First full day!

So, after a few hours of scrambling the wifi is now working and the blog can officially begin!

I'm very excited to say that the plane ride was relatively painless. I think I managed to sleep...  maybe 5 or 10 minutes at a time... but there must have been some in there because I managed to stay awake until the very reasonable hour of 10pm. 

We didn't do much the day we arrived. We were greeted by the very patient Yano and Mr. Sasaki. We had a private bus back to our hotel and helped ourselves to dinner (a very remarkable one) at the 7-11 in our building. For those of you who don't know, the 7-11 food here does not consist of 2 week old hotdogs spinning in their own grossness. Oh no my friends, you have every imaginable delicacy waiting for you. I had some unknown noodle dish with pork and it was fabulous!!!  

As wonderful as the food at the 7-11 was, it pales in comparison to the grocery store here. We were met by our friend Paul, Kikuko, Mieko, Tomie, and Yoshio.  They showed us the ropes and we began with the grocery store. 

When I say "grocery store" we tend to. Think of aisles of packaged goods, a deli, meat counter, and produce. A grocery store here is an eclectic mix of freshly prepared meals (sushi, dumplings, rice balls, etc), an immaculate selection of every fresh fish you can imagine (and some you probably couldn't), produce so flawless you wonder how it could be real, and lastly a traditional selection of cereal, yogurt, and other food-stuffs. All of us wandered around, mouths agape and drool flowing like a river. We were determined to return and sample everything. 

From there we continued on to navigating the complex yet well-planned subway system. We used the subway to visit a popular shrine called Sensō-ji. 

It was here that we got our first real taste of Japanese crowds. People were everywhere yet politeness permeated everything. Children would duck out of the way to avoid being in others' pictures and everyone politely waited in line to snap the picture they were looking for  at the risk of being clichéd: it was organized chaos at its best. Perhaps the most serendipitous moment of the day happened after we had meandered through the shopping arcade and finally reached the shrine. It just so happened that our time there perfectly coincided with the end (or beginning, I'm not really sure) of a wedding. 

The wedding attire was amazing and all the tourists quietly and politely parted ways to allow for the couple to have a special moment in the shrine all to themselves.  I must say I am not envious of the attire the bride was forced to wear. She had a small army of women following her around mopping up the sweat the was pouring off her face.  Frankly she seemed to be the only one not enjoying the moment. 

After the wedding we walked to a pier where we took a boat back to Shinagawa.  On our way we saw two remarkable things. This first is this bus:

I don't understand it, but I love it!  We also enjoyed a photo op with what appeared at first glance to be a giant satellite dish but turned out to be a life sized whack-a-mole!  Here's Ira enjoying the moment:

So far I've been impressed by Tokyo. It is clean, the people are friendly and helpful, the food is fabulous, safety is unquestioned, and there are surprises around every corner. The following picture perfectly captures what it means to be in Tokyo. It's a bike. With a lock. But the lock isn't being used. It is just sitting in the basket. 

It is truly a remarkable place and I can't wait to see what surprises are around the next corner!