Houseguests

Back in October, my husband’s family made a plan to visit us. They consisted of my parents-in-law, my sister-in-law with her husband and two kids and my brother-in-law with his eife and baby. Altogether there would be nine of them.

I was not worried about the rooms allocation so much but rather on the beddings requirements. I didn’t have enough for the guests.

I searched online on where to buy futons. I even went to the newly opened Nitori store in Nakameguro. I decided to buy them online but Li suggested that we waited till it’s closer to the date before buying anything.

By mid-November, we thought we should make the order for the futons and so confirmed with the guests about their date of arrival. My brother-in-law said he’d changed his mind. He was not coming after all because travelling with a baby during winter would be too troublesome. So we were down to six people.

One day, I mentioned to my Nihongo classmates about planning to buy futons. One of them suggested that I check the stock at Don Quixote. He told me there is one store in Nakameguro. I went there to have a survey but what caught my eyes were the Coleman sleeping bags instead. They were meant for going camping but I thought sleeping bags are much smaller and easier to store. I could let the two boys sleep in them. 

I Googled again to find out if anybody ever let their houseguests sleep in sleeping bags rather than on futons. I couldn’t find any satisfactory answer other than about kids using sleeping bags when having sleepover. However, my husband agreed with me that getting sleeping bags would be a much better solution. Futons are harder to get rid off when it is time to go back to our country for good. The rest of the furniture in this house (everything from sofa, beds, tables, chairs, curtains and even beddings) are on lease. At the end of the contract, we will just have to return them to the leasing company.

Then we heard another news. My mother-in-law was not well and she didn’t feel like travelling. If she wasn’t coming, of course my father-in-law wouldn’t be coming either.

In the end, we were down to only four houseguests. Three of them already arrived late last night. One is coming later during the weekend. We didn’t need to buy any extra futon or sleeping bag after all my worrying. 😄

I didn’t even have to think where to bring them around Tokyo. They already had their own plan. At 9 this morning, the three of them were all ready to go out and explore Ginza on their own. They didn’t even have breakfast at home. Now, all that I have to do is plan what to cook for dinner. 😊

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