Day One: Arriving in Japan
January 15-16, 2004

January 15th. Thursday.
Like any Thursday, I headed for Sea-Tac airport where I work, but this Thursday was different. I didn't go to work. I went to Japan. ^-^

I woke the morning before at 5am to go to work, then spent all night packing and getting ready, so I was "well rested" and ready to go as we headed to the airport. We got to the airport at about 6am to allow plenty of time for security, then at 9:20am the plane departed for San Francisco. The flight to San Francisco was a little under two hours. Then after a slight wait, we departed for Narita. We were on the plane to Narita for around 10 hours, but for some reason, I still didn't sleep...

Eleanor here. While waiting to get our luggage on the plane, Mom took of to get some of the American-Japanese newspapers. I dragged her stuff along the line with the help of the old couple behind me.

We didn't spend much time in San Fran. Right after getting off the plane, we had to rush to the shuttle bus that went to the terminal. We had barely made it. Being the last ones on, we ended up with last minute seating in the back.

Before we arrived at Narita, they gave us these little forms we had to fill out for Customs. Since I stopped to ask one of the flight attendants some questions about the form, we were the last ones off the plane. 

Where had everyone gone? Here we were, two minutes into another country, and already I was lost! We found the bus everyone had gone to - almost too late - and headed for the building. There we were directed towards customs. My lack of sleep was really showing! We wandered a while before actually finding the place. Once there, everyone was pretty nice about guiding us through.

Once again we were the last ones on the bus. 
But the buses in Japan were most definitely jam-packed!  
I ended up standing next to the steps by the door. 
(Which was pretty embarrassing with all my luggage and the driver asking me to please try to stand further from the door.)
 

Going in to Sea-Tac Airport

However, we were now running late... I was concerned because Kataoka-san and Asaasa-san were waiting to meet us.  Eleanor asked me if I knew how we'd find them. I told her I'd seen a pic of Kataoka-san on his website, but I didn't know Asaasa-san's face at all... however, they made it easy for us! They were holding a sign that said, "Alinda Sue and Eleanor". I guess they were smarter than I was that night, eh.

Asaasa-san brought his daughter. She was really cute. We all had fun talking for a while... actually, to be honest, Eleanor did most of the talking. I was still pretty dazed and confused. Still, we had a good time meeting with them. I wish we could have met them again, but he wasn't able to because of work... Next time, definitely, I'd like to see him again.

After we said goodbye to Asaasa-san and his daughter, Kataoka-san went with us to Asagaya. During the trip, I got my first taste of Japanese densha (commuter trains). The densha are wonderful! You can get nearly everywhere on them! They are a bit expensive, but any kind of travel in Japan is expensive - even traveling by car. The roads weren't nearly as crowded as I expected because most people traveled by public transportation. 

While on the train, Kataoka-san gave us a keitai denwa* (cell phone) that we could use while we were in Japan. It was really cool!

He handed it to me, and I immediately started playing with it.
I guess he liked how much I enjoyed it, because he gave it to me without a second thought. 
I have it even now in America, and even though the internet and the e-mail, and the downloading system doesn't work, it's still a treasure to me. Mom tried to find a service in America that will let me have actual service, but to no avail. 
Someday I hope America will catch up so I can actually use it as a phone and have internet back. (Hmm. I think I'm spoiled now.)  

When we got to Asagaya, someone from Yadoya met us at the station, but the manager wasn't in yet, so we dropped our bags off and went to Denny's to eat. Yes, Denny's! The same restaurant chain as in America, but the food was definitely Japanese. It was delicious!

I ordered my favorite dessert: Cheese Cake!
Japanese Cheese Cake is very different from American Cheese Cake. (Or Canadian Cheese Cake for that matter.)
The Japanese evidently take the 'Cake' part in Cheese Cake very literal. It was very cake-ish.

After we ate, we returned to Yadoya, got our keys from the manager, and said "goodnight" and "thank you"  to Kataoka-san. After that, Eleanor went to bed. I listened to some music, then at 1 am after two days, I too finally fell asleep.
peace

And so it began...

 

Yadoya Guesthouse
I found Yadoya on the internet. I decided to go with it because it had the basics we needed at a very reasonable price. We stayed in what I think is their oldest building, but it was comfortable and the people were very nice. The people who lived there were a mix of foreigners (like us) and Japanese people. Actually, I was pleasantly surprised to see how many of them were Japanese, since I had expected to find the foreigners there. They were staying there for the same reason we were: it was cheap. ^-^ We enjoyed our time there and would recommend it to others looking for a decent cheap place to stay in the Tokyo area.

Yadoya's home page: http://www.worldgroupjapan.com/yadoyahome.htm

 

*keitai denwa
America may be the leader in many fields, but the cell phone industry is not one of them. The phone we were given is a Vodafone J-D08 which retails for just over 2000 yen, or approx. US$20. It is a bilingual phone capable of both Japanese and English display and input, email, internet, games, and digital camera. The phone also comes with an 8MB SD card. It was great because we not only had phone access, but I was able to email my friends for information, even when we weren't able to get to a manga cafe for internet access.

Unfortunately, the phone is incompatible with service providers in the United States, and no one here offers phones with the same features... even in models that cost several hundred dollars. Here, I still must rely on my computer's internet access to email my friends in Japan... but the games and camera still work great!

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