First Impressions

Greetings from the future... and from Japan. I will not be using any apostrophes, at least for now, until I figure out where it is on the keyboard, just one of the differences that I am discovering in my first 24 hours here.

The flight took about 12 hours, which is a long, long time. It is 3 movies, two lunches, five beverage services, and several episodes of Disney Channel shows long, all on a plane with an upstairs. In all that time, I only managed to offend once as I returned to my seat from a bathroom break. Sitting by the window, I had to essentially throw myself forward to squeeze in due to the scant leg room, and in the process of doing that my shoe grazed the seat of the Japanese passenger sitting on the aisle, a major Japanese faux pas, apparently, according to Pam - one of the rudest things I could have done was touch my shoe to this woman's seat (there's the apostrophe! shift 7!).

Upon arriving, Japan did not disappoint. The escalators from the plane all talked (a lot of things talk here!), accompanied with flashing arrows (either up or down) to let you know, in case you couldn't see, which direction the escalator would be taking you. There were also numerous fun English translations and cartoon caricatures, one, for example, showing a rather distraught man whose luggage had flown down the escalator because he hadn't properly secured it at the top.

My first meal was delicious, a big bowl of spicy, hot ramen soup for only $5, which was very welcome because it is coooold here, around 40 degrees during the day. We got back to her brother's place, which is a super cool bachelor pad in my eyes (very "Japanesy" in his), and collapsed from exhaustion. Now we're off to Mister Donuts for breakfast!

So we survived the trip here. More to come! Sayonara.