4 am in Tokyo

The plane ride went by amazingly quickly seeing as how I did not sleep at all. It felt like being in a time machine. Like the whole world was frozen from the time I took off to the time I landed. Every time a meal came, I would look at it, find something I am allergic to and the woman sitting next would say in that I’m-really-worried-about-you tone “ You no like Chinese food!?”. The airport was dead. I was the only one to stay in Tokyo on my flight; everyone else stayed on to Seoul, Korea. I made it through immigration and customs ok and as the sliding doors part the first thing I see is Jake’s smiling face. It was so nice to see him! We changed money (I didn’t have any problems with carrying that cash, mom) and bought train tickets. The hotel is close to the train stop so it was easy to find.

Our hotel room is literally the size of an American bathroom. There is no closet or drawers. We are truly living out of suitcases. The great part about it is the bathtub. When I sit in it I can’t see out.

Wednesday night I just went to sleep because I had been up for 24 hours. Thursday we walked around the neighborhood. Japan is full of little narrow streets and none of the intersections are made of right angles. I doubt very much that there is a straight road in Japan anywhere. There is more neon here that I have ever seen. We went to the Shiboyu district, where the brontosaurus building is. There were lots of people and shops. We went in to this place called PopTeen and it was a small village of photo booths and accompanying costumes. When we came home I took a nap at 3pm and woke up at 8am this morning (oops). The first meal I had here was MickyD’s. Sadly, I haven’t been able to go to a restaurant because we can’t find anything I am not allergic to. Today we went walking around to the Ueno district north of us. On the way we visited a shrine. We visited this Great temple with a huge bustling market place.

After that we walked to the Ueno Zoo. We passed like 6 more shines on the way. The Zoo was great. I love Zoos. I believe I have now seen every living rodent on the face of the earth. They had everything. They had big monkey (apes) to little monkey (spider monkeys). They had hippos and lions and tigers and elephants, sea lions, king penguins, Aye-Ayes, Dholes and the American beaver. They had these giant salamanders that were like 4 feet long and a giant crocodile. I also saw colorful and poisonous tree frogs I had always wanted to see in my youth. We walked to the train station and to home, where I fell asleep at 6 and now I am up and its 4 am. Happy birthday Kristen, and Brett- The Time-travelers wife is fantastic!