Sat 11 Feb 2006
The trip started with a 14 hour flight from Atlanta. About 8 hours into it, I felt like a kid in the back seat of the family station wagon….Are we there yet?!?!?!
The flight was fairly unremarkable. However I was able to get caught up on a number of movies that I’m glad I didn’t pay to see. I also got to see a good documentary of Ferraris. We flew up over Alaska and came down to Japan from the north. It was interesting to see the glaciers- when I was able to crack the window shade.
It was daylight all the way over. So I understand why everyone closes the shades and go to sleep. However, I must admit darkness for 14 hours made me feel like I was in a cave. I suppose I never could live in Alaska. Anyway, for those of you who don’t know… when flying to Japan, never crack open the shade no matter what kind of nocturnal creature you feel you’re turning into. If you crack the shade you are met with scowls from polite but obviously aggravated Japanese travelers. So just keep the shade closed and dream of being in the sunlight.
Once I got there I was greeted by a gentleman who would drive me to my hotel. He promptly handed me a package that contained my international cell phone. This was a challenge to use as that all the prompts are in Japanese. Each one does have some cute little animated character with it, but dang if that helps?!?!?!
On the way from Narita to Tokyo, I was taken by the fact that the road we were traveling looked much like roads in Jersey that go into Manhattan. There is a fair amount of industry and a good amount of fairly open space. Coming into Tokyo, I was amazed by the two HUGE ferris wheels. Huge = I’ll ride any roller coaster, but there is no way I would get on one of those things.
I stayed at the Nikko Hotel. It is on the side of Tokyo that has been reclaimed from the ocean and has been built up in all Future-rama architecture. The crazy thing is that for all its futuristic architecture— you can’t get an internet connection in your room. I suppose If I had known how to read Japanese, I might have had more luck getting the cell phone to send messages than the internet in my room.
The Nikko looks out over the “Rainbow Bridge” and you get a good view of the port in Tokyo. I never realized how busy it was. It also looks over a replica of the Statue of Liberty. This was a bit of an oddity to me. However, many of the Japanese families that came by wanted their picture taken with the statue in the background. I was a bit puzzled by this and still haven’t figured it out.
In my next installment, I will write about my experience lecturing at a medical conference in Japan. It was much different than I expected. However, it was a real treat all the same.
