Tuesday, October 3, 2006
I made it! Finally, after a ten hour flight, the plane landed in Tokyo. I was so glad to be on the ground again. Once in the airport, there were some official business types of things that had to be taken care of. The first was going through immigration. This is where I had to show my passport and official paperwork that I had filled out on the plane. Next, I had to pick up my luggage. There were bomb and drug sniffing dogs all over the place, but they didn't bust anyone, at least not that I saw. After getting my luggage, I went through customs which was no big deal because I had nothing to declare.

After all of that, I had a long walk out to the area where the busses were waiting for us. There were 200 teachers to transport, along with luggage, so we had several busses plus some trucks. The bus ride from the airport was over an hour. This gave us a chance to see some of the city while we were driving. The outer parts of Tokyo seem to be very industrial - a lot of factories. I did see Tokyo Disneyland from the road. I could see Cinderella's castle and the mountain for Splash Mountain. As we got closer to the city, I saw many tall skyscrapers and other big buildings. There are neon signs everywhere. The weather was overcast and about 77 degrees.

Finally, we arrived at our hotel, The New Otani. This hotel is very luxurious. I have my own room, and it's on the 27th floor. I have a great view of the city. Also, the area straight down from my window is a beautiful Japanese garden. I am planning to go out there and walk through it after I finish this blog posting and before my next meeting. When I got my hotel room, I rested for awhile, but not long enough because we had dinner.

Dinner was in small groups with Japanese volunteers. My group went to a restaurant called the Royal Host. It had an extensive menu, but everything was written in Japanese. There were pictures, but it was still hard to tell what some things were. Fortunately, our host helped us know what was what. I had rice and fried pork. It was very good, and I did use my chopsticks, although I was very bad at using them. I watched out host to see how she was holding them, and that really helped.

After dinner, we walked around on some of the side streets leading back to our hotel. This was nice because we got to see some things up close. All the shops and restaurants are very small and everything is close together. Plus, there are people everywhere! It's the crush of humanity, for sure. I managed to buy a phone card so that I could call my family back home. Fortunately, the salesgirl spoke English because I had a lot of questions for her.

By the time I got back to the hotel, I was exhausted. I had been up for more than 24 hours straight. I tried to call my family back home (no one answered), and then I went straight to bed (9:30 p.m. Japan time). I slept hard the whole night. When I got up next morning, though, I felt pretty good.

Other interesting things I have noticed about Japan:
1. All the business men wear black suits and white shirts.
2. The toilets all have a control panel of buttons the do other things. One choice is to make flushing sounds to hide "other" noises.
3. I have been able to get Coca-Cola almost everywhere I've gone.

The time change is 13 hours. I am 13 hours ahead of everyone back home.