine dander.  But the dogs were cute and the humans dressing them up in odd costumes were even more interesting to watch.

Sean and Ken having with the cats

Recently, I've checked out some other animal cafes now that I had a better idea of what to expect. When a friend came to visit, we took him to one of the more famous cat cafes in the center of Tokyo. The place advertised fifty felines, each of which had a photo and 'personality page' in the cafe's book which was scattered around for customers to browse.  The cafe was two stories and housed the most interesting group of cats that I have ever seen in my life. There were long haired cats, skinny cats, huge cats, friendly cats and kittens - it was a cat lady's heaven.

Our favorite cat - an enormous orange fluffy guy who was all about the treats

We paid for an hour, ordered some drinks and then sat back to watch and meet some cats. In a cat cafe, there are lots of rules and etiquette including "let the cats come to you" and "only one treat bag purchase per customer." We quickly learned that the most effective way to "let the cats come to you" was to buy a bag of treats - a small dish of tuna.



The cats when wild for the tuna! In fact, I got a little scared and kept throwing the tuna dish at Sean when I'd get overwhelmed by the number of cats approaching. Some of them would get aggressive towards the other cats when tuna was involved and this was more than a little intimidating even for a cat lover like me.  An hour in a cat cafe was plenty and when our time was up we petted our favorites one last time, collected our free drink tokens for our next visit and headed home.

Visit to the bird cafe with Madz

Though the sight of fifty cats vying for one dish of tuna was impressive if not frightening, my favorite animal cafe so far has been the bird cafe. Obviously, others share my opinion because there is normally a line just to get in and you are only allowed to occupy a table for thirty minutes. There are two things I like about the bird cafe. First, there are plenty of beautiful birds to watch but they are all encased in glass cages around the coffee shop. Thus, there is no fear of feathers in your coffee or bird droppings in your hair. Second, all cakes and dishes that are served have an incredibly cute bird theme; they also happen to be very tasty! As an extra touch, all desserts are served in a faux bird cage which is entertaining in itself.

The adorable and delicious bird cakes

There are more animal cafes that I would like to visit such as the owl cafe and the bunny cafe. I've even heard that there are some that offer reptiles, meerkats, goats and chinchillas. Tokyo is such a strange and alien city that Sean and I most often find ourselves asking, what doesn't this city have?

It has been an intense couple of weeks but now it finally feels like Spring Break.  The day after final exams finished we started a Project Management course which was really interesting but also a bit tiring as all of us were still recovering from a lack of sleep from the previous two weeks.  Two days after that, Class XIV Rotary Peace Fellows went on a trip to Hiroshima that was organized and funded by all of the Rotarians in Japan. The trip was extremely informative but also intensely emotional, especially because I am an American.

I just returned home from that trip a couple of days ago and am unpacking and re-packing because I leave for Florida tomorrow to see family - I am so excited! Stay tuned - I'll be updating about the last couple of weeks in Tokyo and also about the real start to the vacation (a.k.a. being at the beach for two weeks with my nieces!).  Thanks for reading and apologies for the extended absence!

Classes XIII and XIV Rotary Peace Fellows at our "Exams are over" celebration dinner. Nationalities present: England, Brazil, Australia, USA, Malaysia and Spain - so fun!