AAAAAA

Sorry for the late post. There's an internet surcharge at our hotel, so I didn't have a chance to do this until now. I'd like to keep this concise with only a few pictures, but I know that won't end up being the case. First I will talk about yesterday (Friday the 4th).

We were at the back of the limousine bus.

The flight was okay. Okaa and Oba used the restroom about, if I had to ballpark it...250 times? I didn't get up once during the entire flight. They played a couple bad movies, but I didn't bother to watch them. On the arm of the seat you could choose between 14 different audio channels with the first couple being the movie in a few languages, and the rest being genres of music you can listen to in a radio-esque format. They even had J-pop, although it was moreover J-pop in the sense of it being "Japanese music" as it is sometimes referred to as and not necessarily actual pop music from Japan. In fact, a lot of it seemed like it catered to the older generations of Japanese, though there was a few songs I sort of enjoyed. I mostly listened to my own music on my WP7, while occasionally checking the J-pop station to see if anything good was on. I never slept while on the plane, but for maybe 10 or 20 minutes I rested with my eyes shut. There is no real comfortable way to sit in an economy seat. At sometime during the flight, I think towards the beginning, we had to fill out embarkation and disembarkation cards for customs. 

We arrived about 20 minutes early around 15:20 (3:20PM) JST after a grueling 10.5 hour flight. We proceeded through customs and purchased our limousine bus tickets (just a normal bus not a limousine; it takes you from airport to several destinations throughout Tokyo). Okaa (previously erroneously referred to as Okaachan; mom) bought the tickets and then I exchanged my USD for JPY (Japanese Yen). We had to hurry though, because the bus was scheduled to leave 5 minutes from when we bought the tickets. Above is a picture of the interior of the limousine bus. The first thing I noticed was that cars in Japan are generally nicer than in America. There are no rusty or old looking cars around. Even the cars that look older than 10 years are shiny as ever. Almost every car that passed us had an in-dash LCD screen presumably for GPS and stereo control and so on.

We arrived at the Shinagawa Prince Hotel in about an hour and 15 minutes and proceeded to check in. I am in the east tower (or maybe the main tower, its really rather confusing) on the 14th floor and okaa and oba are in the...New Tower...I think...on the 25th floor. From their window I can see Tokyo Tower to the left. At night it is illuminated and quite the sight to see. After we got settled, we crossed the street and went into Wing Takanawa East, a food shopping center of sorts connected to Shinagawa Station, and I got some Yakitori and what I thought was beef skewers. The beef skewers were for okaa and oba, but they ended up actually being liver. Okaa disliked it, but Oba didn't mind much. Should I mention again that Okaa is mom and Oba is aunt? They got bento boxes for themselves. I also got an orange Fanta and mango manju. It may not have been manju actually, but that was the closest thing I can think of. I have quite a few videos so far, including this event, but I think I will post them when I get back to the USA. Less hassle that way.

My room. A mere 142 sq.ft. (Will post video later)

Afterward, we went back to the hotel, and I explored my comically small room. I explored some of the hotel shops and then went back to my room for some wholesome Japanese television. I watched Japan vs. Italy women's volleyball for a bit after flipping through the channels. And then I went to sleep around 21:30 (9:30PM). I think I'll post about today, 11/5, in another post after dinner.

Until then,
Daniel