“When my daughter was done with chemotherapy, we asked her where she wanted to go. Paris was first, then Dubai. While the kids loved the food, culture, and shopping [in the United Arab Emirates], there was no history. With December vacation around the corner and nothing planned, we said, ‘Hey, kids! This is your opportunity to give us ideas.’
Amaan goes, ‘Well, you know how I really like Pokémon…?’ and Zainab is her brother’s biggest champion, so whatever his hobbies are, she absorbs. That’s how we decided on Japan.
The kids didn’t have opinions on hotels, just the neighborhoods we visited. Amaan found restaurants he wanted to try and started saving locations on Google Maps. He also asked a friend from Japan for his tips and tricks, which made me realize how independent he is now. Still, there were some disappointments because we didn’t start planning the trip until a few weeks before departure: My daughter found these Pokémon cafés on YouTube, but they book out 31 days in advance. We just missed it.
We landed in Tokyo in the early evening. I was ready to go to sleep, but the kids were full of energy. Akbar was like, ‘Nope, if we want to get over this jet lag, we have to stay awake. We’re going to dinner.’ The kids found a conveyor belt sushi place and it was the best first dinner. They were gleefully ordering off the tablet, just like they’d seen on Instagram. Seeing their eyes light up was like, ‘Okay, we made the right decision as parents to make this trip happen.’
When we finally got to our hotel room in Shibuya that night, it had a view of Tokyo Tower, but it was really, really tiny—like one king-size bed for four of us. [Laughs.] So my first question was: ‘Am I sleeping on the floor?’ We eventually figured it out, turning a bench into a bed for Amaan to sleep. The kids also discovered the wonder of Japanese toilets that night. Amaan is a bit of a germaphobe, so this was right up his alley.
One thing that blew us away when we got to Tokyo was Amaan throwing out lines in Japanese that we had no idea he knew. He’d been studying the language, but we didn’t realize just how much time he’d dedicated to learning it. He even taught Zainab a few phrases.