Ashlynn’s First Editorial...

On August 12, Ashlynn had her first magazine shoot for the Japanese fashion magazine Spur. Her hair and make-up were simple because her face wasn’t the focus.

Instead her nails were the star as the editorial was entitled Tokyo Hands. Her nails were painted for the first two shots, but for the rest of the day she wore false nails that were changed 13 times. This photo was taken in the fancy van that drove between locations and served as Ashlynn’s dressing room. Not only did Ashlynn wear designer rings, bracelets and watches as a hand model, but she wore designer clothes as well including Dior, Chanel, Gucci and Louis Vuitton.

In addition to posing with a dog, she also posed with a male model on the ledge of a rooftop as shown in this behind-the-scenes shot...

...although you can’t tell where they are in the final version.

Ashlynn’s First Cover...

Ashlynn might not be old enough to drive a car, but that didn’t stop the Japanese from having her pose with a Porsche. Don’t let the name scare you: Goo World is a monthly car magazine. Since Ashlynn went to the shoot with another model, she thought that only one of them would be chosen to grace the cover; as the other girl has a more commercial look, Ashlynn assumed the Russian model would be chosen. I was disappointed when I found the November issue featuring the other girl, but looked up the December issue anyways, which hit the stands in Japan today. Imagine my surprise when I found my beautiful daughter on the cover!

Japanese Toilets...

Much to Ashlynn’s disapproval, it’s impossible for me to write about Japan and not mention the toilets. Even in our shabby apartment, we had a toilet that automatically warmed the seat and had several different spray options.

The most unusual aspect of our toilet, however, was the top which had an integrated faucet. Honestly, I’d never considered using toilet water to wash my hands before. After I got over how gross that seemed, I realized that it actually made sense that some of the tank's clean water went to the bowl while some went to the top. I only saw one other toilet like this during our journeys, so I guess it’s not commonly used.

In the giant electronics store, you couldn’t buy a toilet but there was an entire department dedicated to the large variety of fancy mechanisms that you can add to your existing toilet. 

In many public places, the restrooms were spotless (including in most train stations!) and the western toilets had sophisticated control panels with a variety of buttons; although I never experimented with all the options, I do know that the button with an image of a musical note will play the sound of rushing water in order to block out any “embarrassing” sounds you might make. 

The Japanese love pictograms. Here’s one just in case you weren’t sure how to use a Western toilet.

In one place I saw a clever family set-up: a regular toilet for the mom, a urinal for a young boy and a seat for the baby all within a single stall. I also saw a fancy electronic map on the wall at one train station that not only specified which stalls were available, but which had western toilets versus Japanese traditional toilets. 

Final Evening in Tokyo...

After spending much of our final day in Tokyo packing, we set off for one last walk around some parts of Roppongi that we’d failed to explore previously. Behind Roppongi Hills we saw this cool piece of art called Chair Disappears in the Rain. Guess it wasn’t raining hard enough to make it fully invisible.

 At least Ashlynn was carrying an appropriate umbrella.

We found this park behind Midtown; we’d brought our Kindles along just in case we found a quiet place to read, so took a reading break on a bench in the lit building.

After much debate, we decided we wanted more Japanese pancakes; rather than return to the same restaurant for a third time, we found a new place.

Our waiter spoke perfect English and was quite a character. Although there was a grill on our table, he brought our food already cooked to the table.

 My seafood pancake was fantastic!

We walked through Roppongi Crossing and down the main street for one last time. We had to leave our apartment at 5:30 a.m. the next morning to catch an airport bus. While we were excited about seeing Jimmy and Veronica, it was sad to be leaving our surreal life and returning to reality. Our time together in Japan was truly special!

Amazing Shaved Ice...

Another item that we saw regularly for sale at Roppongi Hills was a shaved ice dessert called kakigori. The lines were always so ridiculously long that we never tried it. Finally, that afternoon we managed to get into Yelo, a small café dedicated to this unusual dessert.

Since we had a late lunch, we decided to split one mango dessert. It was delicious!

Afterwards, I headed to my final Tokyo Hash and Ashlynn went clubbing with a newly arrived Australian model named Ellie. They thought it was especially funny to take photos with random passed out folks on the street. Only in Roppongi!

Back for Sushi One Last Time...

On Friday, Andrea’s Aunt Michelle arrived from California. The four of us headed to Shibuya for lunch.

 Along the way, we saw these cute schoolgirls.

I was surprised to learn that Michelle had never tried sushi. We went to my favorite place, Uobe, where I was thrilled to have crab sushi again. Michelle reluctantly tried several types of sushi, but didn’t seem too impressed.

After seeing frozen beer offered at Roppongi Hills for much of the summer, I finally got around to trying one. It was very strange! Basically a very cold beer with a firm foamy head.

After lunch we went in search of a Beauty & Youth store, the brand that Ashlynn had worked for earlier in the week. Along our very convoluted path, we went past one of the locations from Ashlynn’s shoot for Spur magazine.

Eventually we found the store and were very impressed, but with its high prices, we didn’t buy anything.

Afterwards, we went to IMAGE Models for our farewell meeting. The good news is that Ashlynn had eight paying jobs that paid a whopping $7,500 with one job paying $1,500 for one day’s work. The bad news is that with a 40% agency fee, plane tickets, apartment and cell phone, there wasn’t any money left over for Ashlynn. Luckily she knew up front that this summer was about gaining experience, not about making money.

Clearly We Missed the Memo....

While it wouldn’t be surprising to see little kids dressed alike at any amusement park in the world...

...it is more surprising to see teens dressed the same. Of course, by this point in our trip, we already knew that teen girls love to dress identically.

What we didn’t know was that couples would also dress alike...

...and groups of mixed friends...

...and so would groups of guys. This was the most surprising of all as Ashlynn can’t imagine any of the guys at her school wearing Disney shirts at all let alone wearing matching princess shirts.

Clearly we missed the memo that we were supposed to dress alike, but a lot of the other guests must have received it as there were coordinated outfits everywhere we looked.

Mermaid Lagoon...

Unlike other Disney parks, DisneySea doesn’t have a lot of rides dedicated to Disney Princesses. Luckily, Ariel, Ashlynn’s favorite princess, had her own land.

We were impressed that employees were stationed in key photo spots who took photos of us on our camera.

Outside, was a fun roller coaster; inside was a whimsical world of fluorescent fish and colorful rides.

There was also a kiddie playground. We were happy to find it empty at the end of the night; we crawled across the ropes to enter Ariel’s Grotto, which was a great reproduction from the movie.

Photos weren’t allowed during the show, but I snuck one anyways. Ariel did some nice stunts from her perch above the audience.

Our favorite ride in the park was definitely the Indiana Jones Adventure (which is clearly not in this photo).