Most kids choose French or Spanish as a language in high school, but my youngest son Alan comes home one day and says he’s studying “Japanese”. OK, you always want to be supportive, but you think you already know how that’s going to turn out. Two years later, he’s still enrolled in Japanese, and his sensei is telling us he’s killing it. Time had come I guessed, for the “rubber to meet the road.” I had a trip to Tokyo planned and decided that 17-year-old Alan was going to join me. Man up, Tokyo! I bought him a discount air ticket; he flew on his own from Bangkok and had to wait around a strange airport to link up with me. Sure enough, after I landed, I texted him and he was waiting in the Narita terminal, bag in hand and ready to roll. We got a room in the Ginza District, proceeded to hit all the highlights over the next three days (Tokyo Tower, Tsukiji Fish Market, Imperial Palace), and ate strictly “local.” Best of all, he really could speak some Japanese, and we got to spend some quality time together. I will never forget the look on his face when he came out of the metro tunnel and got his first look at the lights in Shibuya. Domo Arigato Tokyo.
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