It started bright and early... okay, dark and early Wednesday morning--4am, to be exact. I got a late start packing, so I just stayed up all night (as usual), but I got it all done!
That's my suitcase in the midst of the packing. I was able to pack less this time, so now I have room for more goodies!
After all the packing was done, we headed off to the airport. Got there shortly after 5am, made it through security with little problem, and waited at the gate for our plane to board.
Here's Cinnamon snacking on a mini bagel while we wait (please notice it's still very dark outside). Finally, we were able to board, and 2.5 hours later, we landed in Chicago at O'hare International Airport. There was snow on the ground!
Naturally, I had to snap a picture of it, as I hadn't seen snow in person (even if I didn't get to touch it) in a good 20 years. That picture of a footprint was out on the tarmac and was taken while we sat inside waiting for our connecting flight. It's nice to have a camera with 20x zoom.
We landed at about 8:30am (which is 9:30am EST), and our next flight wasn't until 12:02pm. So we went to Chili's and had breakfast. Yes, breakfast. I didn't know they served it, but I'm guessing it's solely an airport offering. And let me tell you, it's painfully obvious the people who work there hate their jobs.
After our nourishing breakfast, we made our way to the gate and waited.
Cinnamon took a little nap. I took pictures of Cinnamon.
I also snapped a shot of our plane--this gigantic looking 747. Last time we flew to Japan, we took a 777. This one didn't have video screens on the back of each seat.
After what seemed like a small eternity, we finally got to board. This time around, I had a window seat, Cinnamon had an aisle seat, and the seat in the middle was empty. ...Or so we thought. I arrived at row 41 only to find some guy sitting in my window seat! Cinnamon and I were most unhappy. But we sat down anyway and made ourselves comfortable. Sort of. We were running a bit behind because they had to load some more cargo, and while we were sitting there, I noticed in the row in front of us, only the aisle seat was occupied. So I very kindly asked this seat-usurper if he wouldn't mind moving up a row so we'd all have some more space. Thankfully, he complied, and we were able to have our free seat for stretching out a bit.
We were very glad to have it, as 13 hours on a plane will certainly make you want to move. For whatever reason, even though I had been awake nearly 24 hours at that point, I wasn't very sleepy. I napped a few times, but probably got off the plane with no more than an hour and a half of sleep under my belt. I whiled the time away reading magazines, listening to music, and being awed by the spectacular aerial view of the Canadian Rockies and the vast, snowy mountains of Alaska. Who knew the Pacific Ocean could ice over so far out! It was neat to see, though... all the snow-capped peaks, frozen rivers and ice floes.
Cinnamon, on the other hand, didn't fare quite as well as I did on the flight. She was uncomfortable and didn't feel very well. I felt bad for her, but there wasn't much I could do. I let her sleep on my lap for a bit and tried not to disturb her when she was trying to nap. Not much else you really can do when you're 33,000ft above ground and going roughly 530mph. If you've ever thought an 8 hour shift at work went by at a snail's pace, try being cooped up on an airplane in economy for 13 hours. It's one of the reasons why I don't understand how anyone can visit this country for only a week.
But finally--just when I thought I couldn't take another minute--we landed in Japan, flying over brown fields and wide rivers before touching down at Narita airport. Immigration and customs were a breeze, and we hit up the ATM for some cash before heading down to buy our tickets for the Narita Express (or N'EX) that would take us into Tokyo proper in only 90 minutes. For some reason, we didn't think to buy the tickets together, and since all seats on the train are reserved (as in, you can't just sit wherever you want), we ended up getting seats 5 cars apart.
Those are the seats on the train. After being stuck in economy on the plane, I'm always happy to be on a long distance train in Japan -- there's so much legroom!
And here's the view from my window, looking out at Narita Airport Terminal 1's station. Not a lot going on there at 5:15pm.
Leaving the station, you can now see some people moving about. I had intended to take more pictures along the ride, but by the time we left the underground station and saw the outside world, it was nearly dark outside! I'm definitely not used to darkness falling at 5pm! Clearly Florida has spoiled me.
We made it into Shinjuku around 6:45pm, and signed the lease on our guest house at the office and picked up our rental phones. We were given a very widemouthed cup of hot green matcha tea, along with two sweets that were either daifuku or mochi maybe. One was square (about an inch on all sides), brown, and kind of sticky-chewy. The other was very similar in consistency, but was round and had a flaky coating on the outside. Either way, they were tasty.
