Japan!

We`re in Japan! No kidding! We made it this far. We are at a nice hotel across from the park in the Ueno district of Tokyo. All arranged by Nobuko. Flight was long (as expected). But on United international flights, they feed you all the time and you don`t have to pay baggage charges.

We stumbled our way through Japanese Customs. "This form MUST be filled out in BLACK ink" the official remonstrated. OK, so we only had a red pen when we got the form. Then I declared my prescription medication so they whisked me into a back room and I was so concerned that Dennis didn`t know where I was. But I looked so clueless when presented a list of medicine types in English that they gave up.

Using the pc in the hotel room and, if you are not careful, you will start writing in Japanese characters.

Which reminds me. What day is it? What time is it? Who knows? It`s about 9pm here, which I think is 5am back home. Plus we started on Thursday and now it`s Friday night.

Natsuko found us right away when we got out of customs at Narita. We took the Keishei train all the way to Ueno (rumbling for over an hour). There are two Ueno stations, tomorrow we have to find the OTHER one and take the train to Yamagata. Plus it`s cold and raining. But, this is quite the nightlife district, lots of restaurants, etc. We took Natsuko to dinner and she picked a place that was a raised floor of straw mats and you sat on pillows on the floor at very low tables. OK, so us old Americanos have trouble assuming the position and the ladies running the place kept trying to move us. You buy japanese rice bowls, very simple which was what we needed. Nice! Fun!

Now I read up on Japanese toilets before I came and we Americans just do not know what is available!!

I think I`m going to pass out from exhaustion so I`m off!