Welcome to Japan

Where to begin? I'm in Japan!

This was easily one of the more bizarre days and evenings I've ever had.

So my flight was delayed, for quite a while. I spent most of the time in the airport starting this thing up and surfing the web, although I couldn't get the free wifi unless I was outside of the security checkpoints. I also started to try to think of a backup plan for a place to stay because I would be arriving after the Sakura House offices closed. I decided I would probably go with the capsule hotel because it was fairly cheap and there was one in Shinjuku near the Sakura offices. I took down a few notes about the directions, and stared at the map

to try to burn it into my memory, as I wouldn't really have a map once I arrived. I went back through the checkpoint when I had about 2 hrs until the flight.

The plane was freakin huge - 9 seats across and a large amount of headroom. The service was ridiculous. There were about 10-15 incredibly friendly stewardesses who were on non-stop constant rotation with juices, coffee, snacks, everything. They all put on little serving aprons for each time they came around with hot Japanese meals, easily

the best I've had on a plane. I had my choice of about 30 American movies, most of which I had no interest in seeing. I started to watch From Paris With Love, starring Travolta and Johnathan Rys Myers. Man, was that a mistake. I hadn't seen Rys Myers in anything but the Tudors, which I kind of like, but he was TERRIBLE in this movie. Really, truly awful. The only thing worse than him was Travolta, actually. After about 25 minutes, I couldn't take it

anymore. It was that bad. Fortunately, it must have been Denzel month on All Nippon Airlines, as they had at least 3 or 4 of his most recent movies. Watched Book of Eli (not bad) and Taken (pretty bad, but enjoyable). Also finally started watching this season of 24 on my iPod - that first hour this season was about as vintage 24 as you can get.

So, I made the decision before the flight that the way I was going to attack the jet lag situation was going to be to not sleep the whole flight, and then get to bed asap as soon as I arrived after 6pm. They did everything they could to try to get me to sleep, turning out the lights, blankets, pillows, etc. But I somehow stayed up the whole 14 hours.

We touched down just after 6pm at Narita Airport. Nothing that special about the airport except that it is very poorly air conditioned. After lugging my huge bags through customs I was sweating and disheveled. Fortunately, various smiling Japanese animal cartoon characters on flashing signs kept directing me through the airport.

After exchanging some money and getting some more at an ATM, I managed to find my way to the train ticket purchasing desk, where I grabbed a seat on the cheaper slower train to Tokyo.

Once I got out of the airport and was on the train cutting through the small towns on the outskirts of Tokyo with the Japan landscape beyond, not another foreigner in sight, I started to get the feeling of being in a very foreign place.

So the train trip was about 90 minutes to Nippori Station, one of the larger stations along the Yamanote line that circles central Tokyo. The station was packed on a busy Friday night, and I managed to find my way through the herd to a ticket counter where they waved me through to get on a connecting train to Shinjuku, the main downtown district of Tokyo. If Nippori station was about as busy as the busiest stations in Boston, Shinjuku, apparently the busiest train station in the world, was like Times Sq. station on steroids.

It was just endless. Huge hallways leading in every direction, with tens of train lines off loading around each turn. I followed signs towards the main east exit and then started walking north along the route of the train tracks, in what I hoped was the right direction, but really had no idea.

I made my way across the huge sidewalks , trying to head north but having trouble doing so, having to cross several curving streets that kept getting in my way. I finally breathed a sign of relief after spotting the Shinjuku Prince hotel which I'd marked as a landmark on my way to the capsule hotel. Shortly afterward I spotted the building I'd seen on google maps back in the airport in NYC, the Green Plaza Capsule Hotel, and walked in taking an elevator to the 4th floor check in desk.

It was pretty busy at about 9:30pm, with businessmen and others checking in alongside myself. I made the mistake of stepping up from the elevator landing with my shoes on and got a quick reminder from a guy behind the desk to take my shoes off. I dragged my bags in and locked my shoes up in a locker as I watched others do the same.

