Asia Day 1
I always want to write about my trips, and never manage to do a very good job. We'll see how well I do this time!
After my usual race to the airport Friday, I met up with Daniel for our flight to lovely Detroit, en-route to Nagoya. Got some nice seats (row of 3 with one open in between) but not on the upper deck, nor with a window which we were hoping for. The flight passed unusually quickly--it didn't seem any longer than a flight to Europe. I slept around 4 hours so that helped. We arrived in Nagoya about 7PM, and had no trouble making our way to the right station to get to our hotel, but then I decided to go north instead of south, and we had a nice walk around the neighbourhood before eventually finding the hotel, the Route Inn Nagoya.
Dan managed to check in with the non-English speaking staff with no trouble at all. We have a typical Japanese-size room, but that's fine with me, and best of all free internet.
And the lovely view from our hotel room:
After we checked in, we went back out and walked up to the central shopping area of Nagoya, trying to force ourselves to stay awake as long as possible. It was pretty indistinguishable from any Western city, with all of the usual designer stores. I knew to expect this, but it's always a bit disheartening.
We stopped at Cafe Excelsior--a chain, so that explains why Sulu wasn't there tonight--before wandering back to our hotel to crash for the evening. We've just had a surprisingly nice breakfast at the hotel of egg, rice, chicken, seaweed, and mini-hotdogs. We're going to spend the day exploring Nagoya's sights, before catching a train to Kyoto for dinner. Hopefully we'll have free internet at our next hotel as well! Overall, I'm very excited to be here, and can't wait for the rest of the trip!
After my usual race to the airport Friday, I met up with Daniel for our flight to lovely Detroit, en-route to Nagoya. Got some nice seats (row of 3 with one open in between) but not on the upper deck, nor with a window which we were hoping for. The flight passed unusually quickly--it didn't seem any longer than a flight to Europe. I slept around 4 hours so that helped. We arrived in Nagoya about 7PM, and had no trouble making our way to the right station to get to our hotel, but then I decided to go north instead of south, and we had a nice walk around the neighbourhood before eventually finding the hotel, the Route Inn Nagoya.
Dan managed to check in with the non-English speaking staff with no trouble at all. We have a typical Japanese-size room, but that's fine with me, and best of all free internet.
And the lovely view from our hotel room:
After we checked in, we went back out and walked up to the central shopping area of Nagoya, trying to force ourselves to stay awake as long as possible. It was pretty indistinguishable from any Western city, with all of the usual designer stores. I knew to expect this, but it's always a bit disheartening.
We stopped at Cafe Excelsior--a chain, so that explains why Sulu wasn't there tonight--before wandering back to our hotel to crash for the evening. We've just had a surprisingly nice breakfast at the hotel of egg, rice, chicken, seaweed, and mini-hotdogs. We're going to spend the day exploring Nagoya's sights, before catching a train to Kyoto for dinner. Hopefully we'll have free internet at our next hotel as well! Overall, I'm very excited to be here, and can't wait for the rest of the trip!