After three months of keeping the secret, I waited nervously in the hotel lobby.
When they stepped out of the elevator, I put out my hand. "I'm your guide, Ash-san." My father went to shake it, paused, then said, "Oh, it's you. What are you doing here?"
When my mom realized who I was, she smacked my hand. "That's the thanks I get?" I told her, as she cried (tears of joy).
I'd never traveled overseas with them before, but I'd flown from Australia to meet them in Tokyo, where they'd booked a trip after a two-week Japan cruise.
Tokyo is one of the world's most populated cities, and I knew they'd need help navigating it. After all, this isn't the obvious choice of travel destination for two 78-year-olds with poor eyesight and vertigo.
So, I offered to arrange a guide for their days in Tokyo, a free one, courtesy of a volunteer program I may have invented.
In the end, I'm glad I was able to experience part of Japan with my parents — but I still learned a few lessons the hard way.
I played 'Frogger' with Tokyo traffic, so my parents never had to face a train station
Tokyo is famous for its efficient train system that can take you all over the city and beyond.
However, many of the train stations are a maze of staircases, long tunnels, and rush-hour crowds. Mom cannot see steps well, let alone climb them. So we skipped the trains and took taxis.
That meant a lot of me playing "Frogger" in the hectic traffic, darting between cars to flag a cab. The saving grace is that Japanese drivers are too polite to hit you.
In a taxi, Dad got a seat instead of a handrail. My mom stepped from the door to the curb, with me guiding her over every step she could not see.
When it came to food, I spent hours in queues so my parents didn't have to
Reservations won't get you the best food in Tokyo. Typically, you have to queue. So, I stood in line for my parents as much as I could.
I went an hour ahead to Ichiran, my favorite ramen spot, where you sit in a private booth and order from a vending machine before you reach the counter.
I explained the vending machine to my parents three times before eventually giving up and ordering for everyone. The English family behind us watched with amused smiles as their young daughter mastered the machine in seconds.
My parents both said it was the best ramen they'd ever had.
The next morning, I queued for an hour again for the wobbly viral pancakes at A Happy Pancake, which turned a couple of tired parents into a couple of happy ones.
They tried everything I put in front of them. Mom took one bite of mochi, grimaced, and handed it back. Dad loved the curry pan I'd seen go viral on TikTok and posed pulling it apart for the camera, just like the influencers who made it famous.
I wrongfully assumed 15-minute rests would reset everyone
I planned every day around coffee stops and still got it wrong. I thought 15-minute breaks would be long enough, but they never were.
Every stop stretched to nearly an hour, and once a café had WiFi, I'd completely lose them. Both would immediately reach for their phones.
"What's so important?" I asked. "You don't even have social media." They laughed and kept scrolling, exactly like my teenagers do. Apparently, phone addiction isn't age-specific.
I assumed these longer, frequent stops would cost us half the itinerary. Instead, we made it to everything on their list, including Shibuya Crossing, the world's busiest pedestrian intersection, where my parents proudly posed for photos before dashing — well, shuffling — to the other side.
At one point during the trip, I said that it had been easier traveling with my twins as toddlers: They cried less and needed fewer naps.
By the end of the trip, I realized I should've done this 20 years ago
My parents flew home a day before me. Mom cried getting into the taxi, the same as when she slapped my hand in the lobby. Dad hugged me and said, "We could never have done this trip without you. We would have been stuck in our hotel rooms, overwhelmed."
My one regret is that I waited so long to travel here with them. I keep thinking if we'd taken the same trip 20 years earlier, the breaks would have been shorter and the walks longer.
And maybe I wouldn't have had to queue by myself.
