Travalynn

After a bit of a travel hiatus, we are finally back at it - and this time with a new member of the family!

I was on the fence about traveling with such a tiny human for a very long time. I talked to a lot of my friends who also recently had their own babies, and read the entirety of the internet about traveling with an infant, and yet I was still as anxious as ever about traveling with my own. Everyone was saying it's easy to travel with babies when they're this young, since they don't need much entertainment and they adjust their sleep schedule quite easily, but I was panicking at the thought of a restaurant outing 5mins from home, let alone a full on adventure to Japan.

After a lot of back and forth, we bought our tickets and reserved a bassinet for our 15hr flight to Tokyo. I only wanted to cancel the trip 6 times the week before, but I managed to swallow my fears and off we went!

The bassinet looked like one of the most uncomfortable contraptions I've ever seen, but our baby couldn't care less and was enjoying the “freedom” of lying down in it.

I originally envisioned swaddling her and having her sleep in it for the majority of the flight, but our little champ started rolling just days before our trip and we had to quit swaddling cold turkey. This made for very poor sleep on the flight for babes, me, and the rest of the 457896 passengers. Oops..

The flight itself wasn't actually too bad, and passed by a lot faster than I expected - I guess freaking out over every little baby sound makes the time fly.

Luckily we managed the flight without any major poopocalypses.

Upon arrival, we exchanged our Japan Rail Passes at the exchange center, and hopped on the train to Shinjuku Station. The subway was packed, but also SO quiet that you could hear a pin drop. Nobody talked to each other and there were signs everywhere prohibiting cellphones. Of course, this was the moment Babes decided to take center stage and explain to us how much she didn't like the flight. I've never felt so many eyes on me like I did on that subway. After what seemed like a longer ride than our flight, we made it to Shinjuku, where we were staying for the next 4 nights.

Next up: Tokyo