8 August 2009

Nick came in at 2.30am, and was drunk and rude. I reacted to it at the time, but later relented because it was the booze talking. At 3 I wondered why he hadn't come to bed and found him on the loo slumped against the wall and fast asleep! He doesn't drink that much anymore so he's not used to a big session. I knew he would suffer for it anyway, but it turned it into a bit of a lost weekend as he stayed in bed until lunchtime and we ended up staying at home in the afternoon. Bang went my Japanese class as I ended up taking Emily to Appi for a play. I have now missed so many classes that I will have to drop out and hope that they run that level course again soon.

Later on we spruced up and headed over to Jill's apartment for Sophia's 2nd birthday party/their leaving do/fireworks viewing combined. This was a new experience for us as it involved keeping Emily up an hour and a half later than usual. However, she was really bright and lively all evening. At first she was wary of all the strange men (Jim's work colleagues as well as a few other families), but she got stuck into Sophia's toys and then sat down with the other three kids for tea, and she was quite relaxed after that.

There were so many things for her to look at from their balcony too: helicopters, aeroplanes, boats, lorries and even an airship.

At 7pm the hour and a half of fireworks began, out in Tokyo Bay, near Odaiba. Jill's place is on the 47th floor so we had an amazing view from their balcony. How could I have doubted that Emily woud love them? She had a huge grin on her face and started babbling 'bang' and listing all the colours (not necessarily correctly) and copying us all as we 'oohed' and 'aahed'. After some while the lure of the toys was too strong and she drifted off to play again.

We left just as the grand finale began, deliberately planned so that we could get back to the station before the hundreds of thousands who were in the area to see the show began leaving too. It was already busy by the time we got on the train so it was the right thing to do, though remembering last year I'm sure we missed a spectacle. Emily managed to stay awake until we got home and even seemed affronted to be bundled straight off to bed without playing first, though she was flat out in less than 5 minutes.