After that was all settled, we just had to go find our place. Much to Cinnamon's dismay, we decided to simply walk to the place instead of taking the train, which would have been faster, but also a lot harder at 8pm, and with quite a bit of luggage. It took us about 20 or so minutes to find our place. It's in a building whose small entrance is sandwiched between a florist and... some other shop I never looked at very closely.
We had to haul our luggage up a rather narrow staircase in order to get to our second floor room, but we finally made it! So here it is:
This is what you see when you first walk into the room (nevermind the luggage). On the right is a window, and on the left is a tiny balcony that I later found out basically exists just to hold the external part of our room's AC/heating unit.
I'm standing on the bed to take this picture, but here you can see the futon, the door, and our very large closet. Strangely, this time around, we have plenty of places to put our clothes... but no hangers. How inconvenient!
Lastly, you can see our dinky little shelves, complete with some dishes. This room is much bigger than our place in Shirokanedai was. I'd say it's probably 12'x12' or so. But I've gotta say if there's one thing I already miss about the US, it's central heating. Here, we have our own heater in our room, but as soon as you step outside to go to the kitchen or bathroom (both very close-by), it gets cold! There's no heating unit out there, so it tends to be awfully close to whatever the external temperature is. Certainly not fun when you want to take a shower.
We did meet one of the guys who's also staying here (there are two other rooms on this floor). His name is Thomas and he's from France. That's pretty much all we know at this point. We weren't feeling particularly chatty, so we pretty much went right to bed.
Today, we decided to take it easy, since we learned the hard way last time what happens when you get too ambitious that first day. I woke up at 7am (yes, me--Persimmon) because my left arm was asleep and numb, and then I couldn't go back to sleep. Cinnamon woke up an hour or so later, I think. We decided to go get some food, then go to the grocery store to pick up some things for later on.
But first, while Cinnamon was in the shower, I snapped these photos of the "view" from our balcony. We're on the back side of the building, so as you can imagine, there's nothing much to see. Judging by how close those other buildings are, you can see now why all the glass in people's homes is frosted for privacy.
Down below the balcony, there are some bikes. And that's really about all that's outside. Not too fascinating. Last time we at least had a tiny "garden" (we're talking about a foot and a half wide).
We ended up going to two different 100 yen shops that were across the street from each other. At one, we picked up some food, and at the other, we bought some hangers, soap, laundry detergent, and a little plastic basket with handles to put our shower things in. Then it was back home to eat!
This was my first meal: a carton of strawberry milk (marketed as "strawberry au lait"), chocolate chip melon bread, which--as you may recall--I made and brought in to work almost a year ago now! I really missed this stuff. It was huge and filling, and only cost me 105 (which is now the equivalent of $1.15). And I bought some nikuman, which is essentially meat inside a dough "bun" that's steamed. I haven't eaten them yet, so I'll let you know how they are.
Cinnamon got some yogurt, though I don't know what flavor it is. Strawberry? She also got a little apple pastry/danish type thing, and a little carton of the tiniest, cutest, most perfect strawberries I have ever seen. She took pictures of them, so I'm sure she'll post them for you all to see. American strawberries look like overgrown monsters compared to these. And she got some sort of hot noodle cup to eat later.
After eating, we ended up not going to the grocery store, as we were both pretty tired. Around 4pm, Cinnamon declared it naptime and ended up sleeping until about 8pm.
We were supposed to go meet Courtney and a friend of hers for curry at Coco's after the show they were seeing was over (around 9pm), but Cinnamon still wasn't feeling very well, so I went next door to the Family Mart and bought her some crackers. She stayed home, and I went out for curry. Turns out two other people came along too, so it was a lot of fun chatting with them and eating delicious curry. But man was it cold out there! When I left, it was windy and about 39 degrees, so it felt much colder. By the time I made it to Coco's, I could hardly feel my hands or my face. The walk home was better because the wind had died down a bit. As of right now, it's 36 degrees with a wind chill of 31. Tomorrow, it's supposed to be 45 (today got up to 48).
And right now, it's already 1:42am, so I'm going to brush my teeth and hop into bed. Sorry this post was so long. I'll try to keep them shorter in the future, but I hope you still enjoyed reading about our adventures... or at least the pictures.
Until next time!
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