Ohayo gozaimasu friends and family. What an amazing adventure this has started out to be! The plane ride here didn't seem too horribly long, guess because there were movies I wanted to watch and about 90 participants from the Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund that I could walk around and talk to, but I only talked to a few. Guess I am too shy some times. :) Customs didn't take more then a few minutes, they did not looked through my bags, just ran my passport through their system, took my finger prints and off I went. Pretty easy cheesy.
We had an hour and a half bus ride from the airport to the hotel and then the bell boys had to bring our luggage up. Mine was a bell girl. Ha! While I was waiting for the bell GIRL I got to check out our cool hotel rooms. So you know you are in a cool city, when the toilet seats are HEATED!!! It's amazing. Along with the toilet being heated it also has a washing function. You can get your bum spritzed if you would like. Haven't tried it out yet, but plan to just to say I did. :) Wish their was a t.v. in there and I might just sit on the toilet instead of the really hard mattress we have to sleep on. Guess that is why I woke up at 3:30 and haven't been able to go back to sleep. it is 4:48 here and my wake up call wasn't scheduled until 6:30. :0
At about 8pm we meet in one of the banquet rooms to meet our volunteers that took us out to dinner. Unfortunately most of us were so stink'n tiered that we could barely sit in our chairs. Or at least that is how I felt. :(
We went to a "Beef House" type of place. It was really cool. The area that we were sitting at had a ditch like thing under the table to put your feet so when you stand next tot he table, the table is only about 2 feet off the ground. We had to take our shoes off before getting up on this raised area and taking our seats and it was amazing watching the waiters quickly and efficiently take of their shoes and give you your food. The table had a hole cut in it, and the waiter brought out a make shift BBQ and you cooked your own food at your table.
As we walked to our restaurant, I couldn't get the gigantic smile off my face, and I couldn't stop thinking, "This is so freaking awesome. This is so freaking awesome!" Tokyo, at least what I have seen of it, which isn't much is like what you see on t.v. The town doesn't sleep at night and the area were all the shops are is so light with lights that it is hard to tell it is night time. Maybe that is because the sun starts to rise at 4am. I know, because I just watched it!
As for the pictures, there is a picture of one of the streets that we walked down to get to our restaurant, a picture of the name of the restaurant, us cooking our food and the group of us at the table. I guess it is pretty easy to see that we are visitors because we all have to wear our JFMF name tags and we stick out like sore thumbs! But the waitress was very friendly and automatically offered to take pictures for us. The Japanese people are extremely friendly and polite. It is great!
I am having a blast and wish all of you could be here with me. It is funny because there are people in my group that remind me of friends, so when I am not paying too much attention, it is like my friends are here. Or maybe it is just the jetlag setting in. I don't know, I was awake for 26 hours yesterday.
I miss you all and I will do my best to post every couple of days. I have to pay for internet access, so I am not going to be doing that every day.
Well, mata aimasho.
