It’s hard to believe that a year ago today we arrived in Tokyo after a rather tiring journey from Michigan. Tokyo is the third place we’ve lived in Japan, preceded by living first in Yokkaichi (Mie prefecture) and then by living in Kobe a couple of years later. We didn’t really know what to expect from Tokyo–after all, it seemed impossible any location could live up to the love we had (and have!) for Kobe. As we promised our company we’d open a new campus for our school in Tokyo and stay planted there until March of 2016, we knew we would have to make the most of the big city no matter how it compared to Kobe…and so our year in Tokyo began.

The Tokyo Sky Tree

Over the past year we’ve gone places like Tsukiji Fish Market and Studio Ghibli. We’ve been to several gardens, bakeries and cafes, and took our third trip to Thailand (which you can never visit too often, if you ask me!). We tried two Michelin Star-rated restaurants (one French and the other Japanese), and got to try Bear Pond Espresso (made famous by A Film About Coffee). We celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary, my 30th birthday, and the exciting news that we’re going to be having a baby soon!

Rilakkuma plushes dressed up like monkeys for the New Year.

Of course, we’ve had challenges while living in Tokyo, too, but overall we feel lucky to have had such an interesting, eventful year (after all, the paragraph above barely touches on everything we’ve been up to!). With a baby due soon, I have a feeling this year will be equally–if not more!–eventful, and I’m super excited about it! I’ll be posting soon to finally give a recap of this year’s fall bucket list and to tell you a little about our Christmas in Tokyo. In the meantime, I’d love to hear about some of your highlights from 2015!

xx Caitlyn