Japan Day 1

We stayed at our friends Andy's and Nicole's house in Auckland before our flight to Japan. Andy agreed to give us a ride to the airport first thing in the morning, and he did an excellent job of waking us up (we both fell back asleep after the alarm went off). Missing the first leg of our journey would have been terrible! Thanks Andy!

The flight itself was great. Especially for a 10-hour flight. The seats were a 3-3-3 layout and we were in a middle 3 with an empty seat between us so we could stretch out. I also think Air New Zealand had extra legroom on all the economy seats too which was incredible. I got the Japanese meal choices and Perin selected the western meals. Both were satisfactory, but mine came with this super delicious noodles side dish which got me all pumped up for "good" noodles.

We landed, cleared Customs, and went straight to the railways to ride into Tokyo. We had a little confusion, but everyone we asked was very friendly and helpful. We had to switch trains/subways twice, got to our stop and another nice lady showed us that our hotel was a 2 block walk away.

Our room is quite small, but it's not one of those capsule hotels where everyone sleeps in an MRI tube. We have a little airplane bathroom with a shower you operate from the sink faucets, and an awesome Japanese toilet with all kinds of buttons, noises and nozzles. We got little kimonos and slippers too so that's very nice.

After our first positive public transport experience, we dropped off our stuff and went staight to Shinjuku for a night out on the town. All kinds of bright lights and flashy and shiny stuff (like Times Square) and little alleyways filled with little bars and restaurants which each had a 7-person max capacity.

We found a great yakatori bar down a tight little alley which didn’t have English nor picture menus. We went all in and got one of each chicken skewer.　　My favorite had a garlic/lime/chile/tamarind kind of sauce and Perin's favorite was the teriyaki sauce.

From there we wandered over to the red light district and saw the very fashionable yakuza guys standing around (black clothes and stylish pompadours) along with all the "menus" of girls waiting inside for us. It was much nicer than I would have pictured. Great people watching!

We trained back to our hotel, took showers, tried on kimonos, climbed into bed and were delightfully surprosed by our pillows filled with what we presume to be rice. So awesome! Perin and I each want one back in the States.

Today we're off to Harajuku for more people watching and then to wander around Shibuya. Tomorrow we go to the fish auction at 4:30am!