Mushi Mushi! First Day in Japan

When my boss woke me up at 6 in the morning to ask me if I wanted to go to Japan, I almost hung up on him because I thought he was pulling my leg. That's what he does. And yet, a few weeks later, here I am on my way to Japan. I'm flying 6000 miles across 11 time zones to teach a group of consultants to do what I do. My first reaction after asking 15 or 20 times if he was serious was "why don't *I* just go to Japan and do what I do?". No dice.



The trip actually started out as somewhat of a disaster. My flight from LA to Tokyo got canceled. They wanted to rebook me through Chicago leaving LA at midnight. No thanks. Then my flight from San Diego was canceled, and my new flight was delayed. All three were mechanical problems, ugh.

I managed to spend the night in Dallas which was good because flying 12 hours on no sleep can't be any fun. I don't want to find out. I met a couple characters at the bar. One of them was intimately familiar with the Irish bar in Iowa that my friend and I forgot our names at and spent 45 minutes explaining to me why we need to annex Mexico to put an end to the drug wars. The other got to his room, found it in such bad shape that got a free unlimited bar tab because he asked the manager if wild animals had been having sex in his bed. I made it through 3 bud lights and called it a night.

It's now 930am Japan time, which means I have been on this plane for over 9 hours should be touching down in about 3.5 hours. So far I've watch two movies, 7 episodes of the office, slept for 2 hours, and read my lecture notes 4 times. I still have how many time zones left? I just crossed the international date line which is fun -- never done that before! With any luck I'll do it several more times before I head to the other side of the grass.

--skip a few hours--

All in all the flight wasn't too bad. The movies, tv shows, constant feeding, and lay-flat seat made it tolerable. Getting through the Japan border was interesting, and I'm sad to say that now two governments have my fingerprints. The bus ride from Narita to Tokyo was fun -- this is definitely one of the greenest cities I've come across in a while (the parts we drove through anyway). Lots of trees, bushes, vines, shrubbery.

I finally made it to my hotel, checked in, and wandered my little part of Tokyo a bit. I did everything in my power to be the annoying tourist, snapping photos of completely useless things simply because they had jibberish scrawled on them. The aforementioned foliage lost it's appeal when I surrendered my sound-insulating bus windows and started walking the streets. It seems as though every tree bush and shrub was infested with nature's most horriffic noisemakers. Something between a cricket and an angry cicada. I stopped at every crosswalk looking for the button that said "insect poison". Sadly, I didn't find one. Not even a "release the hounds" button.

I did learn a few things today though:

• Japan drives on the left side. Nope, did not know that. Britain, you're no longer the only nutjobs out there.
• The Japanese character set is a practical joke to keep the rest of the world from populating this already-cramped island. The characters mean nothing. There's just enough English numbers and a few words here and there to get the point across... the rest of it is just implied knowledge only the locals have.
• Bike crossing lanes are for bikes ONLY. Not for walking. If you walk in a bike lane, you will get hit by a bike. and the little old lady riding it.
• Japanese women do not drive 20km/h under the speed limit with their blinkers on in Japan. The ones that did were deported and imigrated to the US long ago, and they are now our problem. Japan has it's own problems: crickets.
  
• Everything smaller than a cement brick that can be handed from person to person is done so as if it was a precious piece of art. It's kind of fun, the guy at the am/pm was so very respectful handing me a receipt for a pack of gum.
• Tokyo is CLEAN. Are you listening New York?? They collect the trash more than once a month here!
• The Japanese have found a way to bend the law of physics and get a full pot water to boil in under 30 seconds. Honest, I saw it with my own eyes. Apparently hot water is a cornerstone of the culture here or something.
  

I plan to learn new things every day. Not a terribly profound list so far, but I've been awake for almost 24 hours now so I'm a tad delerious. Stay tuned.