Japan Day 1 & 2
An excerpt from my email to Mark. It:s 2 in the morning here and i can:t sleep.
I thought I:d take the time to tell you a little more about yestday / thurday friday. Because it was in fact one big LONG day. The sun followed us as we flew, so we never saw the sun set between thursday and friday. It was so weird, but good. I think it helped me stay awake. I only slept about 2 and a half hours on the plane and Becki didn:t sleep at all. When we finally landed we had to go through immigration and customs, which took well over an hour. From there we had to get our luggage, then find the rail station that would exchage our rail passes (which we finally did). From there we had to catch a train to Tokyo and then RUN through an extremely crowded train station, up about 5 flights of stairs with our luggage to catch a train from Tokyo to Osaka. That train ride was another 3 and a half hours, during which time Becki and I were in and out of consciousness. When we arrived, we then had to navigate the Osaka train system to take 2 other trains to get to our stop. From there we had to wander down a dark street (it was night time here by then) and I made Becki ask some guy where our hotel was. We finally got here around 9pm Japan time, 7am there. Over 24 hours later. sigh....
Good news though they do have a private shower for women here!!! I was so worried that they wouldnt. In a few hours time we are going to try to navigate the train system again to get to Kyoto, a city that:s known for its temples and manga musem, that:s abbout an hour away from here. We will be there for the day.
all I can say is that thank god a lot of s tuff is in Japanese and English and that everyone here has been more than willing to go out of their way to help us even when they can:t speak english. The people here are truly amazing!
More to come after Kyoto. ;)
I thought I:d take the time to tell you a little more about yestday / thurday friday. Because it was in fact one big LONG day. The sun followed us as we flew, so we never saw the sun set between thursday and friday. It was so weird, but good. I think it helped me stay awake. I only slept about 2 and a half hours on the plane and Becki didn:t sleep at all. When we finally landed we had to go through immigration and customs, which took well over an hour. From there we had to get our luggage, then find the rail station that would exchage our rail passes (which we finally did). From there we had to catch a train to Tokyo and then RUN through an extremely crowded train station, up about 5 flights of stairs with our luggage to catch a train from Tokyo to Osaka. That train ride was another 3 and a half hours, during which time Becki and I were in and out of consciousness. When we arrived, we then had to navigate the Osaka train system to take 2 other trains to get to our stop. From there we had to wander down a dark street (it was night time here by then) and I made Becki ask some guy where our hotel was. We finally got here around 9pm Japan time, 7am there. Over 24 hours later. sigh....
Good news though they do have a private shower for women here!!! I was so worried that they wouldnt. In a few hours time we are going to try to navigate the train system again to get to Kyoto, a city that:s known for its temples and manga musem, that:s abbout an hour away from here. We will be there for the day.
all I can say is that thank god a lot of s tuff is in Japanese and English and that everyone here has been more than willing to go out of their way to help us even when they can:t speak english. The people here are truly amazing!
More to come after Kyoto. ;)