A Legend in My Own Mind

With a few more attempts, I am happy to report that I have learned how to better navigate Tokyo trains and buses. I realized that in my first attempt to ride the train a week ago, I entered the completely incorrect terminal. I was lost before I even started. I had failed to confirm that I was at the correct terminal in the first place, so I was doomed to learn my lesson. It was worth the tuition. I rode the bus a few times in the past week. It is also jarring to wait for the bus to arrive on the left side of the road and to enter the bus from the left side. I'm having to retrain my brain on left/right driving, etc. Thankfully, I won't be driving myself anytime soon. Of note, the cleanliness of the trains and buses is shockingly excellent. They seem to be relatively new, also. My main issue is my long legs struggle with space between seats on the bus. An aisle seat allows better room., I have enjoyed some seated restaurant food here. I will have more details to share for the fo...

I have been in Tokyo for a week. There is so much to see and do. I have barely scratched the surface. I am excited about the experiences and opportunities I will have. A couple of observations to share: I have never experienced a cleaner urban environment. I've been around the city enough to have seen trash blowing around, or garbage piling up somewhere. However, I haven't seen any such thing! Not only are there no signs of garbage, but there is also a dearth of garbage cans! Are these facts related? The other day, I was enjoying a delicious piece of bubble gum as I was walking around. As expected, the bubble gum lost its deliciousness in about 10 minutes. I was ready to deposit it into the nearest public garbage can. I walked and kept my eyes open for the nearest receptacle. I didn't see one. I kept walking. I still didn't see one. This was a an area of high foot traffic without a garbage receptacle anywhere. I actually did see one small receptacle near a vending machi...

I learned how to create space between paragraphs! Today, I accomplished another exciting first: Tokyo Train Ride! Let me break it down in the sequence of events in chronological order! 1. I purchased a PASMO fare card from an ATM at the train station at Shinagawa. It had a handy button which allowed me to change all of the menus to English. You aren't able to pay with a credit card, so I inserted some cash yen at the prompt and a plastic credit-card style card was distributed into my hot hands. 2. With my destination in mind and already pre-loaded into my iphone, I was ready to conquer this easy trip! I strolled up to the entry point and swiped the card over the reader to hear the satisfying beep of confirmation. I was admitted to enter and my remaining balance also flashed onto a monitor. This is handy, since you have to reload as needed in the ATMs with more cash. You can't just "set it and forget it" like you are able to do with a credit card elsewhere. 3. As I as...

I need to learn how to separate paragraphs for this blog. Sorry about the following narrative being a giant paragraph. We are in Tokyo! I’m wide awake at 1 am! Jetlag is real. For the 2nd straight night, I am wide awake in the middle of the night because my brain thinks it is the middle of the day. Quite a surreal feeling. Let’s recap some recent events: The wife's family bid us farewell after living with them for two weeks. They took great care of us. Mother-in-law fed me a LOT of delicious cuisine. Father-in-law was very kind, even though Loki barked at him frequently. The wife got an impressive amount of stuff into 4 large suitcases and 2 carry-on bags. On Thursday morning we showed up at Ohare Airport to check in. Thus embarks a LONG journey. We were very worried about how our dogs would do on the trip. The first issue was worry about the long stretch of time in which they would not be able to relieve themselves. I’m talking about approximately 14 hours. Amazingly, they mad...