Again! Again!

Most of those who read this blog already know, and those who don't might not be shocked to find that I am In Japan Again. I know! I have to go to a new country sometime, but what can I say, they do a good raw fish.

It's 4am and I can't sleep. Last night at about 9:30pm local time I could no longer be awake. Travel will do that to you.

Yesterday started early, around 6am. Tech Support and I had managed to put off a large amount of packing and were determined to keep things exciting. He went for a final attempt at a good haircut and I cleaned around the house doing things I should have done at least a day ago. The cab was scheduled to come at 10am, and at 9:55am I was frantically vacuuming while Tech Support threw things together. The cats got a sadly hurried good-bye as we ran out the door.

There are definite good and bad things about traveling in a large group (there are eight of us, nine in Japan). But it is undeniably fun to see your parents and brother in the security line already ahead of you, and to sit and chat about the trip in the waiting area. On the plane we didn't talk too much, but it was nice to be able to chat through the chairs with Meggish and Her Fiance every few hours.

Unfortunately our plane did not have the super groovy little TV sets in the back of the seat in front of you, so we were forced to watch whatever they put on. I enjoyed "Blades of Glory", ignored "The 300" and put up with "Disturbia". I knit the ankle and heel of a sock and read a good deal of my new Laura Lippman novel.

And then, all the sudden (on hindsight anyway), JAPAN. The trip to Tokyo is always a little anticlimactic because Narita Airport is a good 1:15 away from Tokyo itself, and you have to take a train in. We descended on our hotel like some great horde, ("Are you the party of 8?" The receptionist asked as she watched us come in). We had to take the tiny elevator in shifts. Then we wandered around the neighborhood, waiting to meet with the long unseen J-Po.

Like a horde (we've GOT to split up more in this trip) we went to a little sushi style place with excellent food. By the end of the meal I wanted to head dive into my negitorodon I was so tired. At the hotel I was impressed by Meggish's Fiance's Younger Brother's desire to public bath, Tech Support went with him, but despite feeling disgusting was too afraid of falling asleep and drowning in the bathtub to do it myself. I made it about four pages into my book before falling asleep with all the lights on.

And now, here I am at 4:30am. I'm going to make another stab at sleeping shortly. This post was sadly lacking in pictures, I may add some later, but the next post will definitely have them.