Departuring

See you later, back yard!

Without doubt the longest day of my life. I began it at 4am on the 30th of July in Toronto and ended it around midnight on August 1 in Tokyo. The take home lesson was that if you plan on staying up late the night before your flight and sleeping most of the way, bring things in your carry-on to facilitate that!

My lovely assistants!

Rockin' the tourist look.

Apart for a little while. :(

The flight wasn't entirely enjoyable. A window seat is great if you don't plan on standing up and walking about, but on a 13 hour flight you find that such activities are often just what you want to do.

Totomi, my shy (therefore silent) Japanese neighbour.

The only sleep I managed to get was when I dozed off during some of the more boring portions of the films being shown. I got so good at it that I ended up knowingly putting on a documentary I would find boring!

Bye House!

The meals themselves were probably the most exciting part of the voyage, and seemed to get more Japanese the closer we got to the country.

The first was a simple chicken and rice dish that is relatively common amongst air plane food in my experience. It was pretty good.

One Japanese out of Five.

The second was a bit of an enigma in that it appeared to be lunch, but since the last meal I had was dinner, did that make this breakfast? We're getting kind of Japanese with the cup of noodles (delicious) and the chopsticks as the only utensil, but the roast beef sandwich and biscuit are relatively normal.

Three Japanese out of Five.

Finally was breakfast (or lunch?). The best part about this was the ordering; somehow I got a stewardess who's English ability was low enough to be incomprehensible to me after 10 hours in a plane, not to mention one who began our conversation assuming I understood Japanese. After saying "what?" twice (first to get her to stop speaking Japanese, the second out of pure confusion) I settled for "the first one" which ended up being our grand champion of Japanese air plane food.

Five Japanese out of Five.

If you can't see, it's shredded fish (perch) on top of what is basically a hot rice soup. I overcame my initial revulsion and tried some, and found it to actually be pretty good!

After what seemed like an eternity we finally landed in Tokyo (well, Narita) at 5PM local time. I breezed through customs and immigration faster than I had ever before - I must have looked particularly legitimate that day, and my baggage was one of the first to come out of the belt. Those of you who have travelled before know that such an experience in a major airport is more legend then reality.

The luggage carts are very hospitable.

After a one hour bus ride to our hotel in downtown Tokyo it was time to drink a lot of coffee and hit the town around 9PM.

The first stop was at a convenience store not far from the hotel, where the cashiers shouted scripted messages as I picked up a small can of hot coffee (which was really good). Wandering the streets after that was amazing - you are completely surrounded by foreign images, words, and people. We went into a kaiten-sushi restaurant first, followed by a bar where you selected your drink from a touch-screen computer after feeding it some money. Overall a lot of fun, and a great way to end the entire ordeal.

View the entire album here.

I'm in Japan!