Twenty-six hours later....

Hello! You found the compass!

      Finally, I am in Japan. When we arrived in the airport one of the first things we saw was, oddly enough, this:

      It took twenty-six hours of traveling to get here (on very little sleep at that), and to be able to collapse onto my bed at the Palace Side Hotel in Kyoto after that many hours felt wonderful. Fun fact: My bed is a pull-out chair. It’s the one by the window below:

A tired Kristen says "hello".

      The relaxation of the bed was second only to being able to shower. I don’t think there is a word in the English language to describe how good it feels to get clean after being covered in sweat and having greasy travel-hair for hours.

      Speaking of the shower, I want you all to picture the first thing that comes to mind when I say “hotel shampoo”. If you’re anything like me (American) you probably pictured those tiny bad boys which everyone steals.

      Well, America, here is Japan’s version:

      Yep, those are full-size bottles of body soap, shampoo, and conditioner. Becky, Kristen, and I were quite impressed.

      The thing that struck me the most in my first day in Japan was probably the amount of people on the train who were dressed up. About 98% of all men I saw wore suits, and many women were in suits or dressier clothing as well. It seemed like everyone except for us looked good! (In fairness, we’d had a long day.)

A very long day. That was our flight path from Newark to Tokyo.

      Even when at the airport, it hadn’t hit me yet that I was on the other side of the world. I got a chuckle out of a few things that were very, very Japan-esque. For example, take this panel on the back of every seat on the bullet train:

      Along with the traditional transportation symbols we know and love, they have a symbol for vending machines. There are vending machines everywhere. It’s pretty crazy. There are also a lot of people, though I suppose that’s like any subway station. I heard the phrase “sumimasen” (“excuse me”) many times while people were taking their seats or getting luggage. Even then though, I still didn’t believe that I was in Japan until we were finally done with taking subways and trains. When we exited the subway and Dr. Huang pointed out the Imperial Palace as we were walking to our hotel, it sort of hit me. The air smelled different, everything felt different, and I couldn’t read some of the neon signs (a lot of things are in both English and Japanese, thankfully). I have a feeling that it will really hit me tomorrow when we are out and about all day.

      For now, I should go. I am writing this at around 11:15PM Japan time, 9:15 Eastern Standard Time.

      I miss my cat, my family, and America, but I am certainly not unhappy here. I know it is going to be one heck of an adventure. So now I will sleep and look forward to breakfast tomorrow morning! (Becky and I split a Payday for dinner. A hearty, hot breakfast will taste awesome.)

Oyasuminasai!