Just a warning...This is going to be leghthy...and a little scattered brained. Didn't have time to organize my thoughts before writing....
Yesterday was a LOOOONG day!!! Thankfully we got a good night sleep and slept till 5am so I don't think we will be too effected by the jet lag today. So our flight was good... VERY VERY long, but good. We hopped on a bus to the hotel and got to see a little country side and ease ourselves into the big city. We saw some rice fields with workers out working the fields. Michael always likes to see crops and the farms whenever we go places. "You can take the boy outta the farming, but you can't take the farming out of the boy" :) As we made it into Tokyo we were both amazed at the denseness of this place, the highways seriously were just right next to office buildings, as we drove by we could actually see people inside working. The area we are in actually reminds me a lot of New York from what I see of New York on TV and such since I've never been there. Only the buildings aren't near as tall because of the safety of earthquakes here (speaking of which, apparently there was one to the South of us today, but didn't know that till my mom said something about it)
We got to the hotel last night about 4pm-ish and grabbed a cup of coffee,washed up a bit and headed out just to walk around and get the blood circulating in our bodies again. We were both exhausted but were pushing on so we didn't go straight to bed. It is interesting, there are a TON of underground malls. We stumbled upon a ton of restaurants and decided to eat at one for dinner so we did. The place we went was a cute small little shop with probably only about 10 tables. We had to point to the "Plastic Food" in the windows to tell the lady what we wanted, and when we got it, oooo it hit the spot. We both had a rice ball and miso soup (if you have been to a Japanese restaurant its the soup they always serve at the beginning and the rice was basically fried rice) It was DELICIOUS!! Shoguns, Kabuki and the Japanese Kitchen just will never be the same again... I was proud of Michael because he finally used chopsticks. Every time we go to any Japanese's restaurant I always use my "sticks" Michael never has, his hand started to cramp by the end of the meal. I laughed because at the end of the meal he told me that perhaps he should have tried to use them when I would try to get him to use them. I had read before we arrived that slurping is not only not rude but also expected here so it was neat to be sitting in this place with only 2 other people but you could hear them slurping their noodle soup across the room. After dinner we wondered back to the hotel and started to unpack and quickly realized we HAD to go to bed.
This morning we woke up, we were both still tired, but just couldn't sleep anymore. We had about 10 hours of sleep. We both took showers and made some green tea then walked around the area our hotel is in until it was time for breakfast at 7. It was nice to walk around the quiet streets and enjoy the fresh morning air. Breakfast here at the Hilton was AMAZING!! I'm not a big fan of big chain hotels especially outside of the US, but the breakfast has made up for the enormous lack of character of the hotel. Don't get me wrong, its beautiful and upscale and classy, but sooooo original that it hurts. After breakfast we went to Starbucks across the street and walked around some more, found TI and came back so Michael could have a phone meeting with Dallas and then it was time for him to go to work, so like the good little wife I am, I walked him to work (a out a 10 minute walk if that) and wondered the long way back to the hotel where I unpacked and got this place in order because we were so tired last night, stuff was just thrown everywhere and now, I am typing this. The rest of my day will consist of probably just walking around and periodically checking back with the hotel to see if I have any messages from Michael He this he will get done pretty early so I don't want to drift off too far.
My first impressions of Tokyo are basically that if we didn't have to go to St. Louis for a wedding right after we got back, there is a good chance I wouldn't get on the plane to come home!! (though I think its safe to say I usually feel that way no matter where I am) I thought that this would be the place that felt the most foreign to me then any other place we have been, but oddly enough, it feels the least foreign of them all by a long shot. I don't know if it is the American hotel we are staying at that is filled with a bunch of business people staying here as oppose to tourists, or all the cars that look like our cars back home where in Europe and Central America, they look tons different. You would think all the Asian people walking around would make it feel different, but oddly it doesn't. I will say we both think its a wired feeling knowing that we are the ones that look different then everyone else. Oh, and would you believe I STILL feel short here? I thought of anywhere, I would feel average height here.... I guess 5'1 is short no matter where you go. So far the people here, are SOOOOOOO nice! SO NICE and bow all the time. I knew they did bow, I just didn't realize how often!! Even yesterday we were on an elevator with a Japanese couple that were probably both about our age, when the elevator stopped we let them off before us and they bowed at us when they said thank you. It is also SOOOOOO clean here. I didn't expect it to be dirty, but even the fire hydrants sparkle because they are so clean!! (Thats not an exageration, the firehydrants, really are sparkly shiney clean!)
The weather, well its better then the 100+ degree nastiness that is Dallas. Its in the mid 70s here, cloudy but humid. I guess that's what happens when you are on a big island in the middle of the Pacific. Ok, well that's it for now. Here are some pictures: (You can click on them to see them larger)
Hotel Room
Those are Japanese style robes on the beds. Not a Hilton thing, but a Japanese thing in most of the hotels here.
More Hotel Room
View from Our Hotel Room
Walking up from I-land where we ate dinner yesterday
Me on the Window Ledge in the Room
Street Scene Close to the Hotel
This is just a little side street off the big street
Michael inside of Starbucks
(This picture is for Mary)
More View
