Children's Castle

Lucinda, Arno and I tested another weekend children's hangout: The National Children's Castle, a multi-million $$ play center near fashionable Omotesando. It's a lot like the Tokyo Metropolitan Children's Hall, but this is the paid version. (400 yen per child, 500 yen per adult - or about $4 and $5 if you ballpark currency exchange.)

The two best attractions at the Children's Castle are the rooftop playground and the 3rd floor art room. The roof has a maze of nets and tunnels to climb through, but the kids absolutely loved jumping into these balls.




In the art room, there is a totally cool, huge white board for the kids to paint on. This would be such a great addition to any children's museum - there's a drain underneath so it must get hosed down every night.




There's also a wooden indoor play structure called...




...and low-tech games, like air hockey without the air. In the home-play section, Lucinda put Japanese dolls on tiny futons.




Afterwards, I took them to McDonald's for lunch, their first-ever McDonald's meal. I decided not to tell them about the restaurant's American identity because I didn't want to make it even more alluring.




In Seattle, Blaine liked to take the kids to Red Mill for burgers, fries and milkshakes, but we haven't found a suitable replacement here.

At McDonalds's, Lucinda scarfed down her burger and fries, spotted the milkshake ads and declared, "On Daddy's birthday, we should surprise him and bring him here for supper!"