She says: I am completely bummed to be leaving Tokyo. I absolutely loved my time here and would come back in a heartbeat. Matt finally over his jetlag by consuming seven burgers, two crepes, endless packets of Chip Star and becoming a Karaoke (pronounced kah-rah-oh-kay here) superstar. I'm pretty sure he'd come back with me.

Over the past few days, we have become: quite comfortable navigating our way around the huge city's multiple subway lines; accustomed to carrying around our free promotional paper fans to relieve some of the sweltering humidity; used to being the tallest people in a crowd; appreciative of the peaceful quiet even amongst huge masses of humanity; perplexed by the fact that there is virtually NO jaywalking, even after 1 am without a single car on the road in any direction, people wait patiently at crosswalks for the lights to change; lovers of Japanese infomercials; spoiled by the majesty of Toto toilets; and generally enamored with Tokyo.

Just in time to carry my terrible heavy bag (which we have supplemented with a daypack to carry some of the heavier items), I had a glorious parting shiatsu massage this morning. Different therapist, 5% discount for return customers, and a very happy me. I heart shiatsu. It's painful as all get out, but I ooze off the table at the end, unstick my sweaty self from the Naugahyde and start to move like a normal human again.

The last few days in Tokyo were spent exploring. We did a TON of walking; saw a Shinto shrine (Meiji Jingu) and a Buddhist temple (Sensoji), where we got our fortunes (Matt's was good, mine bad); explored seven floors of the coolest fashion of all time at Parco (a department store with a small art gallery inside it); saw fabulously dressed Harajuku girls and goth boys; met a real-life Hachiko look-alike (the dog that inspired the most heart breaking episode of Futurama of all time); and spent a lot of time as the only people enjoying the rain (everyone comes prepared for the weather with umbrellas, but we welcomed the respite from the heat).

This post is turning into a bunch of lists, so here's another. In the past week, we have travelled by: van, airplane, train, taxi, subway, pirate ship, cable car, monorail, funicular, boat, and foot (even better in my sweet new neon turquoise Nikes from Harajuku!).

After we took an unfortunately dreary (due to the weather) cruise from Odaiba to Asakusa yesterday, we met up with Steph Parent, his wife Yuki and their ultra charming three month old daughter, model, Karina. We had dinner at a local izakaya (Japanese shared plate and drinking establishment), where Matt had the single most adventurous dish of his life. I cannot mention what it was here. It's highly inappropriate for a family site. Needless to say, no one can call him a pick eater again!

After dinner, we headed to a huge Karaoke establishment. Steph had warned us that we would not be able to figure it out on our own. We were so thankful that he arranged for three other Japanese friends and an Australian transplant (who is basically Japanese) to join us. We got a pass for room 314 and headed up (there are 9 floors of karaoke rooms), bringing baby Karina along. You rent a private room by the hour and get unlimited karaoke and drinks, with a phone linked right to the bar (where we ordered our "biru"s and "sca-rew-da-ri-bah"s - beer and screwdrivers). You are given two mics, three tambourines (Matt has a tambourine bruise on his palm this morning from his vigorous rhythm, I'm not joking), and completely incomprehensible controllers that a non-Japanese speaker would never in a million years figure out. With a lot of help, songs got entered. Matt, unsurprisingly, was not shy, and from his debut of Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name" to insisting we all hold hands and sing "We Are The World" and then looking around and saying, "We really ARE the world!", he barely let go of the mic. He was finally a Tokyo convert. The night was totally hilarious and bizarre. At one point, Steph sang an English sing using the Japanese characters written above that are there to help with pronunciation. That sounded pretty terrific. We learned that the "v" and "b" sounds in Japan are the same, as are the "l" and "r", which explains Matt's "flies chicken" earlier in the week. When Japanese people talk about love in English, they call it "ra-bu". Peter, the Aussie who is pretty well totally Japanese managed the incredible feat of live translating a Japanese song into English, in tune, and correcting subject-verb order. My impressive feat is I learned three Japanese letters and hollered those out every time I saw them on screen. Matt sang several duets with Steph, each of them seeming to compete for who could scream louder. Karina is an incredible baby and partied until about 10, at which point she fell asleep on my arms to a karaoke lullaby and slept soundly in the karaoke box for the rest of the loudest night of all time. We got to hear our new Japanese friends sing several Japanese songs and they joined us on English favorites. After a painfully polite bill splitting, we wrapped up the night at another izakaya and got the last train home. Glorious. We NEED karaoke boxes in Canada, tambourine injuries nonwithstanding.

He says: I ate the a****** of a chicken last night.