First off, I apologize that this entry is scatter brained and a little hard to follow but its hard to separate my thoughts and what was happening last night because of all the chaos but after this one I'll try and make my entries a little easier to read.
Well John and I got to Cleveland airport in plenty of time and made our flight to Newark airport to problem. I'll spare you all the details but in Newark we grabbed some food and exchanged some of our currency for the Japanese Yenn and so we began the 14 hour flight from the U.S. east coat to Tokyo. The flight felt like it took days and I believe during that time I developed a derivative of restless leg syndrome because sitting that long with only the occasional walk around and bathroom break is just TOO LONG. We arrived in Tokyo Narita international airport at apporx. 4 p.m. Japanese time. We made it through customs ok considering that John looked like a drug smuggler carrying something like 10lbs oh hypodermic needles and insulin for his brother. We were suppose to call our contact; Alex, and then we get on the train towards going to Nippori and meet Alex there but the number given to us for Alex was not it mobile phone number and was in fact his school apartment phone number... which caused a problem because we were now in one of the largest overcrowded city in the world with no way to contact the one person willing to act as a translator for us. Us being nerds the first thing we did was hop online to see who we could get to contact John's mom so she could contact Alex... to no avail we broke down and payed for a taxi to take us to our location because luckily we had a print out with the address on it. The taxi driver got us there despite us having no way to really communicate with him. He navigated the super tight streets made really only for bike riders and people walking and got us just down the street from our hotel. Now this may seem ok but we were kind of in a pinch and I knew this before we got in the cab... we had no way to check into our apartment, even if we spoke the language the check-in desk was closed by the time we got there. If there was ever a miricle moment... it was then. Alex and one of his Japanese friends named Kazu happened to be walking back to the room after not being able to find us at the train station. After some shouting and hugs exchanged we were very grateful we had finally been able to relax since we got there. We unloaded our suitcases and bags to out room and proceeded up the street to get some food. The city was absolutely amazing at night we are in no means in the down-town area of Tokyo but from airport to apartment we saw just how huge and populated this city is. We walked for a while to the tempura shop and grabbed a super delicious and relatively cheap (by their standards) meal. After that we made an attempt to go to the 100 Yenn market to just have a look around but it had just closed when we got there. We said goodbye to Kazu and lex lead us back to our apartment. When we got back the only thing I could think was how lucky we were in getting here and just how tired I was after getting virtually no sleep on the plane. I emailed home to tell them I got here and I fell asleep very quickly after that. I'm sure my parents are reading this and freaking out at the fact that me and John got lost and what not but I want to assure them that John and myslef were able to make it here safe and sound.
In all the mess last night I had no desire or time to take pictures of our entry into the country but I promise there will be LOTS of our adventures today and for the rest of the trip.
O u guys and your silly adventures
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