We’ve been in Japan now for about 5 hours. We woke up in St. Louis over 24 hours ago and are fading fast.
The trip over was uneventful, save a small delay in the departure of our Houston to Tokyo flight. We were fortunate to have cobbled together miles to upgrade to business class, which made all the difference in the world. We were fed well and had access to over 250 movies on a new video system put in by Continental. The 13 ½ hour flight was by far the longest flight I had ever made and having no worries about someone leaning back into me and being able to lay flat made a huge difference. You can see some of the pillows at right.
The drive in from Narita to my sister’s apartment took a little over an hour. She lives in the Ota-ku district, which is southwest of the city. As I looked around, I realized perhaps the obvious in that it is very noticeable that you are in Japan. As I joked to my brother-in-law driving in – other than driving on the left, the road signs in Japanese, the rice patties, the square cars, and the square houses, I could have been in America! Off the highways in the city, the roads are very narrow and tough to navigate. I’m not sure how two cars can even exist on some of the roads we saw. 
With all the twists and turns, I quickly lost track of where I was. This is a bit uncomfortable.
After a quick dinner at the Japanese equivalent of fast food, we swung by a few Japanese grocery stores to stock up on food. Diet Coke is apparently at a premium in this country, as we only found it at the last store we visited. I feel withdrawal coming for my wife and me. As I found out at left, a large box of Frosted Flakes is nearly $3.00 and, as in many other areas outside the U.S., is called Frosties.
Tomorrow, we plan to get up early and go to the fish market in downtown Tokyo. They apparently have very, very fresh sushi. More on that later.
