Konnichiwa!

First impression:

It's hard not to think of words like "SARS" and "Asian Bird Flu" when the first ten people you see in Japan are wearing hygenicmasks over their noses and mouths. Apparently, this fashion (sported by 5-10% of the people here) is an extension of a cultural obsession with hygiene. These people aren't necessarily sick, but they're wearing the masks as prevention a lot of times. On the metro, in the airport, walking down the street, in the museum, and even during conversation, people are wearing these things. Weird. Other strange hygiene habits include carrying around your own washcloth to dry your hands in public bathrooms, and public toilets with a full set of "cleaning" tools (See above for full instructions).

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Now the rest:
The flight was pleasantly uneventful and oh-so-comfortable! The food was delicious, I got to try sake (Japanese rice wine), and I successfully ate the Soba noodle dish with chopsticks! My Japanese seat buddy was quite impressed. I was able to sleep on a pretty good schedule, so my meals and naps were in-line with Tokyo by the time we landed.

The flight path didn’t take us directly across the Pacific as I had expected. Instead, we arced up, towards Anchorage, Alaska, and stayed along coastline for most of the flight. When we were over the Bering Sea, thick sheets of ice were covering the water as far as I could see in every direction. If you’ve ever seen it on the Discovery Channel, that’s exactly what it looked like… minus the polar bears and other wildlife. There were several rifts where the ice had begun to pull apart

. It made me think of Pangaea and how all the continents must’ve drifted apart all those years ago. I didn’t get much other sightseeing done on the flight. The cabin was dark the whole time, and the sky was very bright outside. The shades were down for almost the whole trip.

At the airport, I was able to get my train ticket and SUICA card.  The  SUICA is basically a rechargeable debit card that you can use in train and metro stations. You just hold it up to the sensor at the turnstyle and it automatically charges the correct fare as you walk through. I’ll even be able to use it in many stores that don’t accept foreign credit cards. I think it’s a brilliant piece of plastic!

After the airport and my (eventually) successful battle with the train and metro systems, I arrived at Takadanobaba station, where I met Harusa and headed to her apartment. Thankfully, everything I had to do this afternoon had an English version alongside the Japanese!

All told, it ended up taking me about 28 hours to get from my apartment to Harusa’s “matchbox” apartment. She has a beautiful view of Shinjuku (an area of Tokyo), but her whole apartment is probably the size of the kitchen in my apartment. I was glad I didn't bring the BIG suitcase!