The not so little one gets her first degree

San and me went to India for two weeks to perform my dads passing anniversary ceremonies and then did a pilgrimage to a bunch of temples and came back. Right after coming back we had the little one’s graduation.

In my eagerness to finish clearing my iPhone photos and writing blog posts about the Japan trip, never got to post this important event!

The little one followed her sister in the deal making process and finished her 4 year degree in 3 years. We were obviously happy because she gets to work from home for a year before she goes to medical school like she has planned.

Her opening experience at UCSB was a tough one, as she caught a virus the very day she started dorm life and ended up in Urgent care. Three years later she actually liked the place enough to miss it. Guess it was the friends more than the place.

Was happy with the way her friends all came together, including her two childhood besties. All of them are growing up. All three are “little one’s” in their houses and it was tough to see them talk like adults. All those three kids think their dads and the uncles are probably idiots and they have their respective dads wrapped around their fingers.

We drove the morning of the graduation, cleaned out her stuff from her apartment, attended the ceremony, hung out at the beach for a short while, walked around campus for an hour, had an early dinner with her friends who could make it and drove back same night. There was a caravan of three cars from UCSB to the bay area with Jr. driving a van full of stuff and coming back solo. San and me were mostly silent and staring at what seemed like an endless freeway, occasionally reminiscing about the last 27 years!

This blog started when Sangeetha was pregnant with the little one!

We announced her birth on this blog!

Now a blog post about her college graduation! How 20 years flies by!

Here are some pictures from the days events..

The top photo was after high school.. we can complete the series with the next degree..

and a video highlights reel

Now we pray to all the gods we know and all the gods we don’t know ,that she gets her wish to do what she wants!

I am just happy that she has what no degree can offer….

Lifelong friends!

One last morning in Tokyo

The previous post in this series is here.

We came back from Shinjuku and packed for a good hour.

The next morning we were planning to relax, go around the malls near the Tokyo Dome Hotel, then take an Uber to another Indian restaurant for one big meal before making it to Narita.

We got quite a scare when checking out. My friends son was walking right next to me, all happy that we were going back home that day. I made the mistake of letting him walk ahead for two seconds only to see the elevator door close before I could get in. The Tokyo dome hotel does elevators do not show which floors they are stopping at! So we had no idea where the kid got off. After some frantic searching, we were finally back together as a group. I kept kicking myself for a few hours for that mistake. Apple maps should also automatically have a feature to track which floor a person is in with the Find Me app. Showing everyone standing on top of each other in same location doesn’t help!

After checking out and leaving our luggage at the hotel, we had a nice breakfast at a bakery right below the hotel. Then we walked to a local mall and shopped some more! Then we made it to this Jain restaurant which was cramped but had great food. We were the only ones that early at the restaurant and we ended up talking to the employees for some time and heard their life stories.

It was then time to get an Uber back to the Tokyo dome and make our way to the train station. Had to take 3 trains (we got on a wrong train first!) and eventually made it with plenty of time to spare at the airport.

That helped because we all had extra Yen left in the SUICA App we had loaded just that morning to help with the wrong train situation! We could have listened to Jr. and done it on day 1.

There is a store in the Narita airport that accepts Suica cards. So we shopped that the store to account for every last Yen on that app which ended up being a fun exercise. here are a few photos from day 8

The entire trip was a great experience! Only wished the little one could have joined us. We will get her on our next family trip!

8 days in Japan, a good three months to blog about it!

Last evening in Tokyo- Skytree tower and Shinjuku

The previous post in this series is here..

After spending the morning and early afternoon at Mt. Fuji, we made it back in 2+ hours back to Tokyo and were dropped off at the Sky Tree tower. It was indoors and we were happy to go up the tower, come down and also walk around the little “mela” that was going on at the base of the tower. Got to eat some ice cream, folks had coffee and tea and before we knew it, it was almost dinner time. So we went from Skytree tower to Shinjuku station.

My buddy was very particular that we go see this iconic station.. also he had visited it a long time back. It had two huge shopping blocks on either side.

Jr. had already planned a dinner at a vegan chain called “Plantmore”. It took us sometime to find it because there were two buildings with the same name on either side of the station and we were in the wrong building. After a good 30 minutes of wandering around we finally found the place and were treated to a delicious dinner. We walked out and saw a bunch of kids performing on the street. Then it was time to go back to the hotel. BTS had finished the concert at the Tokyo dome by the time we came back and that was a good thing!

Here are the photos from the last evening in Japan..

The skytree tower is amazing. They even had a mascot for the building! The shops were cute, the crowd vibrant and the high speed elevator ride was memorable!

Here is a video highlight..

We had a lot of packing to do, even with the extra suitcase that was purchased in Japan and get ready for the return the next afternoon..