I waited in line and watched the process; again, not a single foreigner in sight. Each of the Japanese guys checking in seemed to have everything down to a series of quick steps: paying, putting valuables in a sealed envelope, attaching a wristband with a key, picking up the provided pajamas, and hurrying off into another locker room. As I got up there, a receptionist struggled to explain the process and rules to me, made sure I had no tattoos, and quickly got out some papers with directions in English. It still took a bit for me to figure out what was going on, and I'm pretty sure I ended up doing everything in the wrong order. Particularly confusing was what was going to happen to my huge bags when the lockers were only about 6 inches across. So, eventually I shuffled over to the locker room, locking up my camera bag and other larger valuables. I dragged my bags down two flights of stairs and found my capsule in a quiet room room with about 40 other empty capsules (which would mostly fill up by bedtime). This place was huge, by the way, with two or three floors full of what must have been a several hundred capsules. I changed out of my clothes into the pajamas (I'm pretty sure I was supposed to do this at the locker room) and set aside my clothes for the next day. I dragged my bags back up the stairs, and left them with a checked bags desk where I received a ticket. I made one more trip down to the capsule to check out how everything worked: the tv, the alarm, the drop down shade. I thought about going straight to bed, but decided I had to try the bathing room on the 6th floor. So, I walked up there in my pajamas. There to greet me were naked Japanese dudes everywhere. I tried to watch how they were doing things, and I had tried to take a quick glance at bathing etiquette in my guidebook before I went up. I stripped down to nothing, putting my pajamas in a cubby, grabbed a small wash towel, and proceeded into the bathing room. there I saw several stalls around the edges of the room, with plastic stools and a faucet with soap and a basin. I sat down and started to rinse off using the basin and the wash towel, simply trying to copy what others were doing. I noticed complimentary razors and shaving cream, so I gave myself I quick shave. I rinsed all the soap off and headed over to a huge hot tub, sliding in to the scalding hot water as slow as possible. It was great! This was exactly what I needed. I even managed to get in just in time to watch the opening ceremonies of the World Cup on an enormous flat screen above the tub.

I got out, dried off, and headed back down to my capsule feeling much better. The capsule was actually pretty spacious, but had a mattress that was as hard as a rock! I closed my shade, set my alarm, and finally, after what I think was about (I'm just adding this up now and I'm pretty amazed) 30 hours awake, I went to bed. Fortunately, for architecture students, thats not too much of a stretch.

I woke up a few times during the night due to the dryness of the air and snoring from neighbors, but all in all, it actually wasn't too bad. After getting up after a solid 9 hours of sleep, I put on my clean clothes and went up to the 5th floor restaurant / massage parlor (strange, but true), where I actually manged to order a cheap breakfast that wasn't nasty! The cartoon picture of what looked like a standard Western breakfast of toast, eggs, and sausage was significantly different from what I got, though. I got a plate of shredded lettuce and noodles, with some sort of weird sauce that made it almost like cole slaw, coffee, some fried rice ball things, a hard boiled egg, and a giant slice of Texas sized toast. I got a little tripped up by a strangely packaged butter and jelly, but a nice Japanese guy next to me showed me how to bend the plastic container till it broke, squeezing out both the butter and jelly contents at the same time onto the toast. I sat and ate at one of the many one-man tables, and watched what must have been the Japanese Regis and Kelly on another gigantic flat screen tv in front of me.

The whole place is designed for the solo male customer, with packaged shirts and ties, socks, and briefs available at the check in desk, the solo capsules, complimentary tooth brushes (with tooth paste infused into the brushes), razors and combs, and the one man tables in the restaurant. The whole experience was incredibly bizarre, trying to follow along with a bunch of guys who knew exactly what they were doing and I had no clue. For the money, it was actually pretty luxurious, save for the hard mattresses. I left feeling relaxed and pretty good considering how long I was up the previous day.

Anyway, I wasn't intending to give the full play by play of the whole night, but I felt like I had to remember all of this crazy experience. I only wish I'd been able to record more of it, as I'm sure it would be quite funny to look back on myself struggling to figure out what was going on.

I'm checked into my apartment now with some French and Australian people who seem pretty cool. I'm off to explore my neighborhood. I'll catch up with you all later.