Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Japan 2009: Monday April 27th

I’m writing this from Japan- we’re hanging around waiting for a taxi to take us to Nishi-Nippori station to catch the Keisei Line train to Narita Airport. This station is exactly where we arrived in Tokyo, so it’ll feel like we’ve come full-circle. Charlie was able to change traveler’s cheques this morning when the banks opened, so we have taxi & train fare :) Brendan & I watched some more NHK tv shows- including a full episode of Pythagoras Switch, which was a real treat. Now they’re working on Brendan’s research- looking at the ways you can distinguish Shinto Shrines from Buddhist Temples. It’s pretty cool. We’re hoping to reach the station to catch the 12:05 train to Narita, so we’ll have time for lunch & some looking around. We’ll take a little walk here in Nakano, too, before we go, to stretch our legs & take a last look around.

Later:
Well- there’s something about leaving someplace on an airplane & arriving at your destination a few hours before you left that can only be described as surreal. But that’s just what happened to us today. We are, happily, back in the US & checked-into our hotel in San Francisco for a couple days, to recover from the jet lag. (Last trip to Japan we tried to makeit home all at once & nearly died halfway from time-compression exhaustion). Everything went just fine, but we’re feeling extremely dragged-out right now, & not sure whether it’s better to stay up as long as possible (we’ve been up for ~23 hours right now, although Brendan managed to sleep for a few hours on the plane) or just give in & go to bed...

...and after a 2 1/2 hours nap, we were ready to get up & find some non-hotel-food dinner. We checked some tourist books in the room & settled on an Italian restaurant in Burlingame, where our hotel is. We got a reservation & a taxi & found it to be a nice place with yummy food. Brendan, who doesn’t like tomato sauce (unless it’s on top of a pizza :) got pasta with just basil, garlic, & fresh tomatoes on top & really liked it. On our way out, we noticed a Japanese resaurant across the street, which is where we may end up tomorrow night, for nostalgia’s sake :)

Now, off to bed- hope our bodies can relax & SLEEP!!!

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