Ohio means "Good Morning!"

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Where I stayed

Hotel Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku Shibuya

Flag of Japan Tokyo, Kanto, Japan
Wednesday, March 2, 2011

We made it! It's 4:30 in the morning here. Yesterday couldn't have gone any better, but it was still exhausting. Our plane touched down around 4:30pm Tokyo time, but it might as well have been midnight. After we landed we had to figure out our train passes and get on the right train to get to the city. This went surprising well. It might be because the office we needed to find was right next to the Starbucks!
After we got our tickets squared away we had a bit of a wait until the train arrived. We found a vending machine (which are everywhere) and after playing with it for a bit, got some drinks to come out. Now these vending machines are nothing like American vending machines. They sell cold and hot drinks, coffee, tea, pop, you name it. Its awesome. I guess there are super fancy vending machines around that are touch screens. I'll let you know if I find one of these.
Anyways, the train ride from the airport to Shinjuku where we are staying is pretty long, about and hour and a half

Still On The Plane

. But the train was spotlessly clean, quiet and comfortable. It is a great way to travel. Jacki slept most of the time, but after around 14 hours in the air, who wouldn't.
It is a lot colder here than I expected. Its in the 40's but it still seems freezing, probably because of the wind and since we are close to the ocean.
Once we finally arrived in Shinjuku we stumbled to our hotel, which is less than a 5 minute walk from the train station, and checked in. The hotel is very nice. The rooms are small, but that is expected anywhere in Tokyo, I think. They give you a pair of slippers and a robe. We went to sleep almost right away. It was probably around 9pm Tokyo time, but somewhere around 8am our time.
Everything is very different here (surprise!) and very high tech. All of the hotel keys and train passes are touch cards where you just swipe your card near the keypad and they open. The toilets all have heated seats and remote controls for other weird functions that I'm not used to.
Overall though, everything is going great. Its very exciting and fun. Definitely different from anything I'm used to. But I think thats what we are looking for!
The only downside so far is that there is only one tv station in English (CNN) and all they talk about is soccer. All of the other channels are Japanese gameshows. Seriously. When flipping through the channels, every single one was a game show.
Good night!